2007
Awards
GRAND PRIX
Maria Saakyan, MAJAK
SPECIAL AWARD
Albert Serra, HONOR DE CAVALERIA
GRAND PRIX
John Smith, PYRAMIDS / SKUNK (HOTEL DIARIES 5/6)
SPECIAL AWARDS
Yoni Bentovim / Emily Harris, THREE TOWERS
Damir Čučić, LA PETITE MORT
Brian Dugan Block, FAST, FASTER, FASTEST (AMERICAN ATTRITION)
Lars Von Trier
Jury
FEATURE FILM JURY
Andre Bennett, CAN
Schmidt Branko, CRO
Stephen Ashton, USA
SHORT FILM JURY
Erwin van ‘t Hart, NED
Ana Peraica, CRO
Federica Scarnati, ITA
- Chantal Akerman / DOWN THERE
Chantal Akerman
LÁ-BAS
France, Belgium, 2006,
DVCAM, 78 minA short stay in an apartment in Tel Aviv, not far from the sea. Is normal life possible here? Are images possible here? A film without the slightest intention – except to be without intention, so that something can become visible or possibly happen.
Chantal Akerman
Brussels-born and now Paris-based filmmaker, Chantal is world famous for her deconstructive style, pessimistic humour and corrosive observations of identity, sexuality, and politics. Akerman’s films have been called the single most important and coherent body of work by a women director, and her film “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”(1975) was praised by the “New York Times as “the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of cinema”. In addition to her many short and feature films, Chantal Akerman has produced documentaries and video installations. Among her most celebrated films are: Saute my ville (Blow up my town); News from Home; Les Rendez-vous d ‘Anna; Je, tu, il, elle; Window Shopping ; Toute une nuit (All night long; Les Annèes 80 (The Eighties); Nuit et jour (Night and Day); D’Est (From the East; Portrait d’une jeune fille de la fin des annèes 60 à Bruxelles (Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the1960s in Brussels); Un Divan à New York (A Couch in New York); and most recently, Sud;and La Captive.Her video installations, last exhibited at the VeniceArt Biennale 2001 and KasselDocumenta 2002, and documentaries display an intensive personal gaze, most notably in Selfportrait / Autobiography: Work in Progress.Don Askarian / ARARAT - FOURTEEN VIEWSDon Askarian
ARARAT – FOURTEEN VIEWS
Armenia, Netherlands, Germany,
2007, HDV, 76 minIt’s no matter for it – who walks on it – the Turk, the Armenian, the Kurd or a camel, and about state boarder it doesn’t think at all. The relations to it have mineralogists, well, volcanologists, but the speech is not about: gang of robbers kills numismatists under the canopy of sacred mountain Ararat and Phil, their victim, casually survives.
If the film is there, it is not because it has been defined by the audience, not by the producer/director, not by ratings, not in Cannes or in LA, no, it is realised through the film itself, in the context of the film, by every film, every film that has already been made and by every film that’s going to be made in the future, because there is a constant dialogue going on between all films, including those as yet unmade. To recognize this deep secret reality and law of film, and to obey, yes, even to serve them – that is what I call Ontological Film Making.
(Don Askarian)Don Askarian
Don Askarian was born in Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh.
In 1967 he went to Moscow and studied history and art. He worked as an assistant-director and film critic for a year after his study.
In 1975-1977 Don Askarian was imprisoned. In 1978 he emigrated from USSR to West Berlin.
For the last 25 years he has lived and worked in Germany, The Netherlands and in Armenia, where he founded his own film companies.
He is a prize-winner at several international film festivals.
In 1996 Don Askarian published his book “The Dangerous Light”. Every year the interest to his really very unique films grow up. More and more film festivals come to honor Don Askarian with retrospectives. Serious TV-stations like ARD, WDR, ZDF, Channel 4, Arte, but also Belgian, Greek, Swiss, Slovakian, Armenian etc. TV Channels are constant co-producers and buyers of all his films. The films of Don Askarian were sold and broadcasted world wide about 80 times. Don Askarian, honored with a Harvard Film Archive retrospective, is considered the greatest Armenian filmmaker (but he is Russian-German- Dutch too).
In 2003 he received Golden Camera Award for Life Achievement at Int. ART Film Festival, Slovakia. It turns out to be clearer what Hans-Werner Dannowski, the president of Interfilm, meant in 1992: “Time will pass until we recognize that Don Askarian is one of the most important filmmakers of our times. His movies will take up the time they need. Finally the films will have their success not with lies and assimilations but with truth.” The retrospectives and special screenings around the world, on TV and important film festivals reflect it, mirror the growing interest in Don Askarian’s films followed by a broad fascination by the audience.Norman Cohn & Zacharias Kunuk / THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSENNorman Cohn / Zacharias Kunuk
THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN
Canada, Denmark, 2006,
35 mm, 112 minDrawing from the accounts of Knud Rasmussen, a Danish-Greenlandic Inuit explorer, the coming of Christianity and commerce to the Canadian North is seen through the eyes of the last great shaman of Igloolik and his headstrong daughter.
Norman Cohn
Heis a co-founder of Igloolik Isuma Productions, with Zacharias Kunuk and the late Paul Apak Angilirq. Isuma was formed with the mission of making video through a collaborative, non-hierarchal process that reflects the values of the local Inuit community. Isuma won international acclaim with the production of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, a narrative feature film version of a traditional Inuit story. Cohn took on many roles during production of Atanarjuat, serving as co-writer, co-producer, production manager, co-editor and cinematographer, shooting the film in wide-screen digital Betacam for transfer to 35mm film. The film won 6 Genie Awards, and director Zacharias Kunuk won the Camera d’Or for Best First Feature at the 2001 CannesFilm Festival. Cohn and Kunuk have been working together in Igoolik since 1985, and the pair’s honors include the 1994 BellCanadaAward for Outstanding Achievement in Video Art. Cohn’s solo video works have screened at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Dokumenta 7 in Kassel, Germany. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and grew up in New York City.Zacharias Kunuk
Born in Kapuivik, Canada, Inuit spent his childhood summers travelling and hunting with his family and his winters going to school in Igoolik. In 1983 he started working at the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation, which is a regional public broadcasting organization that produces original programming, often in Inuktitut. In 1985 Kunuk began collaboration with Norman Cohn. In 1991 they founded Igoolik Isuma Productions with Paulossie Qulitalik and Paul Apak. Isuma’s first feature film, Atanarjuat/The Fast Runnerportrays a traditional Inuit epic myth, in the Inuktitut language. The film won the Camera d’Or for Best First Feature at the 2001 CannesFilm Festival, and six Genie awards in Canada, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kunuk. In 2004, Kunuk won the first Sun Hill Award for Excellence in Native American Filmmaking, a new annual honour from the Harvard Film Archive.Maria Saakyan / THE LIGHTHOUSEMaria Saakyan
MAJAK
Russia, 2007,
35 mm, 78 minA quarrel between grandmother and granddaughter and a war between two nations seem so far apart and yet are closely interrelated. The one is the reflection of the other. Throughout the story, the heroine tries to leave but encounters insuperable obstacles. During her quarrel with grandmother a storm breaks out at sea preventing ships from approaching the pier; when the family conflict reaches the peak of its absurdity, the fate by the force of the crowd and with its favourite instrument – chance – throws the heroine from the pier into the sea; but any extremity is known to cause its own antipode. Grandmother and granddaughter forgive and make up with each other. Love removes the barriers set by the fate. The road is open, the motorboat is waiting for the heroine. The obstacles disappear in the external world and are found within the human. One becomes able to see them. The transition from animosity to reconciliation is the transition from noise to silence, when one can hear one’s own heart suggest the only right decision.
Maria Saakyan
Born in 1980 in Yerevan, Armenia, and when she was 12, she and her family moved to Russia. In 1996 she gained entrance to the film directing department of VGIK, Vladimir Cobrin’s workshop. She graduated in 2003 with a degree project The Farewell. The film received Grand Prize of the “Golden Apricot” film festival in Yerevan(Armenia). The Lighthouse is her first feature film.Peter Schreiner / BELLAVISTABELLAVISTA
Austria, 2006,
DV, 117 minSappada is a linguistic enclave of the Plodar dialect, which is spoken in the Carnian Alps in northern Italy. The black and white film documentation centres around Giuliana who returned home to her parents’ Bellavista hotel in Sappada after having stayed abroad, studied German, after two serious accidents and her brothers’ suicide. Searching for creative space as redemption, she reflects upon the inner conflict in her life, feels that the dialect can be seen as a “home”. Bellavista is far away from being an ethnographic study, as Schreiner links Giuliana’s perception with her extraordinary environment.
Peter Schreiner
Born 1957 in Vienna.
He has made experimental documentaries since 1982. :
2006 Bellavista;
1994 Blaue Ferne/ Blue Distance (a poetic and photographic quest with the camera for evidence of reality and love);
1991 I Cimbri (about the inhabitants of an isolated mountain village);
1988 Auf dem Weg;
1985 Kinderfilm;
1983 Erste Liebe;
1982 Grelles Licht.Albert Serra / HONOR OF THE KNIGHTSAlbert Serra
HONOR DE CAVALLERIA
Spain, 2006,
35 mm, 95 min
This is easily the most striking Spanish film of 2006. Albert Serra is original, without making a secret of whom and what inspired him. Clear and to the point – both through homages in his film and in accompanying text and interviews – he states what he wants to achieve. This serene, painterly film debut reminds us of the films of Ozu, Olmi, Bresson and Pasolini, but also of the ideas and approach of Godard, Rocha and Paradzhanov (occasionally explicitly), without being disruptive or irritating. On the contrary, the gentle human approach that makes this film so moving brings us closer to heaven.This film was made on a limited budget and, while it is based on Cervantes’ Don Quijote, there are few recognizable scenes and not a windmill in sight. In addition, Serra also uses other (mediaeval) sources and so the film succeeds in a miraculous way in its aim of re-creating the more or less historic characters that may well have served as a source of inspiration for Cervantes. We see Don Quijote and his servant Sancho (played by the wonderful ‘non-professionals’ Lluís Carbó and Lluís Serrat) on their journey through the empty landscape (throughout the film there isn’t a single human construction to be seen). They are, as they should be, looking for adventure and while they speak – and remain silent – about both down-to-earth practical issues and courtly and spiritual subjects, a bond develops between the two men.Albert Serra
Born in 1975, Spain. He graduated in Spanish literature and comparative literature at the Universityof Barcelona, where he also studied art history. Besides writing, directing and producing films, Albert Serra writes and produces plays, e.g. the experimental “Setsuko”, dedicated to Hara Setsuko, the favourite actress of Ozu Yasujiro. In 2001 he founded Andergraun Films together with MontserratTriola and Bartomeu Casellas. “Honeur de cavalleria” is his second feature.Films: Crespià, the Film not the Village (2002), Honor de cavalleria / Honour of the Knights (2006)Béla Tarr / THE MAN FROM LONDONBéla Tarr
A LONDONI FÉRFI
France, Hungary, Germany, 2007,
35 mm, 132 minMaloin leads a simple life without prospects at the edge of the infinite sea; he barely notices the world around him, already accepting the slow and inevitable deterioration of life around him and his all but complete loneliness. When he becomes a witness to a murder, his life takes a sudden turn. He comes face to face with issues of morality, sin, punishment, the line between innocence and complicity in a crime, and this state of scepticism leads him to the ontological question of the meaning and worth of existence. The film is about desire, man’s indestructible search for a life of freedom and happiness, about illusions never to be realised – about things that give all of us energy to continue living, to go to sleep and get up day after day … Maloin’s story is ours, belonging to all of us who doubt and are able to question our humdrum existence.
Béla Tarr
Born July 21, 1955 in Pécs, Hungary. Tarr is a Hungarian screenwriter and director. As a sixteen year-old he began making amateur films. His works attracted attention from Bela Balazs’s studio and he helped finance Tarr’s first feature film Family Nest (Családi tüzfészek, 1979), which the critics compared with John Cassavettes’ works. His next two films, The Outsider (Szabadgyalog, 1981) and The Prefab People (Panelkapcsolat, 1982), make up the first part of his career characterized by social topics and documentary cinema verité style. His TV adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1982), made in just two shots (the first one lasts 5, and the second 67 minutes) marked a change and announced the second phase in his career. In the mid-1980s he began his collaboration with the writer László Krasznahorkai and made several films based on his novels: Damnation (Kárhozat, 1988), Satan’s Tango (Sátántangó, 1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister harmóniák, 2000). Damnation announced a change in the visual style by which the director became most recognizable (characterized by black and white picture and slow shots), and which peaked in the even-hour-long film Satan’s Tango. This film, as well as Werckmeister Harmonies, won the director international acclaim. Tarr won the award for outstanding contribution to the development of the film arts at the 11th SplitFilm Festival. His film The Man from London(2007) is based on Georges Simenon’s short story.Apichatpong Weerasethakul / SYNDROMES AND A CENTURYApichatpong Weerasethakul
SANG SATTAWAT
Tajland, Francuska, Austrija / Thailand, France, Austria, 2006,
35 mm, 105 minThis film explores how we remember; how our sense of happiness can be triggered by seemingly insignificant things. It is a film in two parts which sometimes echo each other. The two central characters are inspired by the film-maker’s parents, in the years before they became lovers. The first part focuses on a woman doctor, and is set in a space reminiscent of the world in which the film-maker was born and raised. The second part focuses on a male doctor, and is set in a more contemporary space much like the world that we live in.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Born in 1970 in Bangkok, he grew up in Khon Kaen in north-eastern Thailand. He has a degree in Architecture from Khon Kaen University and a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking from The School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. Since he began making films and videos in the early 90s, he has become one of the few film-makers in Thailandwho have worked outside the strict Thai studio system. He is also active in promoting experimental and independent films and is currently acting as producer on an experimental feature. He has earned growing international recognition through both his film-making and art projects. He has exhibited his art projects widely internationally, has made a large number of short films and three feature films. With these three films of very original vision, Weerasethakul has become one of the major international young film-makers to watch and a key figure in the emerging Thai cinema. “Tropical malady”, his last feature, won the special jury prize in Cannesin 2004.Klaus Wyborny / HOMMAGE AN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVENKlaus Wyborny
HOMMAGE AN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Njemačka / Germany, 2006,
DigiBeta, 72 minThis is a highly accomplished attempt to visualize two late works of the German musician (op. 111 and “Missa solemnis”).
Klaus Wyborny
Eine andere Welt 1993-2004
Sulla 2002
Das offene Universum 1986-1990
Die Geburt einer Nation 1973
Dämonische Leinwand 1969Born 1945 in Bittkau bei Magdeburg, Germany. Studies in theoretical physics 1963-1970 at the University Hamburg and at Yeshiva University New York. Lives in Hamburg.Eine andere Welt/ Another World 1993-2004 Sulla 2002 Das offene Universum/ The Open Universe 1986-1990 Die Geburt einer Nation/ The Birth of a Nation 1973 Dämonische Leinwand/ Demonic Screen 1969
Yuedong Zhang / MID-AFTERNOON BARKSYuedong Zhang
XIA WU GOU JIAO
Kina / China, 2007,
DigiBeta, 77 minA repairman dropped a piece of log into a river inside of his dream; three strangers picked it up from a lake in reality. Another peasant found that the corner he sells watermelon everyday this season suddenly has a pillar standing. He looked up on it, but could’ve never known that there have been so many pillars all over the town. Uncompleted as the two stories are, they are about the blurred relations between our consciousness and the world outside of our existence.
