BISFF2025 | Correspondence 通信计划062：Grounds, Premises 根基，立场

BISFF Correspondence 通信计划

This program involves conducting brief email interviews with the directors of the international films featured in the festival, in lieu of the traditional Q&A session that follows the screenings. Through this program, we hope to provide a platform for filmmakers to discuss their work and share their insights with our audience in China.

为了跨越种种障碍，开辟更多交流空间，我们设置了“BISFF Correspondence 通信计划”，对部分国际单元的参展作者进行系列访谈，这些访谈将在作品放映后发布在联展各个媒体平台。

Grounds, Premises | 根基，立场

Bram Ruiter 布拉姆·勒伊特

2025 | 00:14:07 | Netherlands | English | World Premiere

Director: Bram Ruiter

Interviewer & Translator: Pincent Liu

Coordinator & Editor: Suliko

导演：布拉姆·勒伊特

采访、翻译：刘品呈

统筹、编辑：苏丽珂

Q1: This film feels like a lightweight, subtle yet deeply probing interpretation of filmmaking concepts. To begin, could you discuss the two juxtaposed words in the title: "Grounds, Premises"? I feel they refer both to the physical space of filming and the fundamental conceptual propositions that need to be clear before production begins.

A1: You are correct. I accidentally found the title when I was sorting through my PDF-folder. I’ve acquired many book-scans over quite some time. Most of them sit there unread, but it’s nice to have them, to flip through them when I’m bored or looking for inspiration. I feel guilt towards neglecting them and yet I’m happy to have them because they are there when I need them. The title was from a book on Ozu. It’s funny, I can’t find the book, but while scrolling through the folder, I was immediately reminded of wanting to read Jacques Aumont’s The Image and Montage. Anyway, the title fit the film like a glove exactly for the reasons you describe. The foundational aspects of teaching while simultaneously being descriptors used for mansions or castles.

Q2: Each screen title card (e.g.: A character has a strong desire,...Max. 3 minutes) in the film seems as an assigned task or a randomly selected keyword/challenge. However, the subsequent segments often display a high degree of randomness, not necessarily providing a serious "response" to the keywords. Was this randomness deliberately emphasized? How did you wish it to contribute to your reflection on the concept of filmmaking?

A2: It’s interesting that you interpreted them as chapter-headings. I’ve never thought of them as breaking up the film into multiple chunks. It’s more like the title cards are in conversation with the images that surround them, almost like those in silent films. It’s just unclear what point-of-view they belong to, whether it’s a thought of a character or a reaction of a omnipresent being, which may give it a sense of randomness, but even though I do like my random encounters, each element of the film is carefully chosen and positioned within the whole.

From Laida Lertxundi I learned that using diaristic footage does not immediately result in a diary film. A filmmaker can use daily life as raw material to consider and develop ideas about daily life, without the resulting film becoming a stenography of daily life. The concept of raw material is at the core of my own image-making. With Grounds, Premises, I started filming without a plan, but through filming and editing, an idea of a film took shape. I had to start filming before I could think of this place and my time teaching there as fertile ground for a film. While shaping the film, I caught myself thinking a lot about the didactic nature of teaching and how vehemently opposed I am to it. And I realised that in a decade of teaching I’ve never really solved this inner-conflict for myself, actually. So, by asking my students to be in my film and to take them through my own journey as someone who creates and not a someone who teaches, I hoped to reach a more dialectical approach to pedagogy.

Q3: I observed two types of "concentrated, focused" moments in the film: one is the playful scenes where the filmmaker adds sound according to the images, and the other is the parts where the voice-over is delivering lecture-style speech excerpts. Concurrently, the seemingly loose parts—the "off-topic" flaws, moments of rehearsal, and especially the capture of natural light and shadow—exude a unique aesthetic and humor. How do you view and integrate the relationship between these "focused" and "loose" parts?

A3: Well, to add to my previous answer, I’m always looking for multitudes. If my film would only be those focused parts it would become too sterile and didactic. As said, I just start filming because I feel a desire to capture this fleeting moment. It’s important to me and I want to contain that importance through image-making. Then, once the moment is out of reach, I sit down with the edit and look at what I actually have. I have some scenes of a student reading an academic text about Plan 9 From Outer Space, I have some footage of a few students trying to make a film, I have images of me performing a little play in my room. Those are the most potent moments, so I start putting them on a timeline to see how they react to each other. Because they’re not preconceived, their individual tones can be all over the place once I put them together. It’s then up to me to make that its strength.

