PARAFUZO decreed in August 2025 that the complex processes of the photographic industry were expendable. Armed with hydrogen peroxide and sodium bicarbonate, they embarked upon the conquest of the positive image. They did not prevail. These are the original audio recordings and the only test strip that survived, the testament to those feverish nights: an involuntary manifesto on the beauty of the attempt and the resistance of matter.
LANGUAGE : Spanish COUNTRY : Uruguay YEAR : 2025 DURATION : 4m DIRECTORS, ARTISTS : PARAFUZO (Mariana da Rosa and Claudio Villalba)
Director statement : Bipolar is an involuntary manifesto born from a necessary surrender. It is our attempt to make peace with an intense period of labor and experimentation that ultimately failed to yield its original, expected result. Our motivation shifted from achieving technical perfection to acknowledging the inherent value of the imperfect—the error as a genuine creative process. We believe the struggle itself is the art.
The work is literally built around this philosophy: it is constructed from the single surviving test strip and the original sound recordings of those feverish nights of repeating experiments. This physical remnant of failure became the true subject. By utilizing a low-quality digitization of the source film, we intentionally reinforced the idea of ugliness and imperfection as valid artistic forms. The message of the short film is not found in the clarity of its image or sound, but in the unsettling sum of its fragmented parts.
We chose a loop format to symbolize the cycle of entrapment and repetition inherent in our process. The raw, unedited sound captures the immediacy, the nervousness, and the true voracity we experienced, speaking directly to the film’s material nature.
Bipolar is addressed to those who understand experimental, analog, and independent filmmaking as an act of resistance. It is our testament to the enduring beauty of the attempt, the non-negotiable reality of the material medium, and the conviction that a truly human, sensory, and free practice is always possible.
Bio : We are PARAFUZO, the artistic partnership of Mariana da Rosa and Claudio Villalba, based in Montevideo, Uruguay, with two decades of experience designing filmic environments. Our work is built upon the fundamental philosophy that cinema is a material art—tangible, auditory, and even olfactory—where stories are told through objects, textures, and colors. We maintain an unwavering commitment to the entire creation process, from the first shot to development in the darkroom.
For us, creation is a physical act, a “gimnopedia” between the body, light, and chemical supports. We reclaim the film grain not as a technical choice, but as an elemental particle. We value the imperfections and process marks as invaluable evidence of human making. Our laboratory overlooks the sea, so our films speak of salt and wind. We describe ourselves as “punks in essence and children in wonder,” proposing a sensory, free, and deeply human cinematic vision that is both locally anchored and universally resonant.
Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.
Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.