Yuedong Zhang
1975 – Born in the countryside in Shandongprovince
1994-1998 – Studied oil painting in Shandong Fine Arts College
1999-2002 – Majored in film direction at the BeijingFilmAcademy
2003-2004 – Worked at CCTV as a director
2004-2006 – Is an independent director and is involved in theatre, advertising anddocumentariesMain Works:
2002 Director, short SwampLake
2003 Actor, theatre production of Interrogation
2004 Director, documentary film Steel Factory; Actor, Too Much Rice
2005 Co-founded Independent film company “North Gate-Author / DirectorStudio”; in charge of screenwriting; Cinematographer, documentary film Mandolin
2005-2007 Director, Mid-afternoon Barks - Per Fly / MANSLAUGHTER
Per Fly
DRABET
Denmark, 2005,
35mm, 99 min 35 secFifty-two-year-old Carsten is a popular, much-respected high school teacher. He is married to Nina; they have a son, Tobias. Carsten is having an affair with a former student, Pil, who is an extreme left wing activist. One night Pil is part of a raid that goes wrong and a policeman is killed. Pil and two other activists are arrested. Carsten’s affair is revealed and he leaves his stunned wife, Nina, to devote all his resources to supporting Pil. But a policeman is dead, two families are destroyed and guilt begins to grow slowly but surely.
Per Fly
He entered the Danish Film School in 1989, from which he graduated as a Film Director in 1993. In 1991 Per Fly directed the short film “En Halv Times Ventetid” (A Half Hour Waiting Time). In 1993 he directed yet another short film “Bent”, as well as his graduate film “Værelse 17” (Room 17) from The Danish Film School. Per Fly’s film credits include “Højhusets Konge” (King of the Skyscraper) for Danmarks Radio (DR) and “Kalder Katrine!” (Calling Katrine!) produced by Nimbus Film. The film received an award at the Odense Film Festival in 1995. In 1995 Per Fly directed the six-episode mini-series “Så du Ansjosen?” (Did you see the Anchovy?) produced by Danmarks Radio (DR). The same year Per Fly also directed “Frankenstein’s Monsterslot” (The Monster Castle of Frankenstein) produced by Peter Bech Film, as well as “Helmar goes Denmark” produced by Zentropa Entertainments for the enhanced video version of “The Kingdom”. In 1996 Per Fly directed an additional four episodes of the television series “TV-Anjosen” (The TV Anchovy) produced by Danmarks Radio (DR). In 1997 Per Fly directed the first Danish DVD-Rom “Billedskatten” (The Motion Picture Treasure) produced by Steen Herdel Film for The Danish Film Institute. In addition, he directed the puppet animation “Den lille ridder” (The Little Knight) produced by Zentropa Entertainments for The Danish Film Institute. In 1998 Per Fly directed several short films and episodes of the popular television series “Taxa”, produced by Danmarks Radio (DR). In 2000 Per Fly directed the animated film “Prop & Berta” as well as the critically acclaimed and award-winning feature film “The Bench”, which among other prizes won the acclaimed Danish Critics prize “Bodil” for Best Feature, Best Male Lead, Best Supporting Actor. Both features are produced by Zentropa Productions.Kim Ki-Duk / TIMEKim Ki-Duk
SI GAHN
Korea, 2006,
35mm, 96 minSee-hee and Ji-Woo have entered that awkward stage in a relationship. They have been dating for two years and things just don’t have the same type of excitement as they once did. Exacerbating this problem, Ji-Woo has a penchant to look at other woman, while See-hee holds severe insecurities about herself and often erupts in a fit of rage whenever she thinks Ji-Woo is interested in another woman. Without telling Ji-Woo, See-hee decides to become one of those other women. She moves out of her apartment and disconnects her cellphone. She then goes undergoes major reconstructive plastic surgery to get a new face. She tells her doctor that she doesn’t necessarily want a more beautiful face, just something different. The doctor tells her it will take 6 months for her face to recover from the surgery. See-hee vanishes and Ji-Woo is left wondering if she will ever come back. Once, See-hee is fully recovered from her surgery, she decides to take on a new identity. She takes the name of Seh-Hee, and gets a waitressing job at a cafe that Ji-Woo frequents daily. She uses various ploys to get Ji-Woo interested in her once again. Once they become a couple again, Seh-Hee has to deal with another round of insecurities. Although Ji-Woo is genuinely interested in Seh-Hee, he loves See-Hee in a way that Seh-hee never realized.
Kim Ki-Duk
After studying art in Paris, Kim Ki-duk returned to Korea and began his career as a screenwriter, making his directorial debut with a low-budget movie called “Crocodile” in 1996. From the time he released his first film, he stirred up a sensational response from critics. After every film of his was released, Kim Ki-duk was evaluated and hailed by both critics and the audience for his hard-to-express characters, shocking visuals, and unprecedented messages. The characters that appeared in Kim Ki-duk’s films were from the lowest trenches of society and were not welcomed anywhere. In such extreme circumstances, Kim Ki-duk drew out the innocence deep within the characters’ hearts through a grotesque and malicious struggle. After his works had been selected by international film festivals, his name has grown in value and the general audience started to show some interest. With “Bad Guy,” Kim Ki-duk has drawn over 700,000 moviegoers into local theatres expanding his limited popularity one step further to the mainstream. He continued on making internationally acclaimed films such as “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring” which was submitted to the Foreign Language Film section of the Academy Awards to represent Korea cinema along with “Samaritan Girl” (“Samaria”) which won the Silver Bear Award (Best Director Award) at the 54th Berlin International Film Festival.Tsai Ming-Liang / I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP ALONETsai Ming-Liang
HEI YAN QUAN
Taiwan, France, Austria, 2006,
35mm, 115 minAfter being robbed and attacked one night in Kuala Lumpur, Hsiao-kang, a homeless Chinese man, is rescued and taken in by some Bangladeshi workers. One of them, Rawang, lets him sleep beside him on an old mattress that he had found on the street. Later, when Chyi, a waitress at a coffee-shop, meets Hsiao-kang, she is filled with lustful desire. As Hsiao-kang slowly recovers, he finds himself caught between Rawang and Chyi – as well as Chyi’s female boss. Meanwhile, a heavy haze descends on the city that is so humid that it stinks of the perspiration of its multi-ethnic people. These men and women and the old mattress lose their way in the haze but find one another.
Tsai Ming-Liang
Born and raised in Kuching, Malaysia where he was introduced by his grand-parents to the popular cinema of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Asian countries. In 1977 he moved to Taiwan and went to study film and drama at the Chinese Culture University, during which time he became acquainted with the European New Wave cinema. After graduation he wrote and staged plays, often beginning to explore the themes of contemporary life, loneliness and alienation which became regular themes of his films. For nearly ten years, he worked in TV and developed scenarios and then in 1989 and 1990 directed a series of telefilms, including The Boys, which marked his move towards cinema and during which he discovered his favourite actor Lee Kang-Sheng. Lee played central roles in all his films from “Rebels of the Neon God” onwards. With this film and with “Vive l’amour” which won the Golden Lion Award at the 1994 Venice Film Festival, Tsai began to be acclaimed as a major new voice in the Asian cinema. Over the series of films that followed he came to be recognised as a new modern master of cinema to stand alongside his fellow Taiwanese Hou Hsiao Hsien and Edward Yang. He has received numerous awards, most recently for the Berlin Silver Bear for “The Wayward Cloud”.Saman Salour / A FEW KILOS OF DATES FOR A FUNERALSaman Salour
CHAND KILO KHORMA BARAYE MARASSEM-E TADFIN
Iran, 2006,
35mm, 85 minSadry and Yadi work at a petrol station removed from the main traffic routes since the building of a ring road. It is winter and heavy snow lies on the ground. Sadry, a former performing strongman who accidentally lost an eye, is behaving strangely. He takes off from time to time and seems obsessed with the weather. Yadi is in love with a girl from a nearby town and sends her passionate letters via the local postman. Sadry and Yadi occasionally receive a visit from Orooj, the neighbourhood undertaker, their only contact with the exterior.
Saman Salour
Rođen u gradu Boroujerd u Iranu 1976. godine. Diplomirao je filmsku režiju na Filmskoj školi u Surehu. Karijeru započinje snimajući filmove za Iransko filmsko društvo mladih. Radio je kao pomoćnik redatelja i programer na tri dugometražna filma, i autor je niza kratkih filmova i dokumentaraca za TV.
Born in Boroujerd, Iran in 1976 and graduated in Film Direction from the Sureh Cinema School. He started his career by making films at the Iranian Young Cinema Society. He has been assistant director and programmer of three long features and made a number of shorts and documentaries for TV.Oku Shutaro / CAIN'S DESCENDANTOku Shutaro
KAIN NO MATSUEI
Japan, 2006,
HDCAM, 89 min 45 secSet in industrial Kawasaki, “Cain’s descendant” tells the story of the broken hero, Munakata, who killed his mother when he was 15 years old and then spent 10 lonely years confined in a juvenile detention centre. Kawasaki represents the huge expansion of the Japanese economy in the years following World War II, and it is here that Munakata tries to find a new life to get out of his dark forest. Like quarried limestone brought by rail for processing, Munakata drifts into Kawasaki looking for communication with local people, for something new…but the label and stigma of ‘murder’ always follow him and take him down new, dark paths.
Munakata finds work at a small factory making electronic parts, and here he meets Omori, the owner of the factory; Mo, a fellow employee; Matsumura, a priest; and Yukari, Matsumura’s daughter. Through his encounters with these people, he gradually learns of the ugliness in their hearts, the sorrow of their normal lives and the nonsense that they call common sense.
He is ordered to do a secret job making a gun out of an old TV remote control by Matsumura. This is ironic because the remote control which is an obedient, convenient machine doesn’t only lets us access entertainment, but it can also now be used to frighten and kill people. It’s a way of earning money, painstakingly crafting a product and escaping from reality. And then, the guns he produces will destroy the fragile balance of the town. “What should I do to see the blue sky?” Munakata asks. He has good energy but he can’t release it; his desperation is the same as the sorrow we feel floating under the same ashen sky he always sees.Oku Shutaro
Born in Tokyo, Japan – 1975. Started his career as a visual planner in 1996, Oku joined stage productions by TOHO musical, NODA-MAP, Takarazuka Revue, Otona Keikaku, etc. Since then, he has engaged in wide range of stage performances such as small theater, ballet, dance and musical. His representative works include “Elisabeth”, “Mozart!”(TOHO Musical), “2001 people Play”, “Oil”, “Run, Merusu!”(NODA-MAP), “Bara no Fuin”, “Never say goodbye” (Takarazuka Revue), and “GUNDOKU” (group recitation: Epic poetic drama), “One Seed”(EXPO2005 AICHI JAPAN, Japan Pavilion). Recently he’s also actively engaged in stage creations such as “Tap Man”, “Tap Man & Piano Man” and “Boys Electone Conspiracy” which are becoming a sensation with their effective use of visual images on the stages. Oku has also constantly released movies as a director, including “KAI-ON”, “Labor Cop” (2002), “Japanese Naked Tribe” (2003) and “AKA-SEN” (2004 / RISE X opening feature film) in which was a Japanese KABUKI star Shido Nakamura’s first leading role. With innovative idea and approach, he keeps seeking the new possibility of digital movie. Oku’s upcoming films are “Ten-Sho-Chi”, a documentary on the Japanese legendary theater directors Yukio Ninagawa, Hideki Noda and Masahide Komaki. “Cain’s descendant”, a feature-length film starring Kazushi Watanabe and Tomorowo Taguchi was released in 2007. In addition, Oku is also active in areas beyond visual creation. He produced the visual system for “Japan Pavilion – EXPO2005” and a digital device for “RISE X”.Franziska Stünkel / VINETA-THE SECRET PROJECTFranziska Stünkel
VINETA-DAS GEHEIMPROJEKT
Germany, 2006,
35mm, 93 minSebastian Färber, top architect and workaholic with a heart condition is summoned to a secret project in a remote house. There, 6 men meet for a workshop to design the perfect futuristic city, led by the secretive Dr. Leonhard and his assistant Nina. But soon, Färber suspects that Dr. Leonhard is leaving him and the others in the dark as to his true intentions…
Franziska Stünkel
Born in 1973 in Goettingen. She took film classes at Hanover Polytechnic and did further training with Wojciech Marczewski and Mogens Rukov (“Script 2000” and “Talents 2003” organized by the Nordmedia script & development lab). In 1998 Cita-Filmproduktion was founded which led to her short films participating in over 80 festivals in 21 countries and winning international festival awards.
Filmography:
I’m here (1999), Bonbon (1999), Make a wish (2000), It’s a small world and things like this (2002), Vineta – the secret project (2006)Patrick Tam / AFTER THIS OUR EXILEPatrick Tam
FU ZI
Hong Kong, 2006,
35mm, 150 minSet in 1990s Malaysia, Patrick Tam’s film follows the troubled relationship between a loser father who cooks in a cheap restaurant and his son, who retains the instincts of survival that his father has lost. Deserted by the man’s wife (and son’s mother), their lives drift across the thin line that divides survival and collapse. To escape loan sharks, they move to a small town where the father encourages his son to sneak into homes to steal. This ends badly, in contrast to the mother who is now married and living a comfortable middle class life. Some years later, the grown up son returns to the place where he lost his innocence and where his future was intertwined, for better or worse, with his father’s fate. Hong Kong superstar, Aaron Kwok, turns in one of his best performances in this triumphant return to cinema after Tam’s 17-year absence. Like many of his generation, Tam is shadowed by the complexities of the patriarchal relationship at a personal level and also with the connotations of Hong Kong’s relationship with China pre-1997. Tam masterly navigates the points of view of father and son and delivers a profound reflection on aging split between the wisdom of maturity and the ambitions of youth. The film has swept many major awards in Asia, including Best Picture and Best Director at the recent 2007 Hong Kong Film Awards, and Golden Horse Best Actor for Kwok.
Patrick Tam
He is one of the directors from the 1980s’ Hong Kong new wave, together with Wong Kar-wai and Tsui Park. He has worked a lot for TV as a director and he won awards for his editing of Wong Kar-wai’s “Days of Being Wild” and “Ashes of Time”. He is also the editor of “Election” by his contemporary Johnnie To.