I’m done with making the singularly concentrated avant-garde film. That is to say, a film that explores all the edges of a single conceit. We’ve had structuralism and they’ve done incredible things. Frampton, Snow, Gehr, Brakhage, etc. have given us an incredible amount of tools to explore further. Why would we limit ourselves to the ceiling they’ve created?

Grounds, Premises, Bram Ruiter, 2025

Q4: You used sound snippets from sci-fi or horror films alongside visual segments created by experimental filmmakers like Larry Gottheim and Stan Brakhage. For me, this combination of sound and image created a sense of estrangement/Verfremdungseffekt while adding a layer of mystery to the work. Could you discuss how you selected and utilized these sound and visual materials derived from older films?

A4：Sure! Brakhage is heard talking about his film The Process in front of an audience. First of all, I really liked the texture of the recording. There’s a lot of non-vocal noises, there’s the high frequency cut-off of reel-to-reel tape recorders, there’s the hiss. Brakhage is such a behemoth in the avant-garde world. He did so much for this medium. So, to hear him try to make sense of his own film and stumbling through his thoughts. To me, he’s very vulnerable and lovable in that moment. And I also recognised myself a little. Talking about your own work in a meaningful way is difficult and so it was lovely to hear Brakhage struggle with it.

Gottheim’s inclusion happened because I watched Natural Selection to consider for a course and I was really taken by it being made during a class Gottheim taught. I’ve always wanted to do that myself, so it was nice to come across a template and subsequent result in the shape of that film. However, I decided to include the tree from Tree Of Knowledge because it made more sense thematically. Natural Selection is also the reason why Grounds, Premises was immediately conceived as the first in an ongoing series of educational films. Markopoulos’ quote is in there because my friend Maximilien Luc Proctor sent it to me and it just so clearly summed up my own convictions about the industry that I had him read them out loud.

And then there’s Matt Farley. Farley has made a ton of no-budget films with his friends and family. A few years ago he wrote The Motern Method, in which he discusses his methodology and creative philosophy. He believes in doing the thing you want to do within your current limitations rather than waiting for the resources to fit the perceived needs of your project. Which isn’t to say that Farley and his co-creator Charles Roxburgh aren’t extremely ambitious. Their newest film Evil Puddle is a disaster film with a cast of 50 people. It’s just that they’ve figured out a way to keep making films with limited resources and, through this process, have birthed a form that is wholly unique to them. It’s truly remarkable. Anyway, I use Farley/Roxburgh’s methodology in my classes because I want my students to have the tools to maintain a continuous creative output after graduating.

Q5: You referenced the work of Ed Wood, and the film includes a discussion about "are we making a bad film?" I believe the film itself is an articulation of "what constitutes good or bad films." However, creative practice always involves making trade-offs, retaining "the more meaningful material while excluding others." During this creation process, how did you decide which materials were "better" or more essential?

A5: That’s a hard question to answer. I edit, I watch, I add new footage, I edit, I watch, ad infinitum. That’s the literal how of it. How essential something is or isn’t is determined by how well it adds or detracts from the core scenes. All films are borne from this core. Sometimes the core is an idea or a fully imagined scene, for me it’s often something I’ve already filmed. The core for Grounds, Premises was 1) the student reading from Becky Bartlett’s Badfilm in which she describes the opening of Plan 9 From Outer Space, 2) the in-class Q&A with Matt Farley I recorded and 3) the two scenes of students working on their final assignment. I look at these and then I try to add of subtract from that. Each cut I make adds to the core-idea of the film. Each scene contains a thought or a conviction, which then creates an interplay between the surrounding scenes and their own thoughts and convictions. In a way, the films I make have a tendency to be non-lineair or even rhizomatic, even when the playhead moves in a lineair fashion.

Q6: The "window" may be a recurring visual element in the film: the scenes by the window appear twice at the beginning, and near the end, two people carry a window into the frame. Could you discuss the significance of the "window" element in the film? Does it represent a boundary, observation, or a passage/channel?

A6: The window was one of those raw materials the castle provided me with. It has no set meaning. For me, it was more about these two carrying a piece of the castle. I thought of the image quite early in production and thought it would be fun to include. Later on, I realised the window had become a visual motif and so including it as an abstraction (taken out of its context and set-meaning) spoke to the creative nature of the film. We’re always reframing, recontextualising, reconsidering. Them carrying the window was just part of that.

Q7: What kind of reflections on your conception of cinema did the collective, shared creation process bring to you in this work? Your work serves as an excellent demonstration for the creative incubation model in the current Chinese film industry that relies on festival training camps or temporary collective creation. If you encountered moments where the group's creation stalled, how did you guide or respond to it?

