Daniel Zander

5 short films, from 5 directors and 4 different countries on the theme of the Alter-Ego. The "Alter Ego Film Project" is inspired by the spirit of Maya Deren and her way of making films. Between double personality, secret identity, doppelgänger and impossible love we have discovered several unconventional stories halfway between narrative and experimental.

"Skull And Stare Alone" Functions As A Crystallization Of A Majorly Traumatic Experience I Went Through In 2024. The Specifics Will Be Cryptically Concretized Within The Work Itself, But I Regard It As Obligatory To Say That This Is Most Definitely My Most Painful Film Thus Far. Within That Vein, I Declare That “Personal Cinema”(The Same Applies To Poetry) Is No Comfortably Palatable & Digestible Commodity, Which Is Beguilingly Incarcerated Within The Deafening Cesspool Of Perfectionistic Rejectivity And The Abject Dynamisms Of Mute Consumption, As It Is So Cozily Prevalent Nowadays. Rather It Is Passionately Embracing The Rhizomatic Horrors And Within That The Abyssal Beauty Inscribed Into Being’s Innate “Uncollapsedness”, For Such Films Function As Genuine & Incommensurable Testaments Of Ourselves And The Spiritual Fabric Of Our Vast Experiential Tumultuousness.

The Spectral Lo-Fi Body Art Performance Piece I Created For The "Alter Ego Film Project".

An Avantgarde Portrait Of Classical Musician Puschan Mousavi Malvani.

Shaving, Deterioration, Sonic Turmoil...

5 short films, from 5 directors and 4 different countries on the theme of the Alter-Ego. The "Alter Ego Film Project" is inspired by the spirit of Maya Deren and her way of making films. Between double personality, secret identity, doppelgänger and impossible love we have discovered several unconventional stories halfway between narrative and experimental.

After I had already begun to conduct my first cinematographic experiments in 2015, I shot between 2016 and 2019 (during my time as a student in Rostock) exclusively for this "No Budget Feature-Length Experimental Film", now titled "Transfragmentation", which was originally conceived to last three hours, based on Werner Fritsch's "Faust Sonnengesang" (2011), but now has a running time of approximately two hours. In 2015, I also began my correspondence with the Brussels-based Sound-Artist Unenthüllte, who eventually composed four twenty-minute pieces for this work and has to be regarded as my sole artistic collaborator in this sense. My cinematographic concept was clearly outlined from the beginning: The duration of each shot is exactly 1 minute. Only two elements diverge from this primary premise: The Seventeen Minute Prelude, Created In Post-Production (2020-2022), And The Slow Motion Sequences Involving My Voice-Over, Which Linger In The Heart And At The End Of The Work.

A »No Budget Middle-Length Flicker Film« Created During The Course Of 2022. Shot Primarily In The "Zarnewanzer Ur-Strom-Tal" & Beyond, Baden-Württembergs "Kleiner Odenwald" & Berlin.

An “Extreme (Experimental) Cinema”-Rendition Of The “Apocalypse Of John”, Created For »White Gardenia's King James Bible«-Anthology Film.

"Skull And Stare Alone" Functions As A Crystallization Of A Majorly Traumatic Experience I Went Through In 2024. The Specifics Will Be Cryptically Concretized Within The Work Itself, But I Regard It As Obligatory To Say That This Is Most Definitely My Most Painful Film Thus Far. Within That Vein, I Declare That “Personal Cinema”(The Same Applies To Poetry) Is No Comfortably Palatable & Digestible Commodity, Which Is Beguilingly Incarcerated Within The Deafening Cesspool Of Perfectionistic Rejectivity And The Abject Dynamisms Of Mute Consumption, As It Is So Cozily Prevalent Nowadays. Rather It Is Passionately Embracing The Rhizomatic Horrors And Within That The Abyssal Beauty Inscribed Into Being’s Innate “Uncollapsedness”, For Such Films Function As Genuine & Incommensurable Testaments Of Ourselves And The Spiritual Fabric Of Our Vast Experiential Tumultuousness.

A Silent Mixed Media Short Film Poem Shot Primarily In The “Zarnewanzer Ur-Strom-Tal”, Baden-Württembergs “Kleiner Odenwald”, Rostock, Berlin & Paris. Shot With Bolex H16 Reflex REX-3, Samsung My Cam Pal K70, Mobile Phone & Mini F9 DVR Video Cam. A Genuine Cinematographic Dream, Starring The Great Parisian Actress Marilena Mannevy("Romy et les choses de ma vie"; "Love Songs for Scumbags", "Flesh City").

A Hi8 Rave-Film.

The First Installment Of The “Glimpses”-Series,[As Of Yet: Thirty “Glimpses”(95 mins)], Which Is Characterized As An “Untitled Work-In-Progress Experimental Porn Short Film Project” Firstly Due To The Fact That The “Experimental Porn Short” Which It Will Eventually Culminate In Will Remain Untitled Till The Very End Of This Rhizomatic Creation Process, Has Now Been Crystallized Into A Concise Cinematic Work-In-Progress Sketch (Not To Be Confused With The Aforementioned “Experimental Porn Short”, Which The Overarching Work-In-Progress-Processuality Will Eventually Culminate In), Intended To Be Submitted To Various Porn Film Festivals (With PFF Amsterdam Being The Very First One) In Order To Gather Potential Collaborators As Well As Fundraising-Opportunities For The Extremely Elaborate “Experimental Porn Short Film Idea”, Which I Received Through A “Nocturnal Orgasm”, Instigated By A Sequential Oneiric Vision.

An epic-scaled avant-garde underground project that will cover both the Old and New Testament, featuring segments from various filmmakers and their beautifully extreme visions of the myriad of biblical stories.

A White Gardenia Fairytale.

An Oneiric, Essayistic »Memory Poem« About The "Wildkräuterhotel Ehmkendorf" and the circumjacent "Urstromtal".

A Triptychal Mixed-Media-Rhizome Intertwining The Notions Of "Scrying", "Vision Quest", "LoFi Hauntology" & "Butoh".

An Untitled Work-In-Progress Experimental Porn Short Film Project.

An Entirely In-Camera-Edited Hi8 Concert-Film.

"The Psychedelic Wreckage Of A Virtualized Orgasm-Scrying-Burial, Incarcerated Within A Systematized Panoptical »Gleichschaltung«".

The Spectral Lo-Fi Body Art Performance Piece I Created For The "Alter Ego Film Project".