This chapter sets out to explore the filmmaking activity of the Romanian experimental arts collective kinema ikon (ki) from its founding in 1970 until 1989, the year of the Romanian revolution after which the group moved towards the field of new media art. In what follows, I discuss ki's output within the context of the Romanian Socialist Republic (1965–89), as well as in relation to the overall political and cultural dynamics of the Eastern Bloc during the last two decades of its existence. I argue that kinema ikon championed a kind of poetic freedom that was inexorably attached to the sociopolitical realities of the regime within which it functioned. The limitations imposed by the powers that be operated on a structural level, through bureaucratic measures and the state surveillance apparatus; ideologically, given the expectations placed upon cultural producers; and aesthetically, because cultural production was regulated by strict guidelines and conventions, which applied to form and content alike. ki's diverse output thrived despite, and to some extent in direct response to, such constraints, operating on the margins, rather than entirely outside of state-funded cultural environments.

A (Parenthetic) Short History: The Beginnings

kinema ikon, Atelier de Film Experimental (Experimental Film Workshop) was founded in 1970 by George Săbău, professor of aesthetics and art theory at the Şcoala de Artă (Art School) in Arad.