Filmography:
Ming jian (1980), Ai sha / Love Massacre (1981), Lie huo qing chun / Nomad (1982), Xue er (1984), Zui hou sheng li / Final Victory (1987), Xue zai shao / Burning Show (1988), Sha shou hu die meng / My Heart is That Eternal Rose (1989), Fu zi / After This Our Exile (2006)
Olav F. Wehling / DOWN THE DRAINOlav F. Wehling
FUTSCHICATO
Germany, 2005,
Beta SP, 68 minAt the very outskirts of the city, where the petty bourgeois live, where human life is barely possible, for more than 20 years now, a house-share defies the odds of its inhospitable surroundings. For some of the tenants, for example Rainer, it’s not only housing, but also a life project. You don’t let them get you down: the state, the capital or anybody else. Here, your life is self-determined and non-hierarchical. But a utopian dream must also be organized. That’s why they have a set of rules: the 10 commandments. Rainer and his girlfriend have a baby now. The other revolutionists are getting older, too. Where is the shine of the early years? Things got worse and Rainer became the tyrant of the house. He is definitely overdoing it when he brings another woman along.
Olav F. Wehling
Born in 1978 in Hamburg; gradated from high-school in 1997. Since 1998 he has been working as an assistant director and production assistant with various film productions. In 1998 he started writing and directing commercials, short and experimental films. He studies at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg since 2002. Films (selection): Baboon Rock, Parade Bar Tangier, Two worlds, Futschicato.Andrew Currie / FIDOAndrew Currie
FIDO
Canada, 2006,
Beta SP, 91 minWelcome to Willard, a small town lost in the idyllic world of the 50’s, where the sun shines every day, everybody knows their neighbour, and rotting zombies carry the mail. Years ago, the earth passed through a cloud of space dust, causing the dead to rise with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Terror spread across the land, until a collar was invented that made the zombies docile, even useful. A company was born: ZomCon. Thanks to their patented domestication collar, zombies became gardeners, milkmen, servants, even pets. ZomCon would like everyone to believe that they have the world under control. But do they? Timmy Robinson doesn’t think so. He thinks the world is “phoney-baloney”. An awkward loner, Timmy spends so much time in his room even his own parents don’t notice him. So when Mom buys a zombie to help around the house, Timmy is surprised, and even curious, when the beast wants to play catch. When the zombie saves him from the local bullies, a true friendship is born, and Timmy names the zombie “Fido.” But Fido’s collar goes on the fritz, and the neighbours start paying the ultimate price. To complicate matters, ZomCon’s notorious zombie-control specialist, Mr. Bottoms, has moved in across the street. What begins as a small town story about a boy and his best friend becomes a biting satire about our world, the price of fear, and the rewards of risking love. FIDO will rip your heart out.
Andrew Currie
Born in England, he grew up in Victoria, BC and studied Arts before starting work in the television industry as a news editor, news director and commercial editor. He moved to Vancouver where he attended the Film Program at Simon Fraser University, where Anagram partners Trent Carlson and Blake Corbet also studied, and became obsessed by the structure of film and how it works with storytelling. A diehard film buff, Currie is influenced more by European and American Independent film than by traditional Hollywood and cites Eraserhead as the one movie he’s probably seen more than any other film because it just keeps getting funnier every time he watches it. A founding partner in Anagram Pictures, he recently directed and co-wrote the feature film FIDO. Other recent credits for Currie include: directing Sleep Murder – a television movie for CTV and Buena Vista International – starring Jason Priestley and Natar Ungalaag (The Fast Runner); producing (with partner Blake Corbet) The Delicate Art of Parking (Best Canadian Film – 2003 Montreal World Film Festival), and directing Twisteeria, a half-hour comedy for YTV which garnered Currie a Gemini Award nomination. Currie’s debut feature which he co-wrote the story for and directed, was the critically acclaimed father/son drama Mile Zero. It played at over twenty film festivals around the world.Juan Catlett / ERÉNDIRA IKIKUNARIJuan Catlett
ERÉNDIRA IKIKUNARI
Mexico, 2006,
35mm, 117 minThis is an action film about the conquest of Mexico by the Europeans in the XVI century. It tells the story of a young Indian woman who stole a horse from the Spanish conquerors and used against them, defending her people. An exceptional girl that showed astounding uprightness and courage in face of the invasion of her land. A warrior woman that fought to attain the dignity and respect that her culture only granted men. This still is, unfortunately, a very common situation today.
Juan Catlett
Born in México 1949. He studied film at the Fine Arts Academy in Prague Czechoslovakia. He has directed documentaries and features. Among other awards he has received the “Great special award of the Jury, VII Latin-American Film Festival, Trieste, Italy”, The Columbus award in Huelva’s IX Ibero-American Film Festival, Spain and two Mexican Film Academy Awards. He received a John Simon Guggenheim memorial foundation fellowship (1986) and grants from the John D. & Catherine T. Macarthur foundation (1998) and U.S./Mexico fund for culture (Bancomer-Rockfeller-Fonca) in 1997. In 1994 Mexico’s National Council of the Arts and Culture awarded him admittance to the Membership of Mexico’s “National System of Art Creators”. He teaches at the University Center of Film Studies, National Autonomous University of Mexico and at the Center for Film Training of the National Council of the Arts and Culture. - Mike Bohusz / GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILMS
Mike Bohusz
GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILMS
USA, 2006,
DigiBeta, 88 minThe film will feature clips from the horror film subgenre, which has experienced a popular resurgence in recent years. Going to Pieces provides a comprehensive look at the importance, prominence and newfound legitimacy of the horror film genre, specifically “slasher” films. The feature-length documentary contains interviews with pre-eminent actors, directors and producers, special effects masters, composers and experts, many of whom are considered founders and gurus of the genre. Interspersed in the film are some of the most memorable scenes from classic films of the genre, as well as many current box-office favorites. The documentary is based on the book of the same title by Adam Rockoff.
Mike Bohusz
Works as an editor and director for film and TV. 2001 winner of the Screamfest film festival. Worked on TV series BET’s Comicview (1992), The Way We Do It (2001) and 1st Amendment Stand Up (2005). Films: Uninvited (1993) and Shoot It (1997).Paul Cronin / IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE IMAGEPaul Cronin
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE IMAGE
Velika Britanija / UK, 2006,
HDV, 200 minPaul Cronin’s mesmerizing docu is a long, continually surprising film about a remarkable Englishman who turned his back on film. A debonair, charismatic workaholic, Whitehead, now nearly 70, is a dream subject: as an independent-minded cameraman in 1960s London, he recorded key moments of cultural upheaval with an eye as keen as his intellect…
Paul Cronin
Born in London in 1972. His documentary “Look Out Haskell, It’s Real!”: The Making of Medium Cool (2001), about Haskell Wexler’s 1969 feature Medium Cool, was broadcast on the BBC, PBS, and the Sundance Channel. His other films include Film as a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16 (2003) and Sooner or Later (2007). He is the editor of several volumes, including interview books with Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, and Roman Polanski. He also edited On Film-making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director, the collected writings of British director Alexander Mackendrick, and produced Mackendrick on Film (2004), an eight-hour educational documentary based on the book. Currently he is working on books about David Mamet and Abbas Kiarostami, and a book about production sound recording.Mimi Freedman / BRANDOMimi Freedman
BRANDO
USA, 2007,
DigiBeta, 166 minThe new documentary features never-before-seen footage of the enigmatic and unparalleled screen icon, with a star-studded roster of interviews including; Martin Scorsese, Edward Norton, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Jane Fonda, Dennis Hopper, James Caan, Angie Dickinson, John Travolta, Jon Voight and many others. The unmistakable voice, striking good looks, the eccentric personality – and the complex inner life they cloaked: TCM sifts through the mystery behind one of Hollywood’s most-respected and celebrated practitioners of the art and craft of acting in BRANDO. The film investigates the challenges he faced in almost every personal and working relationship throughout his life: the hatred toward his hard-to-please, womanizing father and the sadness for his alcoholic mother; the repeating pattern of determined pursuit of a woman who interested him and, once he captured her heart, the inexplicable distance and rejection that always followed; the disagreeable on-set behavior in the 1960s that led almost every major studio and prominent filmmaker to reject him until he staged a comeback with The Godfather (1972); and the rift he caused with the Academy when he sent a representative to reject his Best Actor win at the annual awards ceremony because of what he considered Hollywood’s persecution of Native Americans.
Mimi Freedman
This is her second film for Turner Classic Movies. In 2005 she wrote, produced and directed TCM’s critically acclaimed Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool. Mimi found a filmmaking niche for herself in the field of Hollywood history after receiving her masters degree in Film History, Theory and Criticism from UCLA. Since then she has created more than fifty non-fiction films, television specials and series episodes for A&E Biography, Lifetime Intimate Portrait and AMC’s Backstory and Hollywood Fashion Machine. Her credits range from AMC’s Small Steps, Big Strides: The Black Experience in Hollywood to NBC’s Fifty Years of NBC Late Night. Other past projects include the Jewish Image Award-winning Backstory: Gentleman’s Agreement and the A&E Biography Charlie Sheen: Born To Be Wild, which received a Prism Award for its accurate portrayal of drug and alcohol addiction. Mimi started her career in the opera business, working as a director and stage manager before making the transition to film and television. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan.Elio Gelmini / ANGER MEElio Gelmini
ANGER ME
Canada, 2006,
DigiBeta, 72 minThis documentary is the story of the life, literary and motion-picture accomplishments of Kenneth Anger, a pivotal figure in the history of experimental film. An innovator and a pioneer, he literally blazed his own trail. Considered to be one of the major personalities of the 1960’s and 1970’s underground art scene, Kenneth defined himself as a “cinematographic magician” and his “cinema” as a ritualistic form. Anger’s films have taken audiences places where only great film poets can arrive. In 1947 in Los Angeles, while his parents were away, young Kenneth took his family’s film camera and shot a short, dramatic film entitled “Fireworks”, which is now considered one of the seminal works of experimental film. Expressive, imagistic, sexually charged, and made with the help of friends (and apparently without a script), “Fireworks” brought to the screen an unconstrained vision and an almost unbelievable candor. Kenneth Anger also led in the field of visualization of homo-erotic imagery. “Fireworks” was a film that went beyond maturity and sexual conscience – an extraordinary event considering that it was made in 1947. Kenneth did not cross over to commercial cinema. Throughout his career he has been completely devoted to uncompromising expression. Since the 1960’s, Kenneth Anger’s films have been the subject of many books, film panels and film theory courses. Although he has never made a commercial music video, he has been known as the “Godfather of MTV”.
Elio Gelmini
Born in 1959 in Casagiove, Caserta, Italy. He has written, produced and directed documentaries and experimental films with his own “A Few Step Productions” and later on with “SegnaleDigitale”. After studying Acting and Documentary Film Studies and working as an actor in a theatre in Italy, he emigrated to Canada in 1989. His work covers a wide range of social and artistic issues and has been screened at various local and international film festivals. Filmography: Anger Me 2006, O Solitude 2003, Asesinados 1999, This Is Chiapas 1999, Let’s Talk About Politics 1996, Borders 1995, Enlightened Pockets 1991, A Bit of Time 1988, Dreaming Pills 1987.Marc Hoeferlin / SHOOTING GHOSTS - THE MAKING OF GHOSTSMarc Hoeferlin
SHOOTING GHOSTS – THE MAKING OF GHOSTS
Velika Britanija / UK, 2006,
HDV, 64 minHaving finished his film degree at university, Marc Hoeferlin tracks down documentary film-maker Nick Broomfield at a film festival with the hope of getting to work with him on his next film, ‘Ghosts’. 6 weeks later he gets a call and is asked to shoot the making-of ‘Ghosts’, a feature film about illegal Chinese immigrants in the UK, their standard of living, and their tragic death at Morecambe Bay in February 2004. Originally planned as a 20 minute featurette, ‘Shooting Ghosts’ developed into a film of its own, chronicling Broomfield’s unorthodox style of making ‘Ghosts’ and looks into the issues raised in the film by following him through his initial research trips, casting, and filming. The cast of ‘Ghosts’ are all non-actors and real life Chinese immigrants, from the lead actress who had been smuggled to the UK and had to send her son back home to China, to the lead actor thinking he is a better director than Nick.
Marc Hoeferlin
He studied film at the University of Wales, Newport. In his final year he made his graduation film in Northern Uganda, focusing on issues which surrounded the war, which at that point had been raging for 18 years. Nearing the end of his degree and looking for opportunities to work within the film industry, Marc attended the Hay-on-Wye festival in Wales to see Nick Broomfield give a talk on his work. A great admirer of Broomfields work, Marc handed him a copy of his graduation film in the hope he would get the chance to work on Nicks next film. He was offered the chance make a ‘making of’ film following Broomfields film. This film became ‘Shooting Ghosts – the making of Ghosts’.Filmography: Shooting Ghosts – the making of Ghosts (2006); Night Commuters: Children of Northern Uganda (2005)
Ken Jacobs / TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURESKen Jacobs
TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES
SAD / USA, 2006,
DigiBeta, 90 minThis film was originally part of Jacobs’ so-called Nervous System performances and was first screened in 1990. The Nervous System performances made use of two projectors and the necessary 3-D and other optical effects and were by definition unique and once-only thanks to the improvisations of the operator Ken Jacobs himself. In 1989, two of his friends died in quick succession (albeit alienated from each other): Bob Fleischner, film maker and founder of the Collective for Living Cinema, and Jack Smith, the most legendary of all New York avant-garde film makers. Jacobs had especially worked very closely with Smith and thanks to their cooperation he had a treasure trove of film material by the two artists. Two Wrenching Departures provides insight into the early years of the New York new cinema in a way that makes the visual opulence and whimsicality of it tangible. Visual vibrations from a cosmic time. Jacobs has worked in recent years as the digital librarian of his own film performances that were legendary thanks to the surprising quality of the often one-off work that most people, even connoisseurs of the New York avant-garde, only know from standard works or second-hand. The digital versions not only make these films accessible, they keep them accessible. That is Cinema Regained. The present version premiered in 2006 in the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMa).
Ken Jacobs
Rođen 1933. godine u Brooklynu, New York. Filmsku karijeru započinje 1955. godine. Studirao je slikarstvo u klasi Hansa Hoffmana, 1956-57. Osnivač je Millenium Film Workshop, New York, 1966-68; započinje studij filma na Državnom sveučilištu New York (S.U.N.Y.), Binghamton, 1969; predaje film 1974-2000; izabran u počasno zvanje posebno istaknuti profesor filma, 2000-
Born, 1933, Brooklyn, New York. Started making films, 1955. Studied painting under Hans Hofmann, 1956-57. Created/Directed The Millennium Film Workshop, N.Y.C.1966-68; started Dept. of Cinema at S.U.N.Y. at Binghamton, 1969; Professor of Cinema1974-2000; Distinguished Prof. of Cinema, 2000-
William E. Jones / V.O.William E. Jones
V.O.
