Zbig Rybczynski VISIONary Poland/USA

Filmmaker, video artist, animator, effects wizard, visionary music clip director, new media pioneer: Polish-born iconoclast Zbig Rybczynski is all of these. Rybczynski (who now resides in the USA) has been at the forefront of the global development of new media technologies and their applications, and his accolades are many: an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film (Tango, 1980); awards at Annecy and Tampere Film Festivals, Billboard Music Video Awards; and an MTV Video Vanguard Award, amongst many others.

Relentlessly creative, always seeking new ways to warp, cut, compose, deconstruct and shape the basic elements of the image, Rybczynski's work still maintains an essential commitment to the notion that visual experimentation is only ever interesting as a means to communicate. His films, presented here for the first time in Australia, are not simply interesting, innovative audiovisual experiments but are also entertaining explorations of the comic and dramatic possibilities of new technologies; they are playful but thought-provoking tributes to the power of the camera to shape perceptions. A postmodern Méliès, a space and time magician, the influential Rybczynski is one of a kind, and MIFF is proud to present key works from his eclectic career.

Program includes: Kwadrat (Square) (1972), Take Five (1972), Plamuz (1973), Nova Ksiazka (New Book) (1975), Swieto (Holiday) (1975), Way to Your Neighbour (1976), Mein Fenster (My Window) (1979), Media (1980), The Day Before (1981), Tango (1980), The Discreet Charm of the Diplomacy (1984), Imagine (music clip) (1986), Capriccio No.24 (1989).

D/P/S Zbig Rybczynski WS Zbig Vision L No dialogue TD Video/Col/72mins