AVIFF 2021

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AVIFF

AR

AVIFF
2021

OVERVIEW :
1:1 // a sonic-stereoscopic film poem by Telemach Wiesinger (cinematography) and Alexander Grebtschenko (music)  A wooden stereo viewer, which already impressed people with "3D" in the pioneering days of light drawing, inspired the German artist Telemach Wiesinger to create the half-hour film poem 1:1. The wide-screen image, composed on 16 mm black-and-white film, consists of two individual images each, between which - amazingly different from a stereoscope - a third dimension unfolds. In dialogue with the soundtrack designed by Alexander Grebtschenko, 1:1 becomes a unique audiovisual experience. Woven from staged scenes and images collected on journeys, the film poem tells about being on the road with open eyes. The frame story shows a young couple in front of a country estate on the French Loire; while she plays table tennis, he sets off to go fishing ... The pictures lure the viewer from a quiet angler's paradise to busy harbor landscapes and a broad ocean horizon - perhaps a daydream, memories of the young angler, populated by the surreal figures of his mind?  The creative play with „stereoscopy“ unfolds an impressive visual effect. Parallel with slight time shifts, mirrored or complementary, the pairs of pictures enter into dialogue in many ways: overlapping parts that create their own unique forms, positives that meet their negatives, merging of content and diverging again. The element of water is almost physically perceptible, and its moving variety of forms guides the wanderlust. Anyone who thought 16mm black-and-white film was obsolete will experience its timelessness in 1:1. For Telemach Wiesinger, the analog film workshop is as essential as a painter's brushes, spatulas and paint. From recording to developing to composition at the animation table, the material passes through his hands several times. All "effects" come from the manual process: the use of filters and multiple exposure directly in the camera (a BOLEX with spring mechanism), experimenting with single-frame projector and single-frame camera of a CRASS optical printer, editing with an adhesive film press.  A lot of exact planning is necessary in this handicraft art, but a little bit of coincidence is welcome as well - for example, when incompletely dissolved crystals of citric acid in the developer solution appear in the image as snowflakes or hailstones. 1-to-1 in the making, the final release in HD on DCP shows not only the real film grain but also the creative potential of such defects. The astounding result of Wiesinger’s consistent approach clearly shows: Never could such a film be made with digital "apps".  The editing and sound work on this film was closely intertwined, and so the elaborate image finds its highly appropriate counterpart in sound. Composer Alexander Grebtschenko, whose work moves in a wide field between written music, improvisation, electronic music and sound installation, combines for 1:1 artisan noise-making and instrumental music in masterful studio work. Dynamic transitions and a leading musical arch merge the dance of images into an audiovisuaxl unity. The soundtrack answers the visual "stereoscopy" in a complex way and an exciting dialogue unfolds between sound and image. Last but not least, one of the composer's surreal kinetic objects, performing in the film, makes the humor of both film partners unmistakable. Thanks to this creative enthusiasm, the new film poem of Telemach Wiesinger is capable of transforming everyday scenes into cinematic gems.  The decomposing photographs of the old stereo viewer, photographed by the once famous landscape photographer Giorgio Sommer (1834-1914), appearing towards the end of the film, are reminiscent of the inflation of images that was already beginning at that time. Filmpoem 1:1 has the power to withstand this inflation - in the spirit of Jean Cocteau who probably coined the term "cinéaste poète" (poet-filmmaker) and once wrote: "A film is not a dream that is told, but a dream that we dream together thanks to hypnosis.“  See you at the cinema!
(Thomas Spiegelmann, 2020)

1:1

TELEMACH WIESINGER

2021

OVERVIEW :
Born and raised in Israel, graduated with a BFA from the Department of Animation at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem (2012). These days live by the sea, animating and illustrating.

SYNOPSIS :
An animated adaptation for a spoken-word poem by Israeli poet Yoav Talmor.

A Couple on the Rooftop, the Cellular Antenna and the Metal Birds

EYAL OREN

2021

OVERVIEW :
Marion Kellmann studied screenwriting at the Filmakademie Baden- Württemberg and graduated at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne. She lives in Cologne and works as editor and filmmaker. Her films have been shown at museums and film festivals worldwide
Films: Ekstase (experimental film, 2019) Endre Tót - I‘m glad if I‘m happy (documentary, 2017) The Sidereal Night (experimental film, 2012) Trinkhallen (experimental / documentary, 2010) The Retraining (fictional documentary / short, 2006)

SYNOPSIS :
“Ekstase” is a montage of scenes from various European silent films. Based on similar settings and gestures it explores the stereotype of women on the verge of insanity. Reaching its peak in an eruption of hysteria the film displays the women as captives in a continuous cycle of symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.