USA, 2006,
Beta SP, 59 minIn a variation on what DJs call a “mash-up,” director William E. Jones combines segments of sound from classic foreign language films with segments of picture from gay porn films produced before 1985, making decisions based upon the length of the segments rather than their content. The somewhat arbitrary juxtaposition of diverse “found” materials often yields surprisingly appropriate results. v. o. suggests a new narrative space and pays tribute to a former era of gay life and cinephilia. The abbreviation of the title stands for version originale, a French term used to denote films exhibited theatrically in their original languages with subtitles, as opposed to dubbed. v. o. includes dialogue in English, Finnish, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
William E. Jones
Lives and works in Los Angeles. Like several other remarkable U.S. documentarians who came to the fore in the nineties, Jones studied at Cal Arts. Before film school he attended Yale in 1985, and also spent time in Paris studying film theory and watching movies. Returning home to figure out what to do, he realised that the last place he wanted to spend the rest of his life was the Ohio town where he grew up. Jones teaches at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and at Cal State L.A. in East Los Angeles. He maintains a website featuring his photography work: www.shiftlessbody.com. He has been a fan of The Smiths since 1984.Sarah Payton & Chris Teerink / IN THE SHADOW OF THE LIGHTSarah Payton / Chris Teerink
IN THE SHADOW OF THE LIGHT
Netherlands, 2007,
DigiBeta, 93 min‘Documentary… it’s when somebody makes a film on a certain subject with the intention of revealing, telling everything about it that is important. It is the kind of film I hate.’ So says Jonas Mekas somewhere in the middle of this film, which is more document than documentary. Don’t expect introductions or explanations or facts (for example, that Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in Lithuania, moved to New York after WWII, is considered to be the godfather of American avant-garde films and the inventor of the diary film, is the founding father and artistic director of Anthology Film Archives, etc). This is not a standard biography. Jonas wanders the hallways and rooms of his archive, or holds court at the round table in his room. Around him the work of Anthology goes on: archive, cinema, meeting place, and as one worker tells, home for lost film rolls. A young Italian student arrives to research the films by Harry Smith. Two programmers prepare for the Joseph Cornell centenary. Boxes are opened, treasures are discovered. Films are screened. Days and nights pass, visitors come and go. Old friends arrive, drink wine and recite poetry. In passing we hear small fragments of history. The camera stays close by, sometimes awkwardly. A film about love for the moving image, in particular the small, fragile, independent work which Anthology preserves and promotes, and which Jonas Mekas himself personifies.
Sarah Payton
Born in 1967, USA. She lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied critical theory at Oberlin College (Ohio), and documentary filmmaking at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England. Her films include: ‘No Place Like Home’ (short, 1999); ‘A Place To Be’ (short, 2000); ‘Living Here’ (short, 2005, co-dir Chris Teerink); ‘In the Shadow of the Light’ (2007, co-dir Chris Teerink).Chris Teerink
Born in 1966, the Netrherlands. He is a filmmaker and editor living and working in Amsterdam. He studied visual art at the Academy for Art and Industry (Enschede) and documentary filmmaking at the Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam. His films include ‘Ceci n’est pas une voiture’ (short, 1991); ‘Exil’ (short, 1995); ‘Amstelland’ (short, 1996); ‘Life and Death in an American desert’ (short, 2002); ‘Songs Along a Stony Road’ (short, 2003); ‘Mojave’ (short, 2004); ‘Living Here’ (short, 2005, co-dir Sarah Payton); ‘In the Shadow of the Light’ (2007, co-dir Sarah Payton).Sam Pollard / AMERICAN MASTERS: JOHN FORD / JOHN WAYNE: THE FILMMAKER AND THE LEGENDSam Pollard
AMERICAN MASTERS: JOHN FORD / JOHNE WAYNE: THE FILMMAKER AND THE LEGEND
USA, 2006,
HDCAM, 87 minThe enduring relationship between two of the biggest names in Hollywood history is explored in this 2006 documentary. Produced for PBS’s American Masters series, the film combines interviews with clips from the fourteen films the John Ford and John Wayne collaborated on, tracing their friendship through such ups and downs as World War II, the McCarthy era and when the Wayne’s star eventually eclipsed Ford’s.
Sam Pollard
His professional accomplishments as a feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director span almost thirty years. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton’s Blackside production Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crosswords. For one of his episodes in this series, he received an Emmy. Between 1990 and 2000, Mr. Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee’s films: Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers, Bamboozled, and collaborated on several documentary productions for the small and big screen.
Mr. Pollard began this journey in 1972 as an apprentice in a WNET-sponsored film-training workshop. His feature experience as an editor started in the mid- 1970s with films like Just Crazy About Horses, Body and Soul, Private Resort and Style Wars. In between films, throughout the 1980s, he edited for the highly acclaimed children’s programs NBC’s Vegetable Soup and The Children’s Television Workshop’s 3-2-1-Contact for which he received two Emmys. His other works include Fires in the Mirror, a performance art film directed by George Wolfe and The American Experience documentary called Goin’ Back to T-Town. He teaches Advanced Video Editing at the Tisch School of Arts at NYU.
- Mirabelle Ang / MATCH MADE
Mirabelle Ang
MATCH MADE
Singapur / Singapore, 2006,
DV PAL, 48 minEach day, men from various parts of Asia make a stop in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where they embark on their search for a perfect match. Match Made trails the steps of a Singaporean man in his pursuit for a virgin bride in Saigon. Using verité footage and interviews, Match Made offers a glimpse into the intricate network of the buying and selling of women as brides from villages around Saigon.
Mirabelle Ang
She graduated from California Institute of the Arts in May 2006 with an MFA in Film & Video. She is born in Singapore, with an inquisitive mind that has led her to explore various walks of life, a challenge she relishes. Currently based in Los Angeles, she is making plans for her next documentary.Andrew Berends / WHEN ADNAN COMES HOMEAndrew Berends
WHEN ADNAN COMES HOME
USA, 2006,
DVD, 74 minSixteen-year-old Adnan Ghazi’s life was ruined by a tragic sequence of events that landed him in Iraq’s criminal justice system under foreign occupation. At the end of 2003, Adnan was arrested for stealing two meters of electric cable. This type of crime is widespread throughout the country. Cable is looted and melted down for scrap metal, hindering efforts toward reconstruction. It is considered a serious crime against the state. He risks his life and freedom for a couple of dollars worth of scrap metal … and loses.
Andrew Berends
Lives in Brooklyn, New York, USA. At Storyteller Productions, he focuses on the art of storytelling in documentary film, narrative film, and documentary photography.Braun Netalie / METAMORPHOSISBraun Netalie
METAMORPHOSIS
Israel, 2006,
DVCAM, 57 minThis film is based on testimonies of women who have experienced rape or incest, and of Greek myths of rape that results in metamorphosis. Arachne, the narrator of the film, is a mythological figure who was transformed into a spider by the gods as punishment for spinning their acts of rape into webs. In the film, Arachne spins the testimonies alongside the mythological stories of rape as one cultural continuum, creating a web which is a powerful and profound indictment. Netalie Braun attempts to locate a forgotten voice, to tell the story from the inside, to allow a space for a narrative that is difficult to hear and which illuminates the rotten outline of culture.
Netalie Braun
Born in Israel, 1978. Netalie Braun wrote and directed 2 short fiction films: The Last Supper (2004), Core (2005) and one documentary Metamotphosis (2006). She published a poetry book [Kill and Breath]. She received her B.A in Comparative Literature and Philosophy, Tel-Aviv University and M.A in Film studies, Tel-Aviv University. She studied Theater Directing studies in ‘The Chamber Theater School. She is teaching in Tel-Aviv University, Film Department.Enrica Colusso / ABC COLOMBIAEnrica Colusso
ABC COLOMBIA
Italy, France, 2007,
DVCAM, 88 minA school lost in the jungle, in a zone controlled by the paramilitary and not far from the FARC guerrilla. The children who attend classes have already left their childhood behind. Opposite the children is the schoolmistress. Tired and weary of the killings, of a useless education, of risking her life for a pittance, she hangs on to her mission with unflagging energy. In a seemingly lawless world, she gives the keys for survival and understanding… to the camera and the children. In this combat, however isolated she might be, any new awareness gained stands as a victory.
Enrica Colusso
Born in Rome, in 1962. She studied in Paris (Varan, Atelier de Réalisation Cinématographique) and London (National Film and Television School), where she lives now. Documentaries: ABC Colombia; No risk, No champagne!; Scusi, dov’é il documentario? (2003); Umberto Eco, Renaissance man (2002); The Solitude of Memory (2000); Mafia Women (1997); Fine Pena Mai – Life after Life (1995); Non é vero ma ci credo (1992); The Restoration of the Leopard (1991); Sisters (1989); 41bis, Quai de la Loire (1988).Marcel Czombos / IS IT HEARD?Marcel Czombos
¿SE ESCUCHA?
Argentina / Argentina, 2005,
Beta SP, 53 minA family travels in a cart the 120 kilometres between its original home and Resistencia, the Chaco capital. Chaco is by far one of the poorest provinces in Argentina. Illegal occupants of land -squatters- give testimony of their dignity and poverty. An official accepts the director’s challenge to go round the settlements. A geologist, an intellectual and a robbery form this entangled ride, in a documentary film that resembles Brecht.
Marcel Czombos
Born in May 1974 in southern Chaco (Argentina). Following the university study of Social Communication, in 1994, together with his brother Yoni he made his first documentary “Nuestra identidad” (“Our identity”), winning the First Prize in a competition organized by Chaco Sub Ministry of Culture and sponsored by INCAA (National Film and Visual Arts Institute). Marking the anniversary of the first 100 years of cinema, in 1995 they released the documentary “A 100 años del nacimiento del duende” (“100 years after the birth of the goblin”). In September 1996 they received the “Second Mention” for the documentary “Chaco Aborigen” (“Aboriginal Chaco”) in Buenos Aires Second Young Art Biennial. In 1999, Marcel started studying at “Fundación Universidad del Cine” (Film University Foundation) in Buenos Aires. Between 1999 and 2003, Marcel worked for GP Productions in Buenos Aires as director of TV programmes. Currently the Czombos brothers are working on a new documentary “Chamame que se eleva” (Chamame that raises up).Lidia Kazen / SICK LOVELidia Kazen
CHORA MILOŚĆ
Poljska / Poland, 2007,
Beta SP, 55 minThis is a story of a woman who had to kill, to be free…
She was 13 when she got involved in a relationship with an adult man. The tragedy happened when she was already of age. She killed her „fiancé” and buried his body under the floor of her own house. People around thought the „fiancé” left… Ewa got married, finished studies, gave birth to a child. On the “grave” of her fiancé, she prepared a play corner for her little daughter… After four years, the policemen managed to solve the crime. Ewa told them in details about the horror she had to go through as a child. About the years of fear, violence and tears. She was sentenced only to four years of prison and she still dreams of coming back to her husband and their little daughter. However, fate was cruel to her again …
Lidia Kazen
Born in 1976 in Myślenice. Education:
2001-2003 – Television Directing Department, The National Film School in Łódź; 1997-2001 – Faculty of Management and Social Communication at the Jagiellonian University; specialization: journalism; graduated with M.A.; 1996 – 1997 – Faculty of Chemistry at the Jagiellonian University; specialization: environmental protection; 1996 – graduated Adam Mickiewicz’s Secondary School no. 6 in Cracow;
Professional experience: 2005-2006 – „X files – cold cases” (tv series), TVN production – direction, script, producer; 2004 – documentary film „The mafia people” TVN production – direction, script; 2004 – „The mafia people” (TV series), TVN production – direction (episodes: 1-5, 8-9), script (episodes: 1-5, 8-9); 2003 – documentary film „I was a woman…”, TVP 2 production – direction, script; 2002 – „The rules of the game” (tv series), TVN production – direction; 2001 –documentary film „You’ve been sold…”, TVP 2 production – direction, script; 2001 – „Angels” (TV series), TVP 1 production – directing cooperation; 2000 – „The clinic of miracles”, (TV series), TVP 1 production – directing cooperation, script;1999 – 1998 – „The first scream” (TV series), TVP1 production – directing cooperation, 1997 – 2001 – reporter for TVN reporters’ magazine „Superwizjer”
1997 – journalist and reporter for the news program “Fakty TVN”, South department
Mano Khalil / DAVIDE TOLHILDANMano Khalil
DAVIDE TOLHILDAN
Switzerland, 2006-2007,
Beta SP, 54 minDAVID THE TOLHILDAN
A portrait of David Rouiller, a young Swiss man who joined the Kurdish freedom movement six years ago. Rouiller, the son of a university Professor and a former President of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, gave up a comfortable and safe existence in Switzerland, and the amenities of a western lifestyle, to commit his life and strength to the ideals of the Kurdish freedom fight. Is he an adventurer, a dreamer, an idealist, a hero? Is his commitment visionary or illusory? The film “David the Tolhildan” encourages viewers to confront their own outlook on oppression, respect, human dignity, freedom and violence. It also provides an impressive, realistic and up-to-date view of the current situation of the Kurdish freedom movement.
Mano Khalil
Rođen 1964. u Kurdistanu, Sirija. 1981-86 studij povijesti i prava na Sveučilištu u Damasku. 1986-94 studij filmske režije u bivšoj Čehoslovačkoj. Od 1996. godine živi u Švicarskoj.
Filmografija: 1988 Oh World / 1989 My Pain, my Hope / 1990 Embassy / 1991 Oh Father / 1992 My God / 1993 The Place where God Sleeps / 1995 Kinoeye (kratki filmovi) / 1998 Triumph of Iron (dokumentarni film) / 2003 Bunte Träume (igrani film) / 2005 Al-Anfal – “Im Namen von Allah, Baath und Saddam” / Davîdê Tolhildan (dokumentarni filmovi)
Born in 1964 in Kurdistan, Syria.. 1981-86 Studies in History and Law at Damascous University. 1986-94 Studies in fiction film direction in the former Czechoslovakia. Since 1996 residence in Switzerland.
Filmography: 1988 Oh World / 1989 My Pain, my Hope / 1990 Embassy / 1991 Oh Father / 1992 My God / 1993 The Place where God Sleeps / 1995 Kinoeye (all short films) / 1998 Triumph of Iron (documentary) / 2003 Bunte Träume (fiction) / 2005 Al-Anfal – “Im Namen von Allah, Baath und Saddam” / Davîdê Tolhildan (both documentaries)
Sergei Loznitsa / BLOKADASergei Loznitsa
BLOKADA
Russia, 2005,
35 mm, 52 minBLOCKADE
The images consist of the only material about the siege of Leningrad during the World War II that Sergei Loznitsa found in the Moscow archives. Accompanying the originally silent images with a meticulously reconstructed and almost perfect soundtrack, the scenes from everyday life under siege seem to be set in the present. Deciding not to interfere in the editing but giving the scenes room to tell a story, the scenes transcend the specific historic events and lead a new life. They do not evoke memories of the past, but become a breathtaking reanimation of reality.
