Art Film

While most people are aware of the traditional and mainstream movies that appear at cinemas, few know about the differences that separate these types of movies with what is considered to be an art film. The art films are essentially a piece of art that uses the film medium in which to convey the message. In contrast to mainstream movies, they are commonly without a coherent plot and the entire film stands to express or evoke a feeling or meaning rather than tell a story. An art film is labeled as being part of the fine arts, although the wide availability of an art film makes it quite different from a painting or sculpture.

Art films began to appear in the late 1910s and early 1920s. One of the first of these art films to garner considerable notoriety was Battleship Potemkin, a montage of images created by Sergei Eisenstein. The film was made in a manner to evoke a particular emotional response from audiences and was largely successful, leading to other Eisenstein art films, such as October, and The General Line. Many filmmakers took inspiration from this new type of film and Eisenstein was followed by Russian directors like Dovzhenko and Pudovkin.

As art films began to grow in popularity, many regional communities with an interest in the subject evolved, including ones in Spain with Salvador Dali and in Germany with Hans Richter. The French New Wave circle of film artists became the center of the art film world in the 1960s, with many directors relocating to Paris to become part of the movement. In more modern times, the term of art film has been lumped together with indie films as they both are often made with small budgets and intended for a specific audience. However, there are still art film communities that continue to develop the challenging works.