2017 THEME PROGRAMS Special Acknowledgments to all the filmmakers, producers and distributors whose films are screened in BIEFF 2018 and to the following persons and institutions: 4 Concept

64 BERLINALE SPOTLIGHT: Alessandro Raja – Festival Scope Corina Burlacu – Eastwards Joost Daamen – IDFA International Documentary Mirsad Purivatra – Sarajevo Film Festival 6 Festival Board FORUM EXPANDED Alexander Nanau – Film Monitor Association Cornelia Popa – Cinelab Romania Film Festival Amsterdam Monica Anita – TNT Alexandru Berceanu – CINETic Cristian Ignat – Canopy Juan José Felix – Embassy of the Republic of Natalia Andronachi – Austrian Cultural Forum 8 Festival Team 76 IDENTITY AND BELONGING: Adina-Ioana Șuteu – French Institute Bucharest Cristiana Tăutu – British Council Romania Argentina Natalia Trebik – Le Fresnoy Studio National des Alina Raicu – Embassy of Canada in Romania Cristina Niculae – Peggy Production Juhani Alanen – Tampere International Short Film Arts Contemporains SARAJEVO THEME PROGRAM Ana Agopian – CINEPUB Cristina Nițu – Fala Português Festival Nicolae Mandea – UNATC National University of 9 UNATC / UNARTE Presentation Ana Androne – Embassy of the Kingdom of the Cristina Petrea – Manekino Film Jukka-Pekka Laakso – Tampere International Theatre and Film Bucharest 84 A DUTCH PERSPECTIVE: Netherlands Dana Berghes – National Museum of Short Film Festival Paolo Moretti – Festival of Documentary Film 10 Partner Festivals ROTTERDAM THEME PROGRAM Ana Mișu – TH Hotels Contemporary Art MNAC Bucharest Kevin Hamilton - Embassy of Canada in Romania FIDMarseille Ana Serafim – Embassy of Canada in Romania Daniel Ebner – VIS Vienna Shorts Lars Henrik Gass – International Short Film Pavla Kallistova – ATHANOR Ana Ungar – TNT Daniel Mareș – Lente Festival Oberhausen Peter Greenaway 17 International Competition Jury 93 GOLDEN SHORTS: Anamaria Antoci – Bucharest International Dance Daniela Mirodone – Fala Português Laura Abrihan – Peggy Production Peter van Hoof – International Film Festival BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS Film Festival Delia Marcu – festival friend Laura Ștefănuț – National Museum of Rotterdam 18 Opening Gala Anamaria Diaconescu – Hellenic-Romania Dietmar Schwärzler – Sixpackfilm Austria Contemporary Art MNAC Bucharest Raluca Ganea – ARCUB 99 ROMANIAN CINEMATIC EXPERIMENTS Bilateral Chamber of Commerce Edith van der Heijde – EYE Film Institute Laurențiu Brătan – Anim’est International Raluca Oana Radu – Shift Pub Anca Brezeanu – Sky Tour Netherlands Animation Film Festival Rana Mokaddem – Embassy of Lebanon in 20 Closing Gala Anca Mitran – Romanian National Film Center Elena Belciu – CINETic Laurențiu Damian – Romanian Filmmakers’ Union Romania SIDE EVENTS Anca Pandrea – Lente Evelin Hust – Goethe-Institut Bucharest Liliana Costa – Agência da Curta Metragem Răzvan Bucur – ZeList Monitor 22 Closing Film Andreea Dumitriu – Eastwards Ezio Peraro – Italian Cultural Institute Liliana Ciurea – Embassy of Switzerland in Rémi Bonhomme – Semaine de la Critique, 105 Panel: Meet The Experts - The Lifespan Andrei Jakab – festival friend Felipe Guillermo Alvarez de Toledo – Embassy of Romania Cannes Film Festival Andrei Lixandru – Eventbook the Republic of Argentina Liliana Passima – National Museum of the Of Cinematic Experimentation Roxana Călinescu – Romanian Cultural Institute INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION Andrei Rus – One World Romania Filipa Henriques – Portugal Film Romanian Peasant Roxana Lăpădat – Austrian Cultural Forum Angelika Ramlow – Arsenal Institute for Film and Florentina Bratfanof – festival friend Liliana Țuroiu – Romanian Cultural Institute Roxana Trestioreanu – UNARTE National 24 A LIE THAT TELLS THE TRUTH 106 Preview Screening Video Art Berlin Florian Vimer – Lokal Lisa Linde Nieveld – EYE Film Institute University of Arts Bucharest International Competition I Anna Abrahams – EYE Film Institute Netherlands François Bonenfant – Le Fresnoy Studio National Netherlands Rozana Mihalache – Green Hours Arthur den Hartog – Embassy of the Kingdom of des Arts Contemporains Loredana Stroe – Embassy of the Republic of Salette Ramalho – Agência da Curta Metragem the Netherlands František Zachoval – Czech Centre Bucharest Argentina Simona Necula – CEREFREA Villa Noël 32 HUMAN NATURE / MOTHER NATURE Bianca Lucas – Sarajevo Film Festival Gabriela Albu – Peasant Museum Cinema Lucian Pricop – Romanian Filmmakers’ Union Sorina Diaconu – festival friend International Competition II Bianca Oana – Manekino Film Gabriela Petre – Italian Cultural Institute Lucie Guérin – French Institute Bucharest Stefanie Schulte Strathaus – Berlinale Forum Brigitta Burger-Utzer – Sixpackfilm Austria Gabriela Trandafir – Embassy of Liban in Romania Marian Bârcău – Canopy Expanded 40 (SELF)PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Boglarka Nagy – French Institute Bucharest Gabriela Suciu – Asociația Follow Art Marina Neacșu – Goethe-Institut Bucharest Steliana Mazilu – festival friend Camelia Ciucă – Romanian National Film Center Gala Hernández – LUXBOX Marion Poeth – Cinedans Dance on Screen Ștefana Mărmureanu – Romanian Cultural AS A YOUNG MAN Carla Fotea – festival friend George Pascaru – Canopy Festival Amsterdam Institute International Competition III Carmen Constantin – Administration of the Hajnalka Kerekes – Romanian Ministry of Culture Markéta Šantrochová – Czech Film Center Tamina Bojoancă – Goethe-Institut Bucharest National Cultural Fund and National Identity Martijn te Pas – IDFA International Documentary Theus Zwakhals – LIMA Amsterdam 48 EMBRACING THE FEMALE GAZE Carmen Grigoraș – Embassy of Finland in Hilke Doering – International Short Film Festival Film Festival Amsterdam Thomas Kloiber – Austrian Cultural Forum International Competition IV Romania Oberhausen Martine Dekker – Cinedans Dance On Screen Toril Simonsen – Norwegian Film Institute Carmen Stejeroiu – Romanian National Film Ioana Biriș – Eastwards Festival Amsterdam Tudor Ciortea – NouMax Center Ioana Diaconu – Bucharest Fashion Film Festival Matt Carter – LUX Artists’ Moving Image Tytti Rantanen – AV-arkki 56 INTIMACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE Carsten Spicher – International Short Film Ioana Spătaru – Shift Pub Menotty Tudosie – Valvis Holding Ulrich Ziemons – Berlinale Forum Expanded International Competition V Festival Oberhausen Ioana Turcu – Eventbook Miguel Dias – Curtas Vila do Conde International Urs Herren – Embassy of Switzerland in Romania Călin Dan – National Museum of Contemporary Ionuț Drăghicean – BDG Film Festival Valentina Neagu – Administration of the National Art MNAC Bucharest Irina Cios – Administration of the National Miguel Valverde – Portugal Film & IndieLisboa Cultural Fund Cătălin Bălescu – UNARTE National University of Cultural Fund International Independent Film Festival Vesa Puhakka – AV-arkki Arts Bucharest Irina Petrescu – French Institute Bucharest Mihaela Drăghici – Fala Português Victor Teioșanu – Ursus Christoph Terhechte – Berlinale Forum Isabella Alexandrescu – US Embassy Romania Mihaela Păun – ARCUB Voicu Rădescu – Green Hours Christophe Gigaudaut – French Institute Jenniffer Corrales – Romanian Ministry of Culture Mihai Chirilov – Transilvania International Film Wouter Jansen – Some Shorts Bucharest and National Identity Festival Yvonne Irimescu – NexT International Short Film Christophe Leparc – Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Jing Haase – Swedish Film Institute Mihai Crăiță – Eventbook Festival Cannes Film Festival Johannes Klein – The Festival Agency Mihai Olaru – Nikon and to all BIEFF 2018 media partners, Claudiu Sfirschi-Lăudat – Greek Cultural Jonathan Pouthier – Centre Pompidou Mihai Orășanu – MDV Film volunteers and other festival friends. Foundation Bucharest International Experimental Film

Festival BIEFF - Concept BIEFF is also honored to collaborate with some of the major international film festivals and institutions in the area Copel Moscu, Festival Director of avant-garde cinema and visual art, Moreover, BIEFF has started in 2010 a wonderful collaboration with one of the leading Adina Pintilie, Artistic Director recognized worldwide for their consistent experimental filmmakers of our time, PETER GREENAWAY. He made an unforgetable creative support of innovative, radical official opening at our festival in 2010 with an impressive Masterclass, addressed Created under the patronage of creative background, BIEFF comes as a filmmaking and visual art: QUINZAINE especially wto our core audience, Romanian film and visual art students and professionals; the National University of Theatre and natural complementary reaction, its main DES RÉALISATEURS - Cannes Film Festival, and in 2011 he brought his groundbreaking LIVE CINEMA VJ PERFORMANCE Film “I.L. Caragiale” and the National goal being to broaden perception, to open BERLINALE Forum Expanded - Berlin LUPERCYCLOPEDIA, a highly innovative audio-visual experiment, intended to challenge University of Arts Bucharest, with the a whole