Ekstase

MARION KELLMANN

2021

OVERVIEW : Born in 1963. Graduated from the film director’s department of the State Institute of Theatre and cinema in 1985. Shot a number of feature shorts, documentaries, ecological and promo films and musical video clips. He is member of the Ukrainian Filmmakers Union and Ukrainian Film Academy. GENNADIY KHMARUK Born in 1972. Graduated from the director’s department of the State Ukrainian Academy of Culture. Worked as an editor and director at the non-governmental video and TV studios, often works as VJ and computer graphics designer. In 1996 Oleg Chorny and Gennadiy Khmaruk has founded the non-profit creative unit SAMPLED PICTURES. A number of videos created by SAMPLED PICTURES were presented at the various film and video festivals, exhibitions and club screenings.

SYNOPSIS :
FON album was recorded in 1998 and its visualization has been started simultaneously. Ancient analog Soviet synthesizers have been used in the process, so, the results of syntheses were unpredictable. The uniqueness of every Act is determined by the fact that it is impossible to reproduce the sound of any of the performances. Each of the Acts is a report on the expedition to the country of lost electrons.

FON

OLEG CHORNY

2021

OVERVIEW :
Nacho Gamma directly addresses isolation in work that has been created at a time which has been very challenging for many people around the globe. The resultant work comes from a series of interactions that the artist had been developing along covid-19´s quarantine in 2020, while he had not other companionship than the one offered by the light that came through his window each day. “Framing the light” is an exploration of time, space and specially himself, while the artist is in a beautiful bare room.
The painterly quality of the film and the repetition of the act, of the pencil drawing, that occurs inside, it takes away from the need to situate this room. In a sense it is a poignant reminder of the universality of the pandemic, this room could be in many different countries, it symbolises a transient space, rather than a given location, and it pulls at the mundanity of life spent removed from society, one is alone, creating over and over.

SYNOPSIS :
For me it is necessary to believe that Fashion can be a medium to express & to do it in a way which is visually artistic, at the same time it can not take away any rawness from life's realities. I explore in a space that is a no man’ s land, a place with no labels or rules, where the only expectation is to create, no matter what.
Through my choice of materials or techniques things changed, I worked around the same concepts, which are related to life, death and the passing of time. And when I am talking about death, I am not talking about it in a biological way – I am talking about the death of ideals, of an object or even the death of a romance.

FRaming the light

NACHO GAMMA

2021

OVERVIEW :
Martin Gerigk (*1972) is a composer of contemporary music. His repertoire includes compositions for orchestra and chamber music, as well as several solo concertos. His compositions are performed nationally and internationally including in Korea, Japan, USA, England, Finland, Austria and Switzerland. In this context he works together with renowned international soloists and ensembles.
In addition to his compositional work he is known for his remarkable audiovisual art and experimental films which focus on inherent synesthetic connections of sound and visual perceptions. Besides creating interwoven aural and visual landscapes of music, nature sounds and video sequences one important aspect of his art is the illustration of the hidden poetry of nature phenomena and sciences.
His experimental films won several international prizes and were screened at noted festivals like Asolo Film Festival, International Digital Arts Festival Videoformes, Girona Film Festival, Salento International Film Festival, Columbus International Film & Animation Festival, USA Film Festival, New Jersey Film Festival, Sidney International Film Festival, Fargo Film Festival, Sherman Oaks Film Festival, Canberra Short Film Festival, Film and Video Poetry Symposium Los Angeles, Syracuse Film Festival or ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival.

SYNOPSIS :
"Haiku | 俳句" is a symphonic audiovisual project for two Japanese performers, alternating percussion groups, soundscapes and rhythmicized video sequences. The film is an experimental approach to pay tribute to the extraordinary art of Japanese haiku poetry.