Sergei Loznitsa
Born in 1964 in the former Soviet Union. After graduating in Applied Mathematics from the Kiev Polytechnic University (Ukraine), he entered the State Film School in 1991, where he studied direction. In 2000, he received a grant from the European Nipkow programme. His most recent films are Portrait (2002), Landscape (2003), Factory (2004) and Blockade (2005).Janet Merewether / JABE BABE (A HIGHTENED LIFE)Janet Merewether
JABE BABE (A HIGHTENED LIFE)
Australia, 2005,
DVCAM/16 mm, 52 minIt’s an unusual name for an unusual woman. She spent her first seven years with her schizophrenic mother (father unknown) before shuttling between foster families until she was a teenager. As an adult, she worked as a dominatrix in the sex industry, a career she enjoyed but eventually tired of. Her most striking feature is her extreme height – 188 centimetres – due to a genetic connective-tissue disorder called Marfan Syndrome. As well as growing abnormally tall, Marfan sufferers’ muscles and joints are susceptible to tearing and stretching. Babe had open-heart surgery at 17 when her aortic valve threatened to burst. She had been told her life expectancy was 25.
Janet Merewether
She is a film-maker and digital media artist and designer. Her award winning short films and videos, including Cheap Blonde, Contemporary Case Studies, and Short Before the Movie have screened in numerous festivals internationally, including the 2001 New York Film Festival, Tampere International Short Film Festival and the 2003 New Directors/New Films at MoMA New York. Her titles design work features in significant Australian films such as The Boys, Walking on Water, and The Diplomat. She has designed titles sequences for numerous short, documentary and feature films, and has designed motion graphics for Film Australia and SBS programmes such as Everyday Brave and Insight.Will Pascoe / NOAM CHOMSKY: REBEL WITHOUT A PAUSEWill Pascoe
NOAM CHOMSKY: REBEL WITHOUT A PAUSE
Canada, 2003,
Beta SP, 75 minLinguist, intellectual and activist, Noam Chomsky discusses and reflects on the state of world events including the War in Iraq, September 11th, the War on Terror, Media Manipulation and Control, Social Activism, Fear, and American Foreign Policy in both large forums and in small interactive discussions with other intellectuals, activists, fans, students and critics. Interwoven, is Dr. Carol Chomsky, Noam’s wife and manager who reflects on what drives Noam and what life is like with him. Other candid reflections about Noam Chomsky and his thoughts, work and influence are offered by others throughout the film.
Will Pascoe
He is a Canadian writer and director who is interested in both documentaries and dramatic films. As a writer, he currently has the World War One feature-film “Generals Die In Bed” and the romantic comedy feature-film “Charming Grace” in development. His documentary “Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause” was an official selection of the prestigious IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) in 2003, has played at several other festivals around the world, including the Amnesty International Film Festival and was broadcast nationally in Canada. His recent television credits include three episodes of the children’s series “Canada for Children” and the short film “Mesmerized” which has played at several festivals internationally. His comedy short film “Strum”, about the lives of four fast-food restaurant employees is currently playing at film festivals and has been broadcast nationally in Canada on Bravo! television. He is currently developing the live-action kids adventure show “The Misfits” for American television.Jawad Rhalib / EL EHIDO, THE LAW OF PROFITJawad Rhalib
EL EJIDO, LA LOI DU PROFIT
Belgium, 2006,
Beta SP, 80 minThe exploitation of immigrant agricultural workers in southern Spain, modern slavery that fills the plates of Europe. Today, the formerly-deserted region of Almeria in southern Spain produces one third of Europe’s winter consumption of fruits and vegetables and reaps two thirds of the country’s farm profits. This ‘economic miracle’ in a greenhouse relies on the labour of nearly 80.000 immigrants, half of whom do not have proper working papers. In a destroyed environment where the air is vitiated by pesticides and ground water is running out, the village of El Ejido illustrates, almost to the point of caricature, this industrial exploitation of men and the land encouraged by globalisation. Driss, Moussaid and Djibril are day-labourers there, working for a pittance and, as is the case with most of their peers, without a working contract. They stay in chabolas, small constructions made of cardboard and plastic, without water or electricity. Near-slavery that fills our plates…
Jawad Rhalib
Belgian of Moroccan origin, he studied communication, journalism, scenario-writing and realization. He then worked in Moroccan television, making a series of documentaries and short films concerning the problems of Moroccan society. In 1997, he returned to Belgium where he made the documentaries “Mama Tango” and “Beka”.Jiska Rickels / 4 ELEMENTSJiska Rickels
4 ELEMENTS
Netherlands, 2006,
35 mm, 89 minA poetic visual essay about man’s uneasy relationship with fire, water, earth and air, as seen through the experiences of firefighters in Siberia, king crab fisherman on the Bering Sea in Alaska, German mineworkers and Russian cosmonauts preparing a launch to the international space station.
Jiska Rickels
Born in 1977 in the Netherlands. Before studying at the Dutch Film & Television School in Amsterdam, she travelled the world performing in various music theatre productions. During her studies, she also attended the Academy of Television & Film (HFF/M) in Munich. Her films include: “Capoeira” (1999), “Mijn Paradijs” (2000), “Goetterdaemmerung” (2002), her award-winning graduation film “Untertage” (2003), and “Himmelfilm: How Were the Skies Like When You Were Young?”José Luis Torres Leiva / THE TIME THAT RESTSJosé Luis Torres Leiva
EL TIEMPO QUE SE QUEDA
Chile, 2007,
Mini DVCAM, 86 minThis is an atmospheric and contemplative portrait about the daily life in one of the oldest Psychiatric Hospitals in Chile. This is not a film about madness. It is a film about the passage of time passing in a specific place. The passage of time in simple things; in the faces, in the objects, in nature, in places, in details; in the humaneness of the people it portraits. This is a film in which all small visual and sound details become relevant.
José Luis Torres Leiva
A Chilean filmmaker born in 1975. He has made a considering amount of shorts and independent videos including “Ningún Lugar en Ninguna Parte” (No Place Nowhere, 2004), “Obreras saliendo de la fábrica” (Women Workers Leaving the Factory, 2005) and “El Tiempo Que Se Queda” (The Time That Rests, 2007). He is currently working on what will be his opera prima in fiction filmmaking: “El Cielo, la Tierra y la Lluvia” (The sky, the earth and the rain).Bruno Ulmer / WELCOME EUROPABruno Ulmer
WELCOME EUROPA
Francuska / France, 2006,
Beta SP, 90 minBruno Ulmer’s haunting, visually poetic portrait of a handful of young immigrants to Europe approaches the subject in a way that’s distinctive and ultimately quite devastating. Interweaving the story of several young Kurdish, Moroccan, and Romanian immigrants who come looking for work and a better life, Ulmer reveals a fascinating community of men who move around this Paradise Lost, somehow thinking that the next country will be better than the last. Once hoping to earn enough money to support their families at home, they are left destitute and struggle to survive–sleeping in boxes and abandoned cars, dealing with the police and discrimination, and falling into drugs and even prostitution.
Bruno Ulmer
Author, screenwriter, and director. He has completed several documentaries and books. His films include L’Arbre (2005), Petites Bonnes (2003), Casa Marseille Inch’Allah (2002), Les Sénégalais du Nord (2001), Les Arméniens de Marseille (2001), and Voyages en Méditerranée (2000). Ulmer’s literary credits include Petites Bonnes (2005) and Casa Marseille Inch’Allah (2004), which were both cowritten with Florent Mangeot. Ulmer is currently working on the documentary L’Air and writing a fictional feature with Jean-Paul Fargeau.Sun Xian / MR. SWANSun Xian
LAO YUAN
China, 2007,
DVCpro 50, 53 minLao Yuan is an ordinary farmer living by Rongcheng Swan Lake in northern China which is one of the four biggest swan lakes in the world. Over 30 years, he has always been coming to the lake each winter, inspecting and rescuing swans on his own saving. His voluntary act unexpectedly brings him an Environment protection Award from Ford Fund. As a result, Lao Yuan’s life is no longer living in peace: fellow farmers expected him to compensate for the wheat seedling eaten by the swans; the town government assumes an ambiguous attitude towards Lao Yuan’s act of swan protection. In face of the curious and complicated eyes around, Lao Yuan, with a Chinese farmer’s persistence and obstinacy, keeps on struggling for a bigger living space for swans. Over three years, filmmaker Sun Xian follows Lao Yuan who has continued 30 years battle against fellow farmers and villagers as well as pollution and environmental hazards to save the swans of Rongcheng Lake District.
Sun Xian
Born in October 1966, in Weihai, Shandong province, China. He graduated from the Department of Arts, Qufu Normal University, in July 1990 with a major in Oil Painting. He started working in film and television production in 1996. He is now working as a manager, independent producer and director in Shandong Weihai Film Art Communication Centre, China. Mr Swan (2007) is his debut documentary film. In recent years, he has also been working on a documentary series about wild birds in China. - Ben Wheele / THOSE CRAZY INSIDES
Ben Wheele
THOSE CRAZY INSIDES
UK, 2008, DigiBeta, 16:9, 7 min 26 secDeep in the recesses of an exotic netherworld, mischievous events take place. Submerged into the depths of imagination itself, a declassification of logic commences – things slip out of their systems and typologies altogether to co-inhabit a new digestible and diaphanous reality. Succulent and bizarre, gentle yet dangerous, ‘Those Crazy Insides’ is a sci-fi nature documentary of what really might be ‘inside’.
Ben Wheele
Grew up in Ditchling, a small village near Brighton in the UK. He is currently studying Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University and lives and works in Nottingham.
His film Her Lovely fears was screened at several international festivals.Peque Varela / 1977Peque Varela
1977
UK, 2007, 16:9, 8 min 15 secA small town, a growing knot and a girl searching for her identity.
Peque Varela
I grew up in Ferrol, a small town off the coast of Galicia, Spain. There I spent my school days doodeling and from the moment my dad came home with a videocamera I could not stop filming my family and making short videos with friends. Looking to broaden my horizons, when I was 19 I decided to go to London for three months…that was ten years ago. I graduated in 2001 in Contemporary Media Practice at the University of Westminster, a degree that involved photography,video, film and digital image. That gave me the opportunity to have an overview of the different approaches to film making and I decided that the world of Animation was the one that most suited my ideas and that also allowed me to develop my graphic skills. I spent the following years gaining more experience by working in different roles on a number of animation and live action films. I then joined the NFTS where I have concentrated on developing my storytelling and broadening my animation skills. I have also benefited from the help of my mentor Phil Mulloy and had the opportunity to animate and direct two art breaks for MTV.Nana Swiczinsky / LEZZIEFLICKNana Swiczinsky
LEZZIEFLICK
Austrija, 2008, 35 mm, 1:1.33, 7 minA deconstructive remix of stereotypical representations of lesbian sex in hetero porn. The body forms become fluid, continually changing, and the women no longer appear to be available as the passive object of voyeuristic desire. The content of the image as well as the usual position of the subject are shifted. The material of the film appears to dissolve in satisfaction. Is there such thing as beautiful ‘hardcore’ camera work?
Nana Swiczinsky
1969 born in Vienna. 1985-89 studies (graphic design). 1989-95 studies and diploma at the Academy of Applied Arts (painting and animation). 1989-91 court-drawer for newspaper “AZ”. Since 1990 member of ASIFA Austria. Since 1991 freelance-illustrator for printmedia and advertising. 1993 contribution at the “Trans-European Animation Marathon” of Folimage-Studios in Valence, France. 1993-94 studies at the “Institut St. Luc” in Brussels. Teaches “character animation”. Since 1996 Postgraduate-studies at the Academy for Media in Cologne.Branko Schmidt / BAD BLUE BOYSBranko Schmidt
PANJ PUN OLOVA
Croatia, 2007, IMX, 28 minThis film speaks about the impossibility of Croatian war veterans to socialise into today Croatian society, due to the fact that in Croatia – a country in transition in which the unscrupulous capitalism rules, only a few understand their illness and their needs.
Film tells a story about a man 35-years-old, married, with three children. He joined Croatian Army at the very beginning of war, and was not discharged until the very end. He is now unemployed, lives in Zagreb with his family and is trying to live like other people, but… This film is conceived as his intimate confession.
Together with two fellow veterans, left only to themselves (and the negligence of the society and government), he does things that to ordinary people seem bizarre and crazy, which help them find their peace and at least give them the appearance of “normal” Croatia citizens.
Branko Schmidt
Born in 1957 in Osijek, Croatia. After studying Economics, he enrols the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, Film and TV Directing Department. In 1981 he directs his graduating film – TV play “Early Maturing of Marko Kovac”, which was noticed by both film critics and filmmakers. Next year he directs TV play “Hildegard” which was pronounced best TV play in ex-Yugoslavia.
In 1988 he directs his first full-length feature film “Hawk Did Not Love Him” based on the play by the same name written by Fabijan Sovagovic. For this film he received award as the Best Debutant at Pula Film Festival.
He directed many TV plays, documentaries, and TV series from children “Operation: Barbarossa” (1989) based on novel by renown Croatian writer Ivan Kusan.
In the 1990-ties he directs four feature films: “Djuka Begovic” (1991), “Vukovar is Going Home” (1994), “Christmas in Vienna” (1997) which was awarded for the Best Screenplay in Pula Film Festival; and “Heart is not Trendy” (1999)
His feature film “Queen of the Night” (2001) received two Golden Arenas at Pula Film Festival: for the Best Screenplay and the Best Production.His last feature film “Melon Route” (2006) was awarded at several festivals and screened at many more.
He is now working on a new feature film “Metastases”.Christian Schleisiek / NIGHT GAS STATIONChristian Schleisiek
NACHTTANKE
Germany, 2007, DV, 16:9, 6 min 44 secThis film plays with time and breaks with conventional vision.
Everything starts as it ends; but why did it start?
Everything is as it seems to be, and yet different to how you think.
One thing is for sure: the clock is ticking. backwards.Christian Schleisiek
Christian Schleisiek (1980) worked as an assistant director, screenwriter and producer. Apart from ‘Night Gas Station’ / ‘Nachttanke’ he directed another short ‘Wohnen nach Wunsch’ and animated short ‘Raubbau’.Sackl Albert / STEIFHEIT I + IISackl Albert
STEIFHEIT I + II
Austria, 1997 – 2007, 16 mm, 1:1.37, 6 minThe man in this film beats off, in private, while at the same time pointing the camera at himself and addressing an off-screen outsider. It must be put simply: Sackl doesn’t point just the camera, but his dick too, at us, the viewers, the outsiders, at me, a member of the theatre audience. Why? The environment: a non-environment, a black room which isolates his body from its natural environment. This artificial non-space creates distance, both for and from the viewer, in other words between Sackl and me, and for him, from his mise-en-scene, his presentation of himself. As a result Sackl alters his position and places himself at our disposal: the unavoidable struggle with and for the permission to be horny, supposing to be, being able to be, wanting to be or having to be, and the insatiable need to put himself on display. The two unedited scenes, made ten years apart, were shot in single frames. Time lapse condenses the four hours of footage into three minutes of projection time.
STEIFHEIT I. Cut. Ten years later. STEIFHEIT II. The same setup, postures, movements. Sackl repeats his actions, though at the same time he seems to be someone else. The nonchalance, playfulness, and the vanity also, have been pushed into the background. STEIFHEIT I shows Sackl as he presents himself and intends to present himself. STEIFHEIT II shows us Sackl demonstrating the act of self-presentation to himself. The distance from the figure being presented is increased as a result of this intervention, the temporal shift and possibly the personal development of the individual Albert Sackl.