A7: The behind-the-scenes scenes were merely observed. I did not help out in any way, because that would be unfair to the groups that I didn’t capture mid-process. However, at a certain point, I realised while setting up for the scenes on the tennis court that no-one could actually play tennis. I decided to put my own camera away and help them out as I am an avid tennis player. It was week 5 and when I teach at the castle, I live at the castle, so I had been deprived of tennis for a quite some time. I think it was 30ºC and I was wearing jeans and sweating up a storm, and I’ve definitely cursed myself later in post for not filming more during that day, but man, getting to tennis for a bit, even with completely novices, was heaven. And that’s one of the great things about making these autonomous films. There’s no deadline to hit, there’s no expectation. If I want to put my camera down and play some tennis instead of filming, I can do that. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Grounds, Premises, Bram Ruiter, 2025

Q1：这部作品仿佛是对电影创作理念的一次轻巧而又深刻的阐释。首先，能否请您谈谈片名中并置的两个词“Grounds, Premises”？看完电影，我联想到它既指拍摄电影的空间，也关乎开拍前需要明确的电影观念上的基础性命题。

A1：你说得对。我是在整理PDF文件夹时偶然发现这个标题的。这些年来我积攒了很多扫描版的书籍，大部分都没读过，但拥有它们的感觉很好——无聊或者需要灵感的时候可以翻翻。我对“冷落”它们感到愧疚，但同时又因为拥有它们而感到满足，因为需要的时候它们就在那里。这个标题来自于一本关于小津安二郎（Yasujirô Ozu）的书。有趣的是，我现在找不到那本书了，但翻阅文件夹的时候，我立刻想起了自己一直想读雅克·奥蒙（Jacques Aumont）的《影像》（L’Image）与《蒙太奇》（Le Montage）。总之，这个标题与这部电影简直是绝配，原因正如你所说的那样：它既包含了教学的基础意涵，同时又是用来描述大宅或城堡的词汇。

Q2： 影片中的每一段文字字幕卡，似乎被设计成一种被分配的任务指令，又像是在拍摄地随机抽取的关卡关键词。然而，字幕卡后的片段却呈现出高度的随机性，不一定有对“问题”做出所谓的严肃回应，这种随机性是您刻意强调的吗？它在您对电影制作的思考中扮演了怎样的角色？

A2: 有趣的是你将它们解读为章节标题（译者注：此处可能是误解）。我从未想过要用它们将电影分割成多个片段。它们更像是与周围的影像在进行对话，类似于默片里的字幕。只是难以确定这些文字属于谁的视角——是一个角色的心声，还是一个全知存在者的反应。这或许会给人一种随机感，尽管我确实钟爱于随机的邂逅，影片中的每个元素都是经过精心挑选并置于整体结构中的。

从莱达·莱特森迪（Laida Lertxundi）那里我学到：使用日记式的素材并不直接等同于创作一部日记电影。电影创作者可以将日常生活作为“原材料”，用以思考和发展关于日常生活的理念，而最终的作品不必非得成为对日常生活的速记。这种“原材料”的概念是我影像实践的核心。在拍摄《根基，立场》（Grounds, Premises）时，我并没有预设计划，但通过拍摄和剪辑，电影的轮廓逐渐成形。我必须先开始拍摄，才能意识到这个地方以及我在此任教的时光，是可以孕育出一部电影的沃土。在塑造影片的过程中，我发现自己经常思考教学中固有的“说教性”，以及我对此的强烈抵触。我意识到，在十年的教学生涯中，我其实从未真正解决过内心的这种矛盾。因此，通过邀请我的学生参与到电影拍摄中，带他们走进我作为“创作者”而非“教师”的旅程，我希望能达成一种更具辩证意义的教学方法。

Q3：在影片中，我观察到两种“集中、专注”的时刻：一是创作者好像在进行一种为画面配音的“游戏式”创作瞬间，二是旁白在进行演讲式阐述的片段。与此同时，那些“离题”的瑕疵、排练的瞬间、以及对拍摄地自然光影的捕捉，这些看似松散的部分也散发着独特的美感和幽默感。您如何看待并融合这些“集中”与“松散”的部分之间的关系？

A3：在我之前的回答基础上再补充一点，我一直在寻找“多样性”。如果我的电影仅聚焦于那些（预设的）部分，它会变得太刻板且说教。就像我说的，我之所以开始拍摄，是因为我感受到一种捕捉稍纵即逝时刻的渴望。这对我而言很重要，我想通过影像创作来留住这份重要性。等到那个瞬间已成过往，我就会坐下来进行剪辑，审视自己实际拥有的素材。我有一些学生研读关于《外太空计划9》（Plan 9 from Outer Space‎，1959）的学术文本的场景，有几个学生尝试拍电影的片段，还有我在自己房间里表演一段小剧场的影像。这些是最有张力的时刻，所以我开始把它们排进时间线上，看它们彼此之间会产生怎样的互动。因为它们并非预设好的，当它们被拼接在一起时，各自的基调可能千差万别。而我的任务，就是将这种不一致性转化为影片的力量。