new artistic territory, both for International Film Festival, ARSENAL the borders of filmic language and offer the audience a totally new cinematic experience, support of the Administration of the the general and the specialized audience, Institute for Film and Video Art Berlin, performance which was immensely successful all over the world. National Cultural Fund and the Romanian particularly for film and visual art students International Film Festival ROTTERDAM, National Cinema Center, BUCHAREST and professionals. SARAJEVO Film Festival, Le FRESNOY – Starting with 2012, PETER GREENAWAY has become the HONORARY PRESIDENT of INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL FILM Studio National des Arts Contemporains, the Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival BIEFF, generously joining us in our FESTIVAL BIEFF has as its main focus the Therefore we present films which SIXPACKFILM Austria and EYE Film educational initiative. PETER GREENAWAY is one of the key voices of contemporary avant- courage to experiment in cinematic are lessons in cinema, emblematic Institute Netherlands, who bring to garde cinema, one of the most ambitious and controversial experimental filmmakers of language. pieces, eye-openers with regard to Bucharest a selection of highly innovative our time. Trained as a painter and heavily influenced by theories of structural linguistics, the unlimited possibilities offered by multi-awarded films from their last year’s ethnography, and philosophy, PETER GREENAWAY’s films often traverse unexplored BIEFF is the first showcase of avant- the cinematic medium, the ways to selections. territories, rejecting conventional narrative structures in favor of awe-striking garde cinema and visual art in Romania, transcend any possible borders between imagery, constantly testing the limits of the cinematic medium. Regularly nominated a non-commercial event with educational fiction, documentary and visual art, the As for each of our editions, we are in prestigious film festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin, he has an impressive purpose, aimed at bringing to the transgression of boundaries on every level honoured to welcome in our International body of work, consisting of 13 feature films and 50 short films and documentaries, plus audience highly innovative films and ranging from concept, structure, rhythm, Competition Jury prestigious exhibitions, visual installations, VJ performances, paintings, books, opera librettos. filmmakers with strong personal views on to the construction of the shot. film and visual arts professionals: contemporary reality, which also daringly ANGELIKA RAMLOW, curator and Following its previous years’ success, BIEFF will dedicate again its 2018 Opening and explore the boundaries of cinematic writer, representative of Berlinale Closing Ceremonies to the most recent works of some major names of the contemporary BIEFF is also the first event in Romania dedicated to promoting artistic productions at language. A cinema of total creative Forum Expanded and Arsenal Institute cinema. In 2010, BIEFF presented, for the first time in Romania, the latest film of the the border area between cinema and visual art, offering increased visibility to cutting freedom and lack of compromise. Berlin; BIANCA LUCAS, filmmaker master of experimental cinema Jan Švankmajer, right after its premiere in Venice. In edge visual artists, whose work is mainly accessible in museums and in the art gallery and programmer, representative of 2011, BIEFF screened the Romanian premiere of the most recent work of Alexander circuit and rarely on cinema screen. We do this because we believe this border area We believe BIEFF is a highly necessary Sarajevo Film Festival; and CRISTIAN Sokurov, his impressive FAUST, winner of the Golden Lion in Venice 2011. In 2012, BIEFF is an extremely rich, creatively nourishing territory, from where unique artistic voices event, particularly for Romania, whose NEAGOE, writer, publisher, curator and presented the Romanian premiere of Peter Greenaway’s impressive latest feature, have constantly emerged over the years, such as Peter Greenaway, David Lynch, Derek cinema has proved its impressive producer, curator of Street Delivery GOLTZIUS AND THE PELICAN COMPANY, while in 2013 the film to open the festival

Jarman, Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage and others. BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL power in recent years, through the event&manifesto and Cărturești was Terry Gilliam’s most recent feature, THE ZERO THEOREM. In 2014, BIEFF opened

