Fireflies is a independent, self-published and non-profit bi-annual print film magazine created between Berlin and Melbourne. The magazine is a collection of words and art inspired by film; each issue explores the work of two filmmakers through a selection of interviews, essays, drawings and fiction. The content centers thematically around one filmmaker and elaborates its content as a response to their work. Through this collaboration, Fireflies and Impakt will develop their cooperation as a response the topic of the new understanding of authenticity. Together developing the new issue, a screenings programme, and panel discussions during the festival. The chosen filmmakers will be Pedro Costa and Ben Rivers.

Screenings and discussions
Delving into the value of authenticity, Fireflies will present two directors whose endeavour deals with the subject matter from the point of view of the disquisition between digital and analog as a form of achieving the authentic cinematic experience.

Ben Rivers’s practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Often following and filming people who have in some way separated themselves from society, the raw film footage provides Rivers with a starting point for creating oblique narratives imagining alternative existences in marginal worlds. Rivers uses near-antique cameras and hand develops the 16 mm film, which shows the evidence of the elements it has been exposed to – the materiality of this medium forming part of the narrative.

Pedro Costa is acclaimed for using his ascetic style to depict the marginalised people in desperate living situations. His films are always filmed with digital techniques and set in a district of Lisbon inhabited by socially disadvantaged and shot in a natural and low-key way in documentary format.

More information about Fireflies can be found on their website.