Stiffness. This is lost at the end of the second part. Sackl just sits there, waiting-rattled, annoyed, thinking. When an individual takes their place on a stage, they make their own demand, their need vulnerable. Why?Albert Sackl
Born 1977 in Graz. Films since 1994. Since 1995 studies philosophy and art history in Vienna, since 1997 studies film with Peter Kubelka in Frankfurt.Roisz Billy / NOT STILLBilly Roisz
NOT STILL
Austrija, 2008, Beta SP, 4:3, 10 minIzvor zvuka i slike u filmu je gramofonska ploča. U početku dominira ponavljajući sample zvuka grebanja gramofonske igle. Dok je promatrač zatočen u zvuku elektronskih glazbenika, dieba13 i eRikma, video umjetnik Billy Roisz prikazuje višestruko povećane slike brazda na ploči, i slike se iz mraka pojavljuju u kadru. Roisz koristi različite vrste kamera, uključujući i kameru koja mikroskopski prikazuje grubu i zrnatu površinu ploče, kako bi “osvijetlio” ploču (koja se često proglašava mrtvom) prodirući kamerom u pore ploče. Not Still stvara apstraktni vizualni krajolik u nijansama monokromatskih boja, od zelene do crvene, u kojem celuloidna slika izgara poput citata iz podzemnog svijeta. Izdvojeni motivi filmske glazbe iz klasičnih djela zavijaju u okruženju minimal techno zvuka, preklapajući se s glavnim motivom ploče, u svim njenim različitim vizualnim strukturama. VJ Roisz otvoreno zlorabi vlastiti materijal, baš kao i DJ svoje ploče. Roisz prikazuje kratke kadrove uvećanih filmova, dijelove animiranih i horor filmova, koji se nago prekidaju i nestaju. Poput seanse, na svim stupnjevima jačine izgaraju djelići sjećanja medijske povijesti i pop kulture. NOT STILL proizvodi sudar medija u jezivom, uznemirujućem i poetskom ugođaju.
Billy Roisz
Rođena 1967. godine, živi i radi u Beču. Specijalizirala se na područjima feedback videa, video/zvučne interakcije, te instalacija i live izvedbi. Njeni su instrumenti monitori, kamere, računalo, video i zvučne miksete i videosynth iz kućne izrade. Članica je dua NotTheSameColor (dieb13), projekta AVVA sa Toshimaruom Nakamurom, elektro-akustične grupe “efzeg” (Boris Hauf/Burkhard Stangl/Martin Siewert), skupine My Kingdom For A Lullaby (Michaela Grill/Martin Siewert/Christof Kurzmann), projekata “eh”, (dieb13/Burkhard Stangl), mixer betonker (Sarah Washington/Knut Aufermann/Xentos “Fray” Bentos) i Silly (Akoasma).Seppo Renvall / RETURN TO HUMANITYSeppo Renvall
PALUU IHMISYYTEEN
Finland, 2007, DV, 16:9, 4 min 16 secMade using found footage shot on a high speed camera, the work deals with industry, army, sports, and traffic. The music by Zape Leppänen is based on steam engine sounds.
Seppo Renvall
Born 1963 in Helsinki, Finland. Graduated 1989 from the Lahti Institute of Design. He has worked with photography, installations, happenings, films and videos since 1990. His works are shown widely around the world. Seppo Renvall is a founding member and the chairman of the Helsinki Filmmakers’ Co-op (founded 1989). He lives and works in Helsinki.Ale de la Puente / ...AFTER THE CALMNESS,Ale de la Puente
(…DESPUÉS DE LA CALMA,)
Mexico, 2008, HD, 16:9, 4 min 55 secAn after-party emotion when the confetti have to be swept and thrown away, when the remains of the party become garbage and the emotions could turn into the storm after the calm.
Ale de la Puente
Video artist, writer, industrial designer, with MA in Naval Architecture, Ale de la Puente generally deals with notions of time and memory through a continuous construction of poetic relations between interior/exterior and experiences given by space. De la Puente’s practice, combining conceptualism and multimedia supports, reveals a meticulous, even ritualistic process, with subtle and simple objects emerging from the apparently known. Ale de la Puente received the Pollock-Krassner Foundation Grant (1999-2000) and Jóvenes Creadores Grant, FONCA (1996-1997 and 2002-2003). She held a number of solo and group exhibitions, both in Mexico and internationally.Vyacheslav Prokopenko / CROWNVyacheslav Prokopenko
VINEC
Ukraine, 2007, DV, 4:3, 16 minSix billion people live on the planet and each one of them leads its own life. We are so different, so diverse. And each one of us is faced with the same question on the meaning of life, our purpose and death. And each one of us tries to find the answers to these eternal questions. The Man remains essentially weak and vulnerable, though he named himself the crown of creation.
Vyacheslav Prokopenko
Scriptwriter and director at Kiev movie studio, author of several feature and short television films. His films “Solidarity”, “I am – Kiev” and “Focus” have received awards at international festivals. - Sheldon Brown / SCALABLE CITY
Sheldon Brown
SCALABLE CITY
USA, 2007,
internet projectThe Scalable City uses a data visualization pipeline to create an increasingly urbanized environment. Each step in the pipeline builds upon the last, amplifying exaggerations, artifacts, and the patterns of its algorithmic process. The resulting visions of rapidly created cultural objects provide equal measures of delight and foreboding. The project neither indicts nor embraces this possible future, but heightens our aesthetic awareness of the underlying logic determining much of our shared existence. With assistance from: Alex Dragulescu, Erik Hill, Mike Caloud, Joey Hammer, Carl Burton, Daniel Tracy With support from: High Moon Studios, Intel, IBM, Sun, The Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, and Calit2 at UCSD.
Sheldon Brown
He is Director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA) at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), where he is a Professor of Visual Arts and the head of New Media Arts for the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technologies (Calit2). His work examines the relationships between mediated and physical experiences, and often exists in a variety of public realms. As an artist, he is concerned about overlapping and reconfiguring private and public spaces; how new forms of mediation proliferate co-existing public realms whose geographies and social organizations become ever more diverse. Art that explores schismatic junctions of these zones-the edges of their coherency-allows glimpses into their formative structures and suggests transformative modes of being, of extending constrained boundaries.http://crca.ucsd.edu/sheldon/
G.H. Hovagimyan / HD_RANTSG.H. Hovagimyan
HD_RANTS
USA, 2006,
Net PerformanceI am using myself to create a media object. I am becoming a digital object that can be duplicated, sampled, cut apart, endlessly multiplied and put back together. Part of this media identity is tied into the evolution of the digital language. Instead of using found copyrighted material, I am sampling myself. This can be seen in the latest rants. I use post-production editing to isolate words and gestures. I then cut them up and repeat them and assemble a music-like rhythmic rant. I also use some simple video color techniques; I solarize and posterize the image. This gives RANTAPOD the look and feel of early experimental video. It’s a retro look that has a certain hippie, flower child, techno-utopian aspect to it. The cut up sampling, duplication and remixing are all current techniques but using them in a political rant or a philosophical meditation is not. I have been using these techniques as an antidote to mass media and the music industry. It expands the lexicon of digital media.
G.H. Hovagimyan
He is an experimental digital artist working in a variety of forms. He was one of the first artists in New York to start working with the Internet in the early nineties. His work ranges from hypertext works to digital performance art and installations. His streamed video talk shows, Art Dirt and Collider explore and document the artists of the digital art scene at the time circa 1995-2000. In 1996 he began collaborating with Peter Sinclair a British artist who lives in Marseilles, France. Their collaborative works have been shown internationally in Europe and the US. In 1998 their work, A SoaPOPera for Laptops received a prize in the Computer Music category at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria. Recent awards include: 2003 fellowship from Experimental Television Center, 2003 TAM Digital Media Commissions, 2002 Artists Fellowship from Franklin Furnace, 2002 pilot artist in residence program from Eyebeam, NYC. He lives in New York City but is often in France which has become a second home. His vlog RANTAPOD http://spaghetti.nujus.net/rantapod is the first experimental video performance work made for iPods.Lena von Lapschina / 17 SECONDS ARTLena von Lapschina
17 SEKUNDEN KUNST
AUSTRIA, 2007,
Instalacija / InstallationFor years, Lena Lapschina has been filming everyday situations while travelling, which oscillate from the absurd to the banal. She uses this to make short videos that present in only 17 seconds art. The films all are dealing with art, but most of all with the perception of art. In the video “Once around the block” a man leaves a party in Vienna City to get some fresh air, takes off his clothes, runs once around the block and puts his clothes calmly back on. A quicker answer to the question “What is art?” is hardly imaginable.
Lena von Lapschina
Born in 1965 in Kurgan, Western Siberia. Graduated from the State Stroganow University of Fine and Applied Arts, Moscow. Lives and works as an artist in Austria.Filmography:
“Aufgenommene Landschaft” (“Absorbed Landscape”)
Premiere: Diagonale, Graz, 2007
“trance_siberia”
Premiere: MAK, Vienna, 2006
“1000 mm/ or The Bedroom Window”
Premiere: Kunsthalle Wien/Tanzquartier, 2005Michael Takeo Magruder / MONOLITH(S)Michael Takeo Magruder
MONOLITH(S)
UK, 2007,
internet projectIn Monolith[s], temporal and spatial dimensions of the viewer’s own immediate environment are absorbed and rearranged into a constantly evolving virtual realm in which icons of pre-history are juxtaposed with digitally complex refractions of how history materializes in the information age. The core geometry of the artwork is defined by a set of Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) files that generate a dynamic three-dimensional realm. The world and structures within it are formulated according to motifs and proportions of ancient architecture infused with fundamental mathematics of modern digital communication systems. Each genesis of the artwork’s geometry is unique, as mathematical randomization is augmented by aspects from our own realities. Variables such as the time of day, the viewer’s location on the Earth, and the position of the Earth around the sun are incorporated into the artwork, thus instilling into the realm functions of a rudimentary clock, global positioning system, and solar calendar. Every day at 00:00GMT a Java servlet deconstructs the live BBC internet news service and creates a database containing the website’s entire collection of news articles. From this database, 100 random news items (each represented by a text and an image file) are selected and used to create a server-side dataset that lasts until the next day. This dataset is called by Flash elements embedded within the VRML. These complex components, which are in a constant state of flux, overlay simple geometry and textures that evoke early virtual reality graphics, while the world’s soundscape is constructed from an amalgamation of the BBC’s live Internet radio service and spatialized sound loops.
Michael Takeo Magruder
He’s an American artist based in the UK deploying New and Technological Media within Contemporary Art contexts. He is a long-standing member of King’s Visualisation Lab located in the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London. His artworks have been showcased in over 160 exhibitions and 30 countries. His interests concern the simultaneous utilisation and dissection of new technologies as a means to explore the formal structures and conceptual paradigms of the digital realm. He seeks to create artworks in which there are no divisions between technologies, aesthetics, and concepts.Calin Man / JAM PACKCalin Man
JAM PACK
Romania, 2005,
internet projectreVoltaire archive | net.art_kit [hosted at http://revoltaire.projects.v2.nl] is remixed by the author in a pataphysical way, in order to create a random browser called JAM PACK.
Calin Man
Place of residence: Arad, Romania.
education: B.A. in literature, Timisoara University, Romania;
chief-editor and designer of intermedia magazine;
member of kinema ikon group.exhibitions [selection]:
2007 WRO 07, Wroclaw;
20th Stuttgarter Filmwinter;
Festival for Expanded Media 2006 Media Art Friesland Festival;
Streaming Festival {The Hague};
d>art06, Sydney; 2005
Site:Specific, W139 Gallery Amsterdam;
15th Videobrasil, Sao Paulo;
2003 presentation, Centre Pompidou, Paris;
The 50th Venice Biennale, Romanian pavilion;
2002 EMAF, Osnabrück;
2001 The 49th Venice Biennale, Romanian pavilion, context project;
VIPER, Basel;
2000 ISEA revelation, Paris;
1999 Contact Zones: The Art of the cd-rom, Cornell University, New York;
1998 ISEA revolution, Liverpool;
1997 OSTranenie, Bauhaus institute, Dessau;
1995 Retrospect kinema ikon, Centre Pompidou, Paris;
1994 Sao Paulo Biennial;awards:
2005 Honourable mention: project netarts.org 2005 by MCMGA Tokyo;
Best Net Art Project Award: Prog:ME, Rio de Janeiro;
2002 The JavaArtist of the Year Award;
2001 First place, FILE, Sao Paulo;
Recognition: CYNETart, Dresden; 2000
Second prize: INFOS 2000, Ljubljana;
Second place: FILE, Sao Paulo.Kenneth McMullen / ARROWS OF TIMEKenneth McMullen
ARROWS OF TIME
UK, 2007,
35mm, video, digital images, 60 minImagine a film that contains the following scenes: French philosopher Jacques Derrida reinterprets the characters of Oedipus and Antigone, explaining how their stories preempt a new cinema that will emerge in the 21st century; Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) physicists detail a camera that can capture minute slivers of time; German artist Joseph Beuys poses a confrontation between the written word and physical action; and striking reconstructions of John Milton’s, Jorge Luis Borges’s and Fernando Pessoa’s poems are spoken and performed by leading actors such as Henry and June’s Maria de Medeiros. All the while, cutting-edge practitioners of high-energy physics at SLAC are caught up in a crime story shot in Los Angeles in 1971 and revisited in 2006. Now imagine that all of these elements are thrown into dialogue during a live multimedia performance, edited in real-time as viewers watch and listen in astonishment. Director and artist Ken McMullen has amassed an impressive array of documentary footage of artists, philosophers and scientists. This material forms the basis for an elaborate timeline of ideas, images and sounds that contrasts new discoveries in high-energy physics with other distinct yet overlapping cultural developments in fields such as philosophy, poetry, film and video. Expect the unexpected.