Haiku

Martin Gerigk

2021

OVERVIEW :
Ji Su Kang-Gatto (*1989) was born in Seoul. She grew up in Germany since the age of two (1991). She is a video artist working and living in Düsseldorf/Cologne (Germany) and in Asolo (Italy).
EDUCATION
2008-2013 Studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Meisterschülerin of Lucy McKenzie 2018-2021 Postgraduate Studies at Academy of Media Arts Cologne

SYNOPSIS :
The film "Identities and Recipes" is the result of the series „Identities and Recipes“ and includes 24 chapters. The series „Identities and Recipes“ was created between 2018 and 2019. The artist, Ji Su Kang-Gatto, uploaded each month a video on YouTube, like a diary. They can still be viewed on her YouTube-Channel due to conceptual reasons of the artist. In each chapter you can see how the artist cooks a Korean dish and often eat it too. As props the artist uses her own sculptural works or create them especially for this purpose. The artist is the only actress in her film as well. In the context of her own hybrid identity, Ji Su Kang-Gatto perceives cooking as a possibility for cultural self-discovery and lets the audience watch this acting. „Identities and Recipes“ turns out to be a highly private process. As a German-Korean, the artist intensively engages with Korean culture and her own biography. The film was mostly shot in her own apartment in Düsseldorf, Germany, but also in her family's apartment in South Korea and in Italy.

Identities and Recipes

JI SU KANG-GATTO

2021

OVERVIEW :
Bjørn Venø (b 1979, Norway / England) Venø embraces failure when creating photographs, video, drawings, music and performance art. Because perfection is reproducible and failure is human.
MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, 2012.
Exhibitions and performances include The Rudin Prize, Norton Museum, West Palm Beach US (2012), Guangzhou LIVE, YouYou Contemporary Art Centre, Guangzhou CN (2013), Live Action 9, Gothenburg SE (2014), Vestlands Utstilingen NO (2014), Public Screens, Stavanger NO (2017), Breaking Myth, Museo d'Aumale, Palermo IT (2018) and Northern Sustainable Futures, Moskosel SE (2019). With solo projects at Fotogalleriet, Malmö SE (2009), Nettie Horn, London UK (2009) and Tender Pixel, London UK (2013).
Other projects include organising performance art festivals Venø Gård KUNST, Selje NO (2015) and Performance KUNST at 368 PONCE, Atlanta US (2016), creating monthly Zines (2018-19), running the web page www.kunstspace.com and creating three music albums ‘Enslaved By Freedom’ 2017, ’Augmented Manipulation’ 2018 and ‘Arthemy’ 2019 under the name BX.

SYNOPSIS
Intuitive exploration of musical instruments, space and the moment, using play and humour.
Created to be shown as a loop, allowing the viewer to meet the film at any point and chose for them selves how long they spend with it. The video can also be shown with a beginning and end.
The video is from a series of actions for video during a one-month residency at Swedish Lapland Air, hosted by Northern Sustainable Futures in Moskosel and invited by Javier Rodriguez, 2019.

Moskosel Action Music

Bjørn Venø

2021

OVERVIEW :
Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr explores traditions and new globalism, questioning geopolitical and social development in Africa. The artistic practice for Nasr is a tool and a language that embraces art, sociology, Sufism and history, in order to encourage dialogue across geographical boundaries. The most recent group shows include “The See Is My Land”, curated by Francesco Bonomi and Emanuela Mazzonis (MAXXI, Rome, 2013); "Arab Contemporary Architecture, Culture and Identity" (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, 2014); “Metropolis. Afriques Capitales”, curated by Simon Njami (La Villette, Paris, 2017); “Senses of Time: Video and Film-based Arts of Africa” (LACMA and The Smithsonian National Museum of African Arts, Washington, 2017); Yinchuan Biennale, curated by Marco Scotini (Yinchuan, 2018), International Contemporary Art Exhibition, curated by Mazdak Faiznia (Yerevan, 2018). In 2018, Nasr has been invited to take part to "Abu Dhabi Art 2018 Beyond" and create a site-specific work in the historic sites in Al Ain. In 2019 he was invited to take part to the Havana Biennal and has participated to Fiac Hors Les Murs with the installation of the work Sun Boat at Les Tuileries. Among the most recent solo shows, in 2019 "The Liminal Space", in Castel del Monte, Andria, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva and "Paradise Lost" in Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, curated by Simon Njami. In 2017, he was selected to represent Egypt during the 57th Venice Biennale. The work presented in the Egyptian Pavilion was an immersive installation showing the original film "The Mountain".