我已经不再制作那种高度集中的先锋电影了——我是指那种仅仅围绕着某个单一概念而探索所有可能性的电影。我们已经有过结构主义（structuralism）了，前人已经做出了伟大的成就。荷利斯·法朗普顿（Hollis Frampton）、迈克尔·斯诺（Michael Snow）、厄尼·格尔（Ernie Gehr）、斯坦·布拉哈格（Stan Brakhage）等人已经为我们提供了丰富的探索工具，我们何必还要把自己局限在他们所创造的天花板之下呢？

Grounds, Premises, Bram Ruiter, 2025

Q4：您在片中使用了科幻、惊悚电影的声音片段，并搭配了拉里·戈特海姆（Larry Gottheim）、斯坦·布拉哈格等实验电影人所创作的视觉片段。这种声音与视觉的组合给我带来了一种间离感，同时为作品增添了一层神秘感。能否谈谈您是如何选取并运用这些来自于旧电影的声音和视觉材料的？

A4：当然！在这部电影里可以听到布拉哈格正在观众面前谈论他的电影《过程》（The Process，1972）。首先，我非常喜欢那段录音的质感。里面有很多非人声的噪音，有磁带录音机的高频截断声，还有嘶嘶声的杂音。布拉哈格是先锋电影界的巨擘，他为这种媒介做出了巨大的贡献。所以，听到他试图解释自己的电影却在思绪中磕磕绊绊时，那一刻我觉得他显得如此脆弱而可爱。我也在其中看到了自己的影子。要以一种有意义的方式谈论自己的作品是很困难的，所以听到布拉哈格在为此苦恼而努力，感觉很亲切。

之所以会提到戈特海姆，是因为我为一门课程而观看了《物竞天择说》（Natural Selection，1984），这部电影是在戈特海姆的课堂上创作的，这深深吸引了我。我一直想亲身实践这种方式，这部影片恰好提供了范本与成果。不过，我最终决定选用《知识之树》（Tree of Knowledge‎，1981）里的那棵树，因为它在主题上更契合。《物竞天择说》这部电影同样促使我将《根基，立场》构思为一个持续进行的“教育电影系列”的第一部。至于加入马科普洛斯（Gregory J. Markopoulos）的那段引言，是因为我的朋友马克西米利安·卢克·普罗克特（Maximilien Luc Proctor）把它发给了我，它如此清晰地概括了我对这个行业的信念，于是我让他大声朗读了那段文字。

然后是马特·法利（Matt Farley）。法利和他的朋友及家人拍摄了大量零预算电影。几年前，他写了《莫特恩方法》（The Motern Method），探讨了他的创作方法论和创作理念。他主张在现有条件下去做你想做的事情，而不是等待资源来满足你的项目需求。这并不是说法利和他的合作者查尔斯·罗克斯伯格（Charles Roxburgh）缺乏野心，他们最新的电影《邪恶水坑》（Evil Puddle）是一部灾难片，拥有50人的演员阵容，只是他们找到了一种在资源有限的情况下持续拍电影的方法，并在这个过程中孕育出一种完全属于他们自己的独特形式。这真的很了不起。总之，我在课堂上会运用法利/罗克斯伯格的方法论，因为我希望我的学生在毕业后能够掌握持续创作产出的技能。

Q5：您引用了艾德·伍德（Ed Wood）的作品，片中也出现了关于“何谓烂片（bad film）”的讨论。我认为这部电影本身就是对“何谓电影的好坏”的一次阐释。但在实际创作中，总是需要做取舍：将更好的素材保留，而排除掉其他。请问在本次创作过程中，您主要基于哪些角度来判断哪些素材是“更好”的，值得被保留下来的？

A5：这个问题很难回答。我剪辑、观看、添加新素材，再剪辑、观看，如此循环往复，这就是我创作的流程。素材是否重要取决于它能否为核心场景增色或减分，所有电影都源于这个核心。有时核心是一个想法或者一个完整构思的场景，对我来说，它通常是我已经拍摄好的素材。《根基，立场》的核心是：1）学生朗读贝基·巴特利特（Becky Bartlett）的《烂片》（Badfilm）中描述《外太空计划9》开场的段落；2）我录制的马特·法利的课堂问答；3）两个学生完成期末作业的场景。我审视这些素材，然后尝试以此为基准进行增减取舍，我的每一次剪辑都服务于影片的核心理念。每个场景都包含着一个想法或者信念，进而与周围场景及其思想信念形成互动。在某种程度上，我制作的影片往往是非线性甚至是“根茎状”的，即使播放头始终沿着线性轨迹移动。

