Kinemastik organized an event in order to participate in the Malta Arts Summer Festival. We invited Blu and Lorenzo Fonda, two young, cutting edge Italian artists to visit Malta and paint a wall at the University Roundabout subway space, which is to become the first Maltese skate park.

Blu’s artistic career began with his interest in underground and illegal art, especially graffiti culture. His work starts out as a sketch, doodled in his sketchbook diary before being transferred to the bigger medium – the mural. His painting style is rather traditional; he uses brushes, paint roller, one colour and black blending the mural with the surrounding architecture. The language adopted originates in comics and cartoons, provisionally epitomised by urban graffiti. His inspiration stems from a need that is otherwise stifled by domestic walls, from the sheer pleasure of transforming ordinary and decaying places, showing how creativity may redevelop within urban degradation. Blu has exhibited his work in Milan, Turin, Pisa, Bolzano, Bolivar (Nicaragua) and many other places. He has also published a book of drawings for Modo Infoshop, Bologna.

Lorenzo Fonda, aka Cerberoleso, is another multi-talented, artistically versatile artist. His interests vary from drawings to animations and film production. Lorenzo never stops studying and experimenting with his work. He has been signed to Italian production company Mercurio and to US Company Hornet. His works have been showcased at the Cannes 2006 Young Director Awards, Resfest and appeared on publications such as Pictoplasma “Character in Motion”, Idn Flip “Moview”, Swindle Magazine, Stash DVD, Converse Gallery and many others. He has worked for Alfa Romeo, Nike, MTV, Converse, Sundek and others. The Maltese public were invited to attend an exhibition of his work held at St. James Cavalier, Valletta.

Blu and Lorenzo were joined by Chris Bianchi and Steph Von Reiswitz who together painted the wall on the opposite side of the skate park.

Steph and Chris are part of Le Gun collective.

The 3rd International Short Film Festival was held in Valletta on the 6th, 7th and 8th of July. The festival culminated at the Westside Selekt screenings at Gardjola gardens, a ravelin within the bastions of the fortress capital city Valletta. The festival placed special emphasis on Nordic cinema and invited the organisers of Cosmic Zoom, an underground film festival held in Copenhagen, Denmark, to attend the event and promote works from Scandinavian works. The highlight of the programme featured rare works by the great and elusive Danish animator Lejf Marcussen, one of the most prolific and artistically successful animators in Denmark, who in 1991 received the Norman McLaren Heritage Award for his body of work.

Kinemastik also hosted graduates from the Royal College of Art, UK, to attend the screenings of their works and provide a workshop that was open to the general public. They also provided much entertainment with their dance moves at the festival party on Saturday night.

Kinemastik also held an exhibition by British artist Neal Fox at The Pub in Valletta that ran concurrently to the festival. Mr Fox attended the opening of his exhibition dedicated to Oliver Reed, the silver-tongued British actor who spent his last hours in this very pub.

A festival party was held at Lo Squero Floriana with Dj Uncle Al from Brighton spinning records until daybreak.

programme 2007