Kenneth McMullen
He is a Film Director and Artist living currently in London. His Feature Films are distributed world wide, his Documentaries broadcast extensively and his Art Works exhibited in leading contemporary art galleries in Europe, The United States and the Far East. His recent art work ‘Skin Without Skin’ was awarded ‘The Prize for the Outstanding Work’ in a major International Exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Bejing, June 2001. He is an artist who became a filmmaker, and his films are both cinematic and painterly. He works intuitively and visually, yet his well researched films are grounded in philosophy, history, psychoanalysis and literature.Christina McPhee / LATENCY STRUCTURES (BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS )Christina McPhee
LATENCY STRUCTURES (BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS )
USA, 2007,
interactive audio/video installationThe Bonneville Salt Flats are a patchwork of the mythic American West, the dream of the perfect screen, and a ‘non-site’ in the classic Robert Smithson sense–a place that is invented on principle, out of nowhere, with displaced or ironic signifiers. Scientifically, the smooth Bonneville topography is an equipotential surface, with less than 0.2 m of variation across its entire area. The flats have been the site of experiments calibrating the precision of satellite-mounted lasers used to analyze upper atmosphere phenomena, like ice streams. Imperfect projections of a sublime West, the flats precipitate the latent human desire to modify a landscape that is otherwise completely indifferent to human intervention. Archived/live webcam feeds from the Center for Land Use Interpretation Remote Location montage with remote images of the flats, including archived footage and 3D satellite visualizations from Landsat and ICESat. On the ground, human adaptations abound: fearing terrorist attack, a regional water control facility is fenced in chainlink and barbed wire; bright green cache ponds distil potash crystals from the salt, while rusty pumps gush intermittent torrents from hidden groundwater; race car tracks leave residues of new salt crystal formation in their wake; and artists improvise Cartesian experiments, temporary inflatable shelters, and DIY real estate fantasies using GPS. Like a twenty-first century version of Ant Farm, the Flats go live through our evanescent, fleeting patches and modifications. In installation, humans build audio crescendos that trigger transparent latent delays in the video montage, as if to elaborate on our collective, extravagant experiments above and below the salt. Shot on location at GPS Expo, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, July 2006. http://christinamcphee.net/bonneville/rhodes_racer_bonnevilleGPS.htm
Christina McPhee
She explores the generative intersection of human memory structures, the sense of place, and environmental chaos, in video, installation, drawing, photography, sound, and networked media. La Conchita mon amour, on shrine building in the aftermath of a California mudslide, opened at Sara Tecchia Roma New York in 2006, and continues in 2007 with a 22 screen video installations for Thresholds/Wave Art Space, Perth (Scotland) and an eight channel installation for Break Festival 2.4, Ljubjana (Slovenia). On ‘seismic memory’, her project in video and digital print, Carrizo Parkfield Diaries, was on exhibition at the American University Museum/Katzen Art Center, Washington DC, June-July 2007. Videos and prints from the Diaries have also shown recently at the InteractivA07 Biennial, Merida, Mexico; Cartes Centre for Art and Technology, Espoo, Finland, with support from the American Scandinavian Foundation; Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden; Itau Cultural Center, Bela Horizonte, Brazil; and the Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California. Christina is based in Los Angeles and the central coast of California.Projectsinge group / MONKEY PARTYProjectsinge group
MONKEY PARTY
France, 2007,
installation, 30 to 60 minMonkey_Party is an interactive and randomly generated video DVD that uses consumer audio-video equipment (TV, DVD player, hi-fi .) to create an audiovisual “installation” at home. Monkey_Party bends and transforms common usage of these devices in order to create a world of adventure where sensation and views are never the same. This new audiovisual art form has installed itself into our daily lives in order to transform our relationship between sound and images. Within a multi-facetted universe that is constantly altered and recomposed, the six works of Monkey_Party are each exploring the themes of modification, displacement and transformation. Users participate in this creation through their interactions and motivation. With the help of a remote control, they can contact the images and sounds, manipulate them, transform them in order to shape Monkey_party and generate a unique work of art.
PROJECTSINGE GROUP
The projectsinge group (Montpellier-Paris–Brussels) is composed of Jean F Blanquet (sound artist), Florent Roussel (multimedia conceptor) and Jérôme Blanquet (director-graphic designer). For several years now projectsinge making use and modifying consumer audio and video equipment within their live performances. Since 1997 projectsinge gets involved in spaces such as bars, squats, concert halls, galleries, sonic festivals or cinemas.– Projectsinge timeline (summary)
2007: ETC gallery, ‘Le télé commande’ _performance at the Comete347 / Paris / France2006: ‘Sirene de bord’: performance-creation at the 28th Mediterranean film festival / Montpellier / France, ‘Observation’: performance and installation for Quartiers Libres 06, galerie ETC / Montpellier / France, ‘Interference’: Performance during VISION’R – AVit FRANCE festival, mains d’ouvre / Paris / France
2005: ‘TEC TOYS MONGODROIDES’: performance (circuit bending), monoquini / Montpellier / France ‘8’: intervention on the theme of recycling at the 8th Rendez-vous Electroniques – La Villette / Paris / France ‘Néonsurbains’ performance in public space (street) _5th faites de la lumiere / Montpellier / France ‘Interception’: 48H of visual and sonic manipulations APERTO / Montpellier / France
Scott Sinclair & Joe Musgrove / BOTBORGScott Sinclair / Joe Musgrove
BOTBORG
Australia, 2007,
performance, 40 minBotborg present live audio-visual performances using a complex feedback web, consisting of audio and video mixers, screens and camera. In this web, sound and vision are blended into a self perpetuating synaesthesia of interdependent colour and rhythm, generated (in real time) entirely by device feedback. All performances are completely improvised and no outside source material is used in addition to the no-input feedback system.
http://www.botborg.com
http://www.myspace.com/botborg
Scott Sinclair / Joe Musgrove
Botborg began from experiments into feedback, both sonic and visual. It was found that the two could be combined, in an interactive way, with fascinating results. As the feedback system grew more complex and included more elements (audio mixer, visual mixer, laptop, camera, monitors, etc.), gradually a system was created when sound and light are forced into a self-perpetuating interaction unique to the space in which they occur. Rather than giving a “musical performance” or a “filmic presentation”, Botborg “activates a space” by expanding the already complex audio/visual feedback system with the unique features of every venue. Although this system is highly manipulable, it is equally unpredictable and uncontrollable, allowing Botborg to look and sound vastly different on every occasion. The human operators of Botborg are Scott Sinclair and Joe Musgrove (although they prefer to remain anonymous). Together and separately they have been involved at all levels of experimental music in Australia for many years, covering terrain such as free improvisation, computer music, noise, electro-acoustics and drones.Krishna Stott / CRIMEFACEKrishna Stott
CRIMEFACE
UK, 2007,
interactive filmIt is an interactive film. An innovative new media project that mixes popular formats: film, literature, music and gaming. The result is an episodic hyper-narrative backed by reams of extra material that is interactive and multiplatform; playing in cinemas, on DVD, mobile phones and on the internet. Crimeface features a young black ‘Phreaker-Hacker’* turned cop, Tranz Van Zandt who works in the Union City ‘Modern Device Crime’ unit. His speciality phone crime and he is mentored by his corrupt boss DI Harry Adams. High up in a Union City apartment a woman is strangled to death while she talks to her lover on the phone. Tranz interrupts his lunch to answer the call… *- Phreaker Hacker, computer and mobile phone device expert utilising (often self taught) skills for fun and occasional profit.
http://www.crimeface.net
Krishna Stott
Krishna Stott is a director-writer-producer based in Manchester UK. Having completed many short films, pop videos and commercial jobs he recently began creating interactive dramas to widespread acclaim and continues to work in film, tv and interactive media.Michael Wirth / VI: VARIANT ITERATIONMichael Wirth
VI: VARIANT ITERATION
USA, 2006,
installation, perpetualIt is a digital audio and visual installation, which combines a large video projection, a webcam and audio speakers. Vi generates a new, random visual composition every few seconds. First, Vi will track people whom interact with the webcamera, then it will randomly scatter primitive geometric shapes across the screen if the viewer has “hit” them in the video space. Each shape is then assigned a note. The position of each shape on the screen determines how it will play the assigned sound. The seemingly endless amount of compositions is meant to engage viewers to discover the various relationships between patterns produced by primitive visuals and sounds. Some patterns may be recognizable, some are new – other patterns might seem melodic, while others are a cacophony. It is left to listeners and viewers to make those choices.
Michael Wirth
He’s an exhibiting artist, award winning filmmaker, and educator whose medium is technology. His professional and academic experience with various media brings a multi-faceted perspective into the classroom. He has been teaching new media in higher education for the past 5 years. Starting at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, Sage College of Albany, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and now at Art Institute of Charlotte. He has his MFA from Parsons School of Design in Design and Technology and a BFA in Digital Art and Design from Long Island University. As an artist, Mike has a growing list of fine arts, films and interactive installations. A few notable exhibition spaces Rockefeller Center in New York City, WRO International New Media Biennale in Wroclaw, Poland and The Split New Media and Film Fest in Split, Croatia, and The Institute of History and Art in Albany, New York. Mike has won 2 awards for his historical documentary work about the language of gesture, including “Best Short” and “Official Selection” at the Ed Wood film festival (2004 Albany, NY) and DigIt New Media Fest (2005 Narrowsburg, NY). Professionally, Mike has operated his own freelance design business and worked with a diverse variety of clients on unique projects. He has lead and worked on projects as Associate Producer, Art Director and Lead Programmer. Some notable clients include, Siemens Building Technologies, ESPN-Outdoors, Anheuser Bush, and Columbia University Teachers College. -
Lars von Trier
DIREKTOREN FOR DET HELE
Denmark, 2006,
35 mm, 100 minIn Lars von Trier’s comedy the owner of an IT firm wants to sell out. The trouble is that when he established his firm he invented a non-existent company president to hide behind when unpopular steps needed taking. When the potential purchaser insists on negotiating with the ‘president’ face to face, the owner has to take on a failed actor to play the part. The actor suddenly discovers he is a pawn in a game that goes on to sorely test his (lack of) moral fibre.
Lars von Trier
With some seven films selected for the official competition in Cannes, Trier has received major awards at this festival for four titles: “Forbrydelses Element”/”The Element of Crime” (1984), “Europa” (1991), and “Breaking the Waves” (1996), while “Dancer in the Dark” (2000) received the Palme d’Or. Trier received the Jean d’Arcy Award in France for his DR TV production of “Medea” (1988) and his highly popular TV film in the 1990’s, “Riget”/”The Kingdom-series”, became a worldwide success.DON ASKARIAN
ArmeniaORIGINAL TITLE YEAR DUR.min THE BEAR 1984. 58 KOMITAS 1988. 96 AVETIK 1992. 84 PARADJANOV 1998. 60 THE MUSICIANS 2000. 76 ON THE OLD ROMAN ROAD 2001. 76 Stefan Westerwelle / WHILE YOU ARE HEREStefan Westerwelle
SOLANGE DU HIER BIST
Germany, 2006,
Beta SP, 80 minSebastian, a young male prostitute, is one of Georg’s few remaining chances to break through his hermit-like everyday life, in exchange for a few fleeting moments of being together with someone, at least for a few hours. Georg loves Sebastian’s easy-going and playful manner. He loves the absurd stories that the boy spontaneously comes up with and Georg never knows whether to actually believe all of them or not. And it looks like today Georg’s long cherished dream will finally come true: this time the boy asks him if he can stay overnight of his own free will. Georg does everything to fully enjoy the rare and valuable moments, as he hopes for more. Still, the more Georg dares to get closer to the boy, the more Sebastian breaks off contact with him. Within a short period of time, the boy seems to grow years older. He is looking for help. Georg’s hopes are shattered. They start arguing. However, that very same evening, Sebastian is standing in front of his door again. He has come to say goodbye. By the light of a torch, the last remaining night becomes a declaration of love for the time they spent together and for all the people encountered for just a short and fleeting moment – a moving revolt against life’s transience! Stefan Westerwelle
Stefan Westerwelle
Born in Detmold in 1980.
1998-2000:Worked in graphic and web design.
Since 2001: degree course at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts in the subjects Television/Film.
In 2002 he worked on an animation film in London with Huy-Thông Tran Mai. “Solange Du hier bist” is his final film at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts.Filmography: ‘Weil nun die Nacht kommt!’, 2003;
‘Feel Free’, 2004;
‘Fern von Dem’, 2004;
‘Denk Dir uns Zwei’, 2004;
‘Nach oben offen’, 2006;
‘Solange Du hier bist’, 2006.Michel Reilhac / THE GOOD OLD NAUGHTY DAYSMichel Reilhac
THE GOOD OLD NAUGHTY DAYS
France, 2002,
35mm, 69 minRight from the very first days of silent movies the camera seems to have been the perfect voyeuristic tool to film people making love. An underground production system started taking shape very early on, allowing private collectors to satisfy their own secret passion for transgressive sex footage. These films were fabricated in a haphazard fashion in one afternoon with friends and local prostitutes lending a hand for a few cents. All of them requested to remain anonymous of course which makes it impossible today to identify who really acted or directed them. In their own amusing way these images involve us in a very direct, physical and intimate relationship with the good old days.
Michel Reilhac
He is the Executive Director and Head of acquisitions for Cinema with Arte France Cinéma in Paris. He has directed documentaries, produced feature films and created Mélange, a film production company based in France. In 2002 he directed and produced his first feature film, “The Good Old Naughty Days”, a compilation of eleven French short films from the silent era made between 1905 and 1930.Mariano Peralta / SNUFF 102Mariano Peralta
SNUFF 102
Argentina / Argentina, 2007,
DV, 100 minSNUFF 102 In an empty room, three women are being cruelly and ruthlessly tortured. In another time and place, a woman interviews a film critic about the violence in images and its real meaning. Strange facts begin to relate both situations in a hidden manner.
Mariano Peralta
He is an underground and radical film-maker. His previous film “Supermondo Trasho: Unleashed!” caused a commotion in 2005 and became the banner of Argentinean under-culture. “Snuff 102” is even more radical.Kim Kyung-Mook / FACELESS THINGSKim Kyung-Mook
EOLGUL EOPNUN GEOTDUL
Korea, 2005,
DVCAM, 65 minMinsu meets a man and parts from him. Me and him, we don’t have faces.
Kim Kyung-Mook
Born in 1985 in Pusan, South Korea. He dropped out of school at the age of 16 and moved to Seoul. In the year 2005, he started studying film and made his first directorial debut with the film “Me and Doll Playing” followed by several documentaries and experimental video works. In 2005, he completed his feature length film “Faceless Things” which was screened in various prestigious national and international film festivals. Both films, “Me and Doll Playing” and “Faceless Things” have won several prizes and accolades. He is currently on the editorial board of Korea’s only independent film magazine “Independent Film” and is also writing his new feature film script “Live Through This”.Toni Meštrović / ABYSSOSToni Meštrović
ABYSSOS
Germany, Croatia, 2002-2004,
DigiBeta, 17 min, 35 secThe sea as a perceptual phenomenon is the subject of my artistic exploration in the video work “Abyssos”. It is an attempt to recreate the sea medially as a visual and audible entity that exists in my memory and my perception. As a point of departure I looked at the word abyssos (bottomless), which is a synonym for dark infinities and primal chaos. It was important for me to create a work, with the intention to open up the space between conscious and unconscious perception. In the video I depicted the very broad and many-sided ‘communication’ with the sea, by utilizing my water and underwater video and sound recordings taken over the two years around the island in Croatia where I come from. The original underwater footage is combined with the images and sounds that have been manipulated through digital processing technology. Like a kind of a feedback system, “real” imagery (original video footage) is intertwined with artificial imagery (manipulated footage and 3D imagery). Underwater sound recordings containing obscure verbal transmissions – those of human voices and fragments of conversations – play an important role in this work. These transmissions were captured accidentally by a hydrophone at a location in Dalmatia three nautical miles removed from the presence of man. These recordings present a metaphoric view of the sea as a medium that represents communication and collective world memory. Through this idea of connectivity, the work highlights the rhythms and loops of sounds and images occurring in the natural environment.
