Winner of the 1984 avant-garde championships

In narrative fiction film, viewers expect to see stories about human characters whose circumstances produce comedy, or tragedy, or both. On the contrary, avant-garde film to do not give rise to an expecation of story at all, since these filmmakers see film as a visual artform rather that a storytelling medium.

"By the time most people see their first avant-garde film, they've already seen hundreds of films in commercial theatres and on television and their sense of what a movie is has been almost indelibly printed in their conscious and unconscious minds" -- Scott MacDonald

Avant-garde filmmakers explore the aesthetic capabilities of the film medium itself, seeing it as similar to painting, sculpture or dance.