Q6：在这部作品中，“窗户”是一个多次出现的视觉元素：在开头窗边的场景两次出现，接近结尾时又有两个人搬着窗户入镜。您如何看待“窗户”这个元素在影片中的意义？它代表着一种边界、观察还是通道？

A6：那扇窗户是这座城堡提供给我的众多原始素材之一，它本身没有固定含义，对我而言更重要的是这两个人正扛着城堡的一个碎片的部分。这个画面构思在制作初期就已浮现在我的脑海，我觉得把它加进去会很有趣。后来我意识到这扇窗户已经演变成了一个视觉符号，因此将其作为抽象元素呈现（脱离原有语境与既定意义），恰恰呼应了这部电影的创作本质。我们始终在不断地进行重构、重置语境、重新审视，他们搬运窗户的行为正是这种过程的缩影。

Q7：在本片中，由大家共同参与的集体、共享的创作过程给您带来了哪些关于电影观念的思考？您的这部作品对当前中国电影行业中依赖于影展训练营、临时集体创作的孵化模式是一个很好的示范。如果有碰到大家的创作陷入停滞的情况，您都是如何引导或应对的？

A7：幕后那些场景我只是旁观，我没有提供任何形式的帮助，因为那样做对其他那些我没能记录下来创作过程的小组来说是不公平的。然而，在为网球场上的场景做准备时，我突然意识到竟然没有一个人会打网球，作为一名网球发烧友，我决定放下摄影机去帮他们一把。那是第五周，我在城堡授课期间也住在那里，所以已经很久没打网球了。我记得当时气温有30℃，我穿着牛仔裤，汗流浃背。后期制作时，我确实后悔那天没多拍点素材，但天啊，能和一群完全的新手打一会儿网球，简直太爽了。这就是独立制作电影的一大好处，没有截止日期的压力，没有外界的期待。如果我想放下摄影机去打网球而不是得继续拍摄，我完全可以这么做。除此之外，我别无他求。

About the Artist 艺术家简介

Hello, my name is Bram Ruiter and I make films.

The creative act, domestic space, landscape, and disappearance are central to my image-making. I often work from found objects or unplanned moments. These chance encounters then inform my process. In essence, I prefer roads that lead nowhere in particular.

My films have screened at the Viennale, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema (Pesaro Film Fest), Van Gogh Museum and the Netherlands Film Festival among many others. Some of my films are distributed by Collectif Jeune Cinema.

布拉姆·勒伊特（Bram Ruiter）是一位影像创作者。

他的实践围绕创造行为、日常空间、风景与消逝之间的关系。他的创作常源于拾得之物或偶然的瞬间——这些不经意的相遇构成了他影像中的出发点与路径。他偏爱那些通往未知的道路，在不确定与游移中寻找影像的生成方式。

他的作品曾在维也纳国际电影节、卡罗维发利国际电影节、佩萨罗（Pesaro）新电影节、梵高博物馆及荷兰电影节等地展映，部分影片由法国青年影像联盟（Collectif Jeune Cinéma）发行。

About the Author 作者简介

Pincent LIU is a film programmer. He serves as the Head of Short Film Programming for Wuhan bailin Film Festival, a curator for Chinese Film Festival Hamburg, and a pre-selector for Hainan Island International Film Festival and Onion City Experimental Film Festival. Additionally, he is a programmer, translator, and editor for the Dufang Film Program. He previously served as the Director of Public Practice at Wuhan Photography Art Centre, where he curated over 30 screening programs, including special programs for multiple editions of Wuhan Art Book Fair. His recent curatorial program is “Night Calls: Hidden Gems by Female Filmmakers in the 1980s” for WbFF 2025.

刘品呈是一位影像策展人，他是武汉柏林电影周的短片节目负责人、汉堡华语影像展的策展人，曾作为选片人参与海南岛国际电影节和芝加哥洋葱城实验电影节的选片工作。此外，他是独放的选片人、译者与编辑。他曾任武汉影像艺术中心的公共教育总监，期间策划了三十余场放映与交流活动，囊括武汉艺术书展期间的影像节目策划。他最近的策展项目是“我们拥有夜晚：八十年代女性导演选集”。

▌more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/grounds%2C-premises