Toni Meštrović
Born 1973 in Split, Croatia, graduated with a Graphic Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1999, where he produced graphic arts, sculpture and installation. Due to his interest in electronic audiovisual media, he studied Video/Digital Imaging at the International Summer Academy for Contemporary Art in Salzburg in 1997, and completed a two-year postgraduate diploma in Media Art at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne in 2004. Video, sound and audiovisual installations produced during Meštrović’s postgraduate studies explore his personal perception of the sea, and the island where he grew up. Since 1992, he has taken part in group and solo shows, as well as video festivals, in Croatia and abroad. Lives in Kaštela and teaches at the Arts Academy University of Split.Lucas Nola / TRUE MIRACLELucas Nola
PRAVO ČUDO
Croatia, 2006,
35mm, 107 minThe state president suffers a heart attack at a party, but a waiter, thanks to his special healing power, manages to reanimate him. A year later we follow an internationally recognised miracle-worker and his son sailing towards a picturesque Croatian island with the idea of building a business temple there. A society of strange, peculiar and dangerous island inhabitants welcomes the pair of esoteric business people providing them with accommodation in an empty hotel. Together they start developing the project of The Temple of Pure Love, a future health resort which should contribute to tourism development on the island. And while many dream about better future, the local woman baker and a mother of six remains on the sidelines. But businessman’s son notices her.
Lucas Nola
Born in Zagreb in 1964. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Academy for drama art (film directing department). Today he is a writer and director of his theatre and film achievements. He is also the author of numerous documentaries, music and advertising videos. His filmography includes following titles: Ne pitaj kako, Krada, Sami (Alone), Nebo sateliti (Celestial Body), Rusko meso, Svaki put kad se rastajemo (Each Time We Part Away), Dok nitko ne gleda. His films have been awarded in Croatia and abroad (Los Angeles, Madrid, Mannheim), he is a winner of the Golden Arena for directing (Sami, Nebo sateliti), and Oktavijan (Svaki put kad se rastajemo, Dok nitko ne gleda), and he has been awarded the Order of Croatian Pleter by the President of the Republic of Croatia.MARIJAN CRTALIĆ / Living dead (Globalisation of the Subconscious)MARIJAN CRTALIĆ
Living dead (Globalisation of the Subconscious)
2006. 12 minBorn in Sisak in 1968. Graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1992. Has exhibited at a hundred or so independent and collective exhibitions at home and abroad, and has won a number of prizes.
DAMIR ČUČIĆ / Memory of the tapeDAMIR ČUČIĆ
Memory of the tape
2007, 3,50 minBorn in 1972 in Brežice. Director, script writer and producer of a score of alternative, short feature and documentary films. He has worked as editor in more than seventy alternative and documentary films. His films have been shown and premiated at numerous Croatian and international festivals.
IVAN FAKTOR / SelfportraitIVAN FAKTOR
Selfportrait
2006, 7,45 minHe was born in Crnac in 1953. His special field of interest lies in film, video and video installations. From 1975 to 1977 he was editor of the panel programme of the Cinephile Club in Osijek, then editor of the film programme of the Student Centre (1981-1988), and from 1992, editor of the film programme of Osijek Cinemas. He has been involved in making films and videos since 1975. Later he took part in many conceptualist actions and exhibitions, put on performances with film and video, set up installations, did multimedia performances. He took part in the 46th Venice Biennale (A Casa / At Home 2) in 1995 and in 2002 was the Croatian entrant at the 25th Sao Paolo Biennial. He has won numerous prizes, including the Grand Prix at the 11th Croatian Film Days, 2002; the annual Vladimir Nazor Prize for Film in 2002; the Grand Prix of the 39th Zagreb Salon, 2005. He has exhibited at numerous solo and collective exhibitions at home and abroad and has created 18 films. He founded and managed (2001-2004) the Kazamat Gallery in Osijek and the Performance Art Festival (since 2001). Since 2006 he has been the director of Osijek City Galleries. Ivan Faktor lives and works in Osijek.
ALEN FLORIČIĆ / Without titleALEN FLORIČIĆ
Without title
2006, 5,20 minBorn in 1968 in Pula. He graduated in fine arts at the Education Faculty, Rijeka, sculpture major. He has exhibited at numerous independent and collective exhibitions at home and abroad.
ANA HUŠMAN / MarketplaceANA HUŠMAN
Marketplace
2006, 9,32 minBorn in Zagreb in 1977. Graduated in 2002 at the Multimedia Department and educational course of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has exhibited at a number of solo and collective exhibitions and taken part in film and video festivals at home and abroad. She has won a number of prizes (Visura aperta/Momiano, Momjan, 2003 and 2004; Meršpajz, 2 Gastro film fest, Belgrade 2003 and Meršpajz, Osijek 2004, 15.Dani hrvatskog filma, Zagreb 2006) She is assistent on the Academy of Fine Arts, Animated film department, Zagreb.
ŽELJKO KIPKE / Invisible sculptureŽELJKO KIPKE
Invisible sculpture
2006, 8,46He was born in Čakovec in 1953. Graduated a painter from ALU in Zagreb (1971 – 1976). Attended the Painter’s Master Workshop in Zagreb (1976 – 1981). Took part in the Artists Space exhibition in New York 1989. Spending a part of 1991 in Marseilles, he threw an individual exhibition there. His paintings have been bought by the Peter Stuyvesant Collection in Amsterdam, FRAC collection in Tolouse (Les Abattoirs) and Museum der Moderner Kunst in Wienna. He represented Croatia at the Venetian biennial in 1993, and the Kairo biennial two years later. Writes essays and critiques on experimental film and art in dailies and periodicals, and is a fully accredited member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) since 1997. Appointed Commissioner of the Croatian pavilion at 52nd International Art Exhibition in Venice 2007. He has published seven books.
ALEM KORKUT / Art todayALEM KORKUT
Art today
2007, 10 min.Born in Travnik, 1970. He graduated in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He has created numerous sculptures for public spaces, including the sculpture Caryatid in Pazin (2002) produced as part of the Mediterranean Sculpture Symposium, memorial to the bicycle in Koprivnica (2005), and monument to fallen defenders of the Homeland War in Šibenik (2006). He has won several prizes at open competitions (first prizes, among others, for the monument to fallen defenders in the Homeland War in Karlovac, and in Šibenik). He won the Grand Prix of the 27th Youth Salon in Zagreb, and the annual HDLU Prize for a young artist in 2004. He has shown his work at numerous independent and collective exhibitions at home and abroad. He works at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and has the rank of assistant professor.
DALIBOR MARTINIS / Comrades and comradesses, Citizens and citizenessesDALIBOR MARTINIS
Comrades and comradesses, Citizens and citizenesses
(Zadar 27.10.2006 / 17.07.1951),
2006, 7 minHe was born in Zagreb in 1947. Graduated in 1971. from Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, exhibits since 1969, and since 1973 works as video artist independently and in collaboration with Sanja Iveković. He has held numerous personal shows, performances and screenings, and has participated in many international exhibitions (Biennales in Sao Paolo, Venice, and Kwang-ju, Dokumenta/Kassel etc) and film/video festivals (Berlin, Tokyo, Montreal, and Locarno etc.). He had grants from Canada Council (1978) Jaica (Japan 1984), and ArtsLink (USA, 1994). He was guest professor at Academy of Drama Arts/Zagreb 1987/91, and Ontario College of Art/Toronto 1991/2. He was awarded with several international awards (Tokyo Video festival 1984, Locarno 1984, Alpe Adria Film festival/Triest 1996). He was awarded with Vijesnik Annual Award 1995, and City of Zagreb Annual Award 1998. His works are in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art/Zagreb, The Museum of Modern Art/New York, Stedelijk Museum/Amsterdam, ZKM Karlsruhe, New York Public Library, etc.
PAŠIĆ BRANKO / CyclePAŠIĆ BRANKO
Cycle
2006, 3,38 minBorn on 30th june 1980 in Pazin.
ABD film and TV camera at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb. Has exhibited at several collective shows.LALA RAŠČIĆ / Sorry, Wrong numberLALA RAŠČIĆ
Sorry, Wrong number
2006, 15,30 minBorn in Sarajevo in 1977. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, education department, painting major, in 2001. She then enrolled in the postgraduate school at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, spending 2003 and 2004 there. She has exhibited at numerous independent and collective exhibitions; as artist in residence she spent time at Forum Stadpark, Graz; Platform Garanti, Istanbul; Cité des Arts, Paris; and ISCP, New York. Zvono Award, Finalists’ Exhibition, Banski Dvor Gallery, Banja Luka.
KRUNO STIPEŠEVIĆ / PosiesKRUNO STIPEŠEVIĆ
Posies
(Omnibus-film)
2004 – 2006, 7,06 minBorn in Osijek in 1959. He graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, class of Ljubomir Perčinlić, and sculpture in the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, class of Klaus Rinke. He lives and works in Dusseldorf.
ANA ŠERIĆ / 99 StepsANA ŠERIĆ
99 Steps
2006, 3,16 minBorn on 12th octobre in Zagreb;she graduated in 2006 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb.
VLASTA ŽANIĆ / Abolishion of an AppleVLASTA ŽANIĆ
Abolishion of an Apple
2005, 2,50 minBorn in 1966 in Zagreb; she graduated in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has exhibited in many independent and collective exhibitions. In her works she often combines diverse media of expression, exploring opportunities for the integration of them (sculpture, performance and video, for example) through the prism of the personal and the intimate.
Ib Tardini / PRODUCING LOW BUDGET FILMS
Ib Tardini
DenmarkProducer Ib Tardini has many years of experiences in producing low budget films in Denmark – among them Dogme films and other feature films. He would like to share his experiences with other film people. He has been involved in more than 150 productions and have work with Lars von Trier, Bille August and Per Fly.
Alex Adriaansens / DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?
Alex Adriaansens
NetherlandsDO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?
“I know what time is as long as nobody asks me about it”
(Aurelius Augustinus, 4th century)In 1894 a young French anarchist planned to blow up the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The Observatory was the icon for the just introduced global standardization of time which again was the expression of a far reaching rationalization of time expressed by the mechanical clock and the process of industrialization which synchronized production and labor to the rhythm of the clock. The rationalization of time and space was based on understanding our world as a mechanical clockwork were cause and effect are the rules. (Electronic) media are time based media, they deal with time in a flexible way as media time can be stretched, compressed, and delayed. Electronic media are time machines producing machine time. Electronic machines produce, as Paul Virilio states, fast time which is about the millisecond, it is time that exists inside the machine. It is the world of telecommunication and information flows. This time is very different from slow time which we can perceive within our bodily perception and which refers to the archive, memory and the spatial continuity of the city. Electronic media as video, television, radio, film and the internet are closely intertwined with our understanding of time, they reinforce our historical sense of time and function as a collective memory, they can record time. Our understanding and construction of history and memory is ever more related to the way we collect, organize, process and retrieve information from online archives and databases stored in electronic digital machines. In our digital and networked age, information in archives isn’t solely a means to retrospectively look back into the past, it has also become an essential element for acting and interacting in the present. Nowadays we are living IN databases and archives since all our actions are monitored, stored, interpreted and used to predict future behavior of individuals and groups. The relation between fast time produced by electronic machines, with its flows of information and slow time – the time we can perceive with our bodily sensors – is closely related to contemporary forms of (social, cultural, political, biological) acting and interacting in between fast and slow time. Electronic media are the media of our time, they are in the heart of our modern society and create their own temporal realities. Understanding the working principles of media, and critically analyzing, deconstructing and reflecting our media realities has become a major part of contemporary artistic practices, they deal with the conditions of our modern technological culture. “Media-time is not apodictally bound to the stable, the fixed, or the certain. It is time that exceeds, extends, shatters normal perceptual limits, time freed of its parasitic dependence on the clock” (Timothy Druckrey in the catalogue Zone V2_, MOCA, Taipei, 2007)
Alex Adriaansens
He was one of the founders of V2_, of which he is the director. V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, is an interdisciplinary centre for art and media technology, since 1982. He curated several exhibitions amongst which Zone V2_ (MOCA, Taipei), Interact or Die! (DEAF), Information is Alive (DEAF), the Dutch contribution for In the Line of Flight (Millennium Museum, Beijing). He has been giving many talks and presentations all over the world at different occasions (universities, symposia, workshops, expert meetings, academies a.s.). He is a member of the Advisory Board of Transmediale, Berlin, the Berlage Institute – an international research centre for architecture in Rotterdam, and the Piet Zwart Institute MA programme in Media Design Research in Rotterdam. He has been an advisor for different institutes and organisations (governmental and non-governmental). He has been a member of different juries for international media art festivals and prize awards.www.v2.nl
Ana Peraica / AVI AND DIVX ART
Ana Peraica
Hrvatska /CroatiaAfter the appearance of the Ubuweb archive containing very exotic Modern video collection, artworks of contemporary artists such as Matthew Barney, Marina Abramovic, Harun Farocki etc… started to be available. This (“Napsterisation”) phenomena, that has caught first the most commercial domain of popular culture, is slowly but surely distributing once “elite” culture to unknown viewers. Despite the elementary information of “what” to search for is needed, more important for new art public is actually “how”. Arttorrents blog is one of comprehensive entrances to artworld giving “free tickets” or torrents. Still, behind this new sort of public, “knowing how” to search for movies or videos is more curious and skilled, it has also become almost immune on the resolution barrier. Instead of screening resolutions preview resolutions are taking place.
(The presentation analyzes institutional, public and educational status of downloadable video art, showing a part of the 500 GB collection with a VJ)
Read the whole text:
Ana Peraica. Avi und DivKunst Videokunst am Rande des Uberlebens (Springerin, summer 2007 / editors pick Documenta) http://magazines.documenta.de/frontend/article.php?IdLanguage=5&NrArticle=1363Ivan Faktor / EXHIBITION
Ivan Faktor
CroatiaThe original features of his work bring Faktor close to the conceptual art, causing his entire opus to represent the creation of an intimate realm infused with subjective mythology. Devotion and commitment to the fiction feature, from which he draws the significant elements of his work, are particularly expressed by means of references and the use of works by Fritz Lang, giving him an almost cult status. He is the author of extremely important works, from Prvi program (Channel One) – one of the first experimental films, to the video Osijek, petak, 13.9.1991. (Osijek, Friday, 13.9.1991), the installation Slavonski nadgrobni spomenik (The Slavonian Tombstone), 1993-1995, and the film Das Lied ist Aus (2002). These works are of special importance in the category of films dealing with the topic of war and violence in Croatia at the time. During the following few years he produced some significant works, for example a whole series of installations grouped together under the title Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder and presented in Berlin and Split (1996), Vinkovci and Osijek (1997), and as far as Dubrovnik (2001) and Sao Paolo (2002). Constant questioning of the media, complexity of works within clear ideational units, modification of original installations with regard to the geographical, social and cultural context in which they are exhibited, represent only some of the most important features of Faktor’s works.
Božo MajstorovićThe exhibition is organized by the Gallery of Fine Arts (Galerija umjetnina) in cooperation with and as a part of the Split Film Festival / International Festival of New Film.