SYNOPSIS :
Fear may be the least acknowledged of our primal instincts. Yet, fear, and that of the unknown most of all, plays a large role in shaping the world we live in today. It influences our relationships, our opinions and ultimately our actions, keeping us from moving forward and living our lives to their fullest. In a wold that bombards us with information at every turn, we should feel at our most secure. We should feel in control. And yet, we do not. Our anxieties multiply, as our understanding increases. We become paranoid and turn inward, paralysed at the thought of the countless dangers that threaten our existence. In The Mountain, Egypt’s entry at the 57th Venice Biennale, Moataz Nasr invites us to explore this pervasive human condition through the story of a small village in Egypt. The inhabitants of this village do not question their reality; life simply passes them by, unlived, as they hide every night, in their self-imposed twilight world. Nasr takes the generous space of the Egypt Pavilion as his medium, using a variety of video, audio and lighting installations to narrate a humankind that everywhere in the world is surrending to a nameless fear. We follow the story of a young girl who escapes the village and its demons but ultimately returns to face the primal fear that continues to shadow her life. The daunting mountain casts an imposing shadow over the landscape and plays a pivotal role in the story, representing the ultimate unconquerable threat. As the story unfolds, Nasr guides us through our inability to accept the unknown in an era of seemingly boundless knowledge. The villagers reflect our failure to break free from the myths we create to protect ourselves. Their journey is our journey, from passive acceptance of a restricted life to an acknowledgement of our weaknesses and a belief in our ability to overcome them.

THE MOUNTAIN

MOATAZ NASR

2021

OVERVIEW :
In this performance piece piece, the "body" is unlearnt in six movements, as the I maneuver the mobility aid as both vital corporeal appendages, and alienating material. The dynamics of power surrounding the sick/disabled body are examined as slow, intentional gestures unfold wherein the body is bound, contorted and collapsed around the structures built from the medical devices. A striking confrontation and embodiment of powerlessness takes place. "Unlearn the Body" captures my continuous struggle with the pressures of externalized and internalized ableism to preform able-bodiedness, and the deterioration of my body that makes such performance ultimately painful and impossible. This piece articulates the post-human and cyborg-futurist body of thought I employ in my work and my relationship to my illness and disability- wherein the line between the "organic" and "inorganic" is blurred. I am contending every day with the reality that all my "best" parts are made from metal, plastic and stone- the "inorganic" prosthetics and medical devices implanted within me are vital to the function of my "organic" corporeal form. The naturalist prejudice within ableist society gives preference to the body which is devoid of "inorganic" material, and unaided by medical devices- but the notion of an "organic" body is an oxymoronic fallacy. This performance allows for me to parallel the mobility aids with my own body, the external, metal appendages no more alien to me than my own, decrepit and deteriorating bodily appendages. Building the precarious structures and shapes from the mobility aids, and tucking myself into them embodies the fraught navigation of my own illness, disability and degeneration as I simultaneously contend with the socio-societally integrated ableism which allows for the desecration and marginalization of the sick/disabled body. This piece in particular is a vulnerable exhibition of my complex and undulating acceptance of my own illness a disability. "Unlearn the Body" captures a painful understanding and embrace in the face of health politics which call for all sick/disabled individuals to be ashamed and constantly seeking a "solution" to their illness/disability- or in the very least be actively working to conceal it from society at large for the sake of the comfort of those who are of able body. "Unlearn the Body" is simultaneously tender, and cutting, a glimpse into a never-ending conversation I must have with myself and my body as I live with an illness and disability that are ever-worsening.

UNLEARN THE BODY

PANTEHA ABARESHI

2021

OVERVIEW :
SHAN WU (Writer, Director, and Producer) is a Los Angeles-based Taiwanese independent filmmaker and multi-disciplinary artist. Her script Wild Grass won the Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in Storytelling. Her film Lookover was selected for Formosa Festival of International Filmmaker, Supernova Digital Animation Festival, and CINMARE International Ocean Film Festival. Her video installation work Bardo won the Bronze Medal at the National Art Exhibition in New Media Art in 2018 and was shown in the National Taiwan Museum. In 2017, she collaborated with Santa Paula Art Museum on a site-specific project called Mural, which was projected on the facade of the Cole Creativity Center. She is one of the founders of Taiwan Video Club, a collaborative screening of Taiwanese films, and served as a Senior Programmer at the Los Angeles Chinese Film Festival in 2019. Shan is a graduate from the California Institute of the Arts' Film and Video and Integrated Media Program.

SYNOPSIS :
A Taiwanese woman’s journey to America reveals her fantasy of love and an identity entangled with beauty, sexuality, nationality and two languages. Through the protagonist confronting her own image and her failure at communicating, WILD GRASS tells an unusual love story that is deceptive yet revealing.
We never hear from the woman on the screen nor the narrator. As the correlation and mismatch between the image and the text become more unstable, the veracity of both the image and words comes into question. The woman’s struggle with her inner self plays out as she runs over and over again in an imaginary landscape— where her memory of water and sound from Taiwan is laid over yellow wild grass.

