BERKELEY—IF, Berkeley's first Independent Festival of Digital Arts, hosted by Berkeley's Vista College's Multimedia Arts Department, debuts at the city's new Belladonna Art Gallery. Filmmakers, writers, and directors from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, and the United States, will exhibit and discuss their pioneering work in digital arts. Festival organizers also will host digital displays at Belladonna, present free-of-charge programs, filmmaker panels and workshops, and sell tickets for six digital film screenings.

 

"Our focus is broadly defined to include traditional film festival categories, narrative, documentary, experimental, and media installations," said Dr. Peter Freund, chair of Berkeley City College's Multimedia Arts Program and IF festival director. Installations combine sculpture with motion picture art.

  

"We're creating an event to foster debate about what defines art as digital," Freund added. "Digital art provides people with a new form of expression, but with that comes a burden. On the one hand, the age of the innocent image that people trusted as a stamp from reality is over; nowadays, everything is manipulated. On the other hand, the digital process opens creative pathways for everyone, and implies an enormous amount of artistic freedom."

  

Other festival events include the free-of-charge "Video Critique Workshop and Panel Discussion." Artists will show their films and ask for critiques from colleagues. An opening session includes introductions by Freund, followed by three 1-1/2 to 2 hr. programs highlighting spatial stories, storytellers, and alternative visions. Belladonna's gallery area, featuring exhibits by local artists.

  

Hundreds of students enrolled in Vista's multimedia classes during 2003-04. "The age range in our classes is 16 to 65. That's one of the most amazing things about the program," Freund noted. "The community emerging out of Berkeley City College's Multimedia Arts Program is a group representing diverse ages, artistic experience, ethnic and economic backgrounds. Together, they create opportunities for an enriching environment where cross-fertilization of ideas is always taking place."

  

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