MOSCOW (Reuter) —The self-styled “unsquare” people of Moscow are gathering in various obscure clubs this week to watch avant-garde movies by  independent directors in the first unofficial Soviet film Festival.

-The characters who made up the audience at the weekend — fringe artists united by their contempt for the conventional — were often as entertaining to a Western eye as the films themselves. The spectators, crammed on benches or sitting on the floor, roared their approval of the experimental films, sometimes pretentious, sometimes genuinely interesting, which they could never see at the official cinema.

“The festival is going well,’’said one of the orgaizers, film director Igor Aleinikov.

“We had some problems because various cinemas refused to host it and the city council telephoned wanting to know what we were doing. But we have always managed to find a venue up to now,” he said.

“This is like the 1970s when we used to meet for underground rock concerts,” added fellow organizer Boris Yukhananov in a conspiratorial tone as enthusiasts congregated in a metro station to be shown the way to an institute club made  available at the last minute by friendly contacts.

The festival is legal but the authorities are keeping a watchful eye on it.

“They have not hindered us but neither have they helped us. I don’t think they know how to react,” Yukhananov said.

The organizers are editors of Cine-Phantom, a new independent film monthly with a circulation of about 50 typed copies which covers trends in the so-called “Parallel Cinema” outside state control.

 Parallel cinema as opposed to amateur movie-making attains a professional artistic standard equal to that of the official film industry. But it has different themes and techniques from the often-politicized state cinema, its proponents say.

While underground music and literature have existed for years in the Soviet Union, the emergence of parallel cinema  has only become possible recently because of the growth of video.

Independent directors, most of whom make their living outside cinema have to come to Moscow from all parts of the Soviet Union to show their work at the five-day festival

A few foreign videos donated by wishers abroad are also being shown.

The weekend program included  "Game in Ho” by Yukhananov, 30, who works officially as a Moscow theater director "Tractor"  and ‘Monstrum Exosse” by Aleinikov, 25, and his 21-year-old brother Gleb and “Bad Luck Island” by Denis Kuzmin, 24, from Leningrad. 

The latter film explores the lives of people at the rock bottom of society, drunken factory workers who live in what Kuzmin calls a-“Social Coma.”

“Game in Ho" — Ho being both the sound for laughter and the Letter X (KH)  in Russian — is about two Jewish friends visiting a series of Moscow apartments and arguing all the way about the impending emigratiòn of one of them to America.  “The argument, is endless - it’s the dilemma of my generation,” said Yukhananov, a colorful character wearing jodhpurs, high boots and a beret over his long black ringlets.

The film captures the Bohemian atmosphere of Soviet artists’ flats where guests permanently pack round tiny kitchen tables covered with bottles of vodka, half-eaten sausages, ashtrays and cockroaches.

There is also an erotic scene with real prostitutes from Moscow’s national hotel.

“Socialist realism (the official art form) does not reflect the reality of life. To do so is my aim,” said Yukhananov, who has made five films with borrowed equipment and professional actors working without set scripts.

“I have no camera of my own and the technical level is basic. But I make a virtue out of necessity and turn the primitive into an aesthetic,”- he added.

Another film showing the harsh realities of Soviet life is “The Cruel Illness of Men” by the Aleinikovs, which includes a  homosexual rape scene shot late at night  in an empty carriage between stations on the Moscow metro to ensure that passengers did not alert the police.

Igor Aleinikov, a qualified engineer  who now earns a living as a factory guard, and his brother specialize, however, in more surrealistic films like “Tractor” and "Monstrum Exosse”.         

In “Tractor,” voices begin ponderously describing the agricultural machine glorified in so many Soviet films but speed up to a satirical frenzy, using more and more absurd and obscene language.

A similar technique is used in “Monstrum Exosse” where squiggles of disgusting-looking plastic mess are described as in a biological documentary.

“People have stopped believing in  words. They have lost their weight, be come absurd,” said Igor Aleinikov, referring to the effect of Communist propaganda.

Yukhananov agreed but rejected parody, Aleinikov’s response; as the right solution for him to the problem.

“The central problem of our culture is how to speak so that the words will be accepted.” Yukhananov said.