WILD GRASS

SHAN WU

2021

OVERVIEW :
Choreographer, filmmaker, dancer and recipient of a 2019 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Pontus Lidberg has firmly established himself as a creative and visionary artist, merging dance and film.
As a choreographer for the stage, Lidberg has created works for dance companies including Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Semperoper Ballet Dresden, Royal Swedish Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Acosta Danza, Balletboyz and Beijing Dance Theatre, as well as for his own concert group, Pontus Lidberg Dance. Pontus Lidberg Dance has been presented by New York City Center’s Fall For Dance Festival, the Havana International Ballet Festival, the Spoleto Festival, The Joyce Theater and the National Arts Center of Canada. His work Siren received a Villanueva Award from UNEAC, The National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, as one of the best performances presented in Cuba in 2018.
His film, The Rain received numerous awards. The New York Times wrote “memorably, The Rain illustrates what filmed dance can say that staged dance cannot.” His film Labyrinth Within won Best Picture at the Dance on Camera Festival in 2012. He was nominated for a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in Outstanding Visual Design, for his dance and film evening WITHIN (Labyrinth Within)—created during his 2012 tenure as Resident Artistic Director of Morphoses. The New York Times applauded this contemporary story ballet, “told without mime and driven by emotional and psychological textures… [Lidberg] sublimates the academic language of ballet, dissolving it into knotty partnering that manages, by and large, to avoid the churning clichés of much contemporary movement in the form. It is refreshing to see a ballet embracing the virtues of restraint.” Raised in Stockholm, Sweden, Lidberg trained at the Royal Swedish Ballet School. He holds an MFA in Contemporary Performing Arts from the University of Gothenburg, Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts. He is the Artistic Director of Danish Dance Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“In this frenzied and invigorating race, Lidberg makes you feel all the harmony that can exist between two beings... one would almost believe that love stories never end badly. Sublime.” François Delétraz, LE FIGARO MAGAZINE, February 22, 2019
“Siren has all the features of a masterpiece... A work both delicate and dense with a feeling of truth, sustained by a rare expressive clarity” Anna Bandettini, LA REPUBBLICA, September 2, 2018
“No trite conclusions, just a world of layered emotion made inexplicably potent.” Judith Mackrell, THE GUARDIAN, April 21, 2016
“Rabbit, Swedish choreographer and filmmaker Pontus Lidberg’s ode to childhood, is so wonderfully precise, so cleverly comedic that it’s akin to watching a dozen wind-up toys set off at the same time.” Vanessa Keys, THE TELEGRAPH, April 21, 2016
“Pontus Lidberg has an aura of a refined creator and a state of grace, his work breathes the same.” Roger Salas, EL PAIS, July 18, 2015
“Pontus Lidberg’s eponymous New York-based company brought an elegant Nordic aesthetic and seamless movement to intense choreography in which groups shift and change in an exploration of the psyche. Underpinning his work are a subtle theatricality and a taste for the unexpected” Gerald Dowler, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, November 4, 2014

SYNOPSIS :
A choreographer must face an unresolved romantic encounter from her past as she creates a new dance work. Directed by Filmmaker/Choreographer Pontus Lidberg and featuring étoile dancer and Paris Opera Ballet director Aurélie Dupont, with Alexander Jones, Pontus Lidberg, Stina Ekblad and Leslie Caron.
Happily married but still haunted by an unresolved love affair from her past, choreographer Alicia (Aurélie Dupont) searches through the depths of her memories to create Siren, a new dance piece about unfulfilled desire. Against the backdrop of an ageing theatre by the sea, Alicia builds a sensual and naked ensemble work that is delicately held together by the threads connecting her dancers with each other and with her. She soon finds herself fallen down the rabbit hole of her own creation, in love with the male lead dancer, Giovanni (Alexander Jones), as the siren of her fictional work slowly becomes the siren of her life. When Alicia recounts this story to Karl (Pontus Lidberg), his own story brings a new dimension to this exploration of desire and artistic creation. Written on Water is a sensual and philosophical interrogation of the permeable boundaries between fiction and reality, muse and siren and and the changeable roles we play—Odysseus, sailor, siren—in our lifelong quests for connection, love, and inspiration.

WRITTEN ON WATER

PONTUS LIDBERG

2021

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