\\ outstanding voices of Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Foundation manager. with the Golden Lion winner from that year, Roy Andersson’s A PIGEON SAT ON A \\ BIEFF presents on one side an INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILM Porumboiu, Cristian Mungiu, Radu Jude BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE and closed with Ulrich Seidl’s fascinating hybrid COMPETITION, consisting of some of the most intriguing and innovative visual and others, yet mainly in the area of realistic documentary, IN THE BASEMENT. The 2016 festival opened with Aleksandr Sokurov’s experiments from the last few years, titles awarded and screened in prestigious narrative fiction. On this flourishing sophisticated and absorbing FRANCOFONIA, and it closed with Peter Greenaway again, festivals, museums and galleries all over the world, such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, who brought to Bucharest his amazing and provocative EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO. Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Toronto, Centre Pompidou etc. In 2017, BIEFF opened with ENDLESS POETRY by cult filmmaker and psychomagic guru Alejandro Jodorowsky and closed with the extraordinary performance offered by Cate 4 Blanchet in Julian Rosefeldt’s MANIFESTO. 5 FESTIVAL BOARD

PETER GREENAWAY COPEL MOSCU ADINA PINTILIE DAN ANGELESCU

HONORARY PRESIDENT FESTIVAL DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR FESTIVAL MANAGER

Since 2012, Peter Greenaway has been the Copel Moscu is the director and main founder Adina Pintilie is the artistic director and Her latest medium-length, Oxygen, was Dan Angelescu is the festival manager and Honorary President of Bucharest International of Bucharest International Experimental Film co-founder of Bucharest International screened in the Tiger Awards Short Film associate curator of Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival Bucharest BIEFF. Festival BIEFF. One of the key authors of the Experimental Film Festival BIEFF. Filmmaker Competition of Rotterdam International Experimental Film Festival BIEFF. He holds a One of the key voices of contemporary Romanian Documentary New Wave from the and curator – graduate of the National Film Festival 2010, Buenos Aires BAFICI, Master’s degree in Comparative Arts and Media avant-garde cinema, Peter Greenaway is ‘80s (together with Ovidiu Bose Paștină, Tereza University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest, Montpellier, Thessaloniki, Warszaw, Bilbao Studies from Vrije University Amsterdam, with one of the most ambitious and controversial Barta, Laurențiu Damian, Sabina Pop) he was a Directing Department – she has a particular etc. In 2008 she co-directed Sandpit #186, a study on the self-representation of film experimental filmmakers of our time. Trained pioneer in challenging the borders of cinematic focus on cinematic experimentation, working with George Chiper, which premiered in festivals across different media. Thoroughly as a painter and heavily influenced by theories language in controversial, subversive films, at the border between fiction, documentary Locarno, won a Runner-Up Award in Miami interested in working with and around the of structural linguistics, ethnography, and which concealed, under daring conceptual and and visual art. Her films are very particular International Film Festival and a Special moving image, he was project coordinator philosophy, Peter Greenaway’s films often formal experimentation, a fierce criticism of in the new Romanian cinema landscape, Mention in Trieste in 2009. Her latest at the Centre for Visual Introspection traverse unexplored territories, rejecting the communist regime, many of which were standing out through a highly personal visual short, Diary #2, won the ZONTA Award for Bucharest and contributing editor for Film conventional narrative structures in favor of banned by the establishment’s censorship. style, daring experimentation in cinematic Best Woman Filmmaker at Oberhausen Menu between 2010 and 2012. Since 2010, an awe-striking imagery, constantly testing Copel Moscu created over 50 short and language and an uncompromising exploration International Short Film Festival 2013. Dan also collaborates with other film festivals the limits and canons of the cinematic medium. feature films (The Evening School, On the Ozana of human psychology. in Romania – Transilvania International Film Regularly nominated in prestigious film Shore, My Beloved School, The Bronze Age, A Her feature film TOUCH ME NOT has won Festival, One World, Les Films de Cannes festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin, Day Will Come, I Chose Freedom), as director the Golden Bear and the GWFF Best First à Bucarest – in various departments. In he has an impressive body of work, consisting and scriptwriter, for which he was awarded Feature Award at Berlinale 2018. Her previous 2011 he co-founded the AAA+ curatorial of 13 feature films and over 50 shorts and over 25 international and national prizes. He mediumlength Don’t Get Me Wrong – produced collective, which organized debates and video documentaries, plus exhibitions, visual presently teaches film directing at the National by Aristoteles Workshop, with the support art screenings. He has collaborated with installations, VJ performances, paintings, University of Theatre and Film “I.L. Caragiale” of ARTE France and the Romanian National Kunstverein Amsterdam, the Czech Centre in books, opera librettos. His first narrative (UNATC) and video art at the National Television, was world premiered in Locarno – Bucharest, White Night of the Art Galleries feature film, The Draughtsman’s Contract, University of Arts Bucharest (UNARTE) and Filmmakers of the Present Competition 2007, Romania, Sâmbăta Sonoră (Sound Saturdays) BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ completed in 1982, received great critical is referred to as an artistic consultant for included in IDFA 2007 – Best of Fests selection, and Outernational Days on several projects. \\ acclaim and established him internationally television and cinema. In 2010, consistent awarded Golden Dove Best Documentary He was a member of the International Short as an original filmmaker, a reputation with his free innovative vision and educational Award at DOK Leipzig 2007 and selected/ Film Competition juries at the 29th edition of consolidated by his following films, such as The commitment, he took the challenge to offer awarded in 50 international film festivals such Stuttgarter Filmwinter – Festival for Expanded Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover, The Romanian audiences, and particularly cinema as: Thessaloniki, Montpellier, Trieste, Namur, Media in 2016 and at the 4th edition of Riga Pillow Book and The Tulse Luper Suitcases. and visual arts students, the first International München, Moscow, Sarajevo, IndieLisboa, International Film Festival in 2017. Experimental Film Festival in Romania: BIEFF. Warszaw, Krakow etc. 6 7 FESTIVAL TEAM THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF THEATER AND FILM “I.L. CARAGIALE” BUCHAREST ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CHIEF CURATOR FINANCIAL COORDINATOR FESTIVAL POSTER Adina Pintilie Andreea Tudor Carmen Gociu

FESTIVAL MANAGER & ASSOCIATE VIDEO DEPARTMENT GRAPHIC PRODUCTION The NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF THEATER AND FILM “I.L. CARAGIALE” BUCHAREST (UNATC) counts among the most prestigious European film CURATOR Alice Gheorghiu – coordinator Bogdan Cătălin Cazacioc schools, together with the Film And TV School Of Academy Of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), and the National Film School in Lodz. The Dan Angelescu Alberto Niculae – assistant history of UNATC begins as early as 1864, the year when the first Theatre School was founded in Bucharest. In 1954, the old school merged with Ana-Gabriela Cozma, Alexandra Furdui, CATALOGUE DTP the Institute of Film Art, to become UNATC, the National School of Theatre and Cinema. PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Valentin Goran, Iulia Necșulescu, Ioana-Luiza Ghiță Rodica Dominteanu Alex Pintică, Ligia Prodan, Marius Șerban, Great names of Romanian cinema are UNATC alumni; among them: Cristian Mungiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, Cătălin Mitulescu, Radu Muntean, Cosmin Tița – interns WEB DEVELOPER Tudor Giurgiu. CURATORIAL DEPARTMENT Tiberiu Andrișan Adina Marin – coordinator, catalogue editor, PHOTO DEPARTMENT curatorial texts Ionuț Dobre – coordinator TRANSPORT Ioana Florescu, Diana Mereoiu, Diana Păun, Anda Stăncescu – interns Șerban Balaban, Gregor Burlacu, THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Andrei Tănăsescu – curatorial texts Radu Drăcea Călin Boto, Anastasia Gavrilovici, SUBTITLING DEPARTMENT OF ARTS BUCHAREST Teodora Leu – interns Roxana Marin – coordinator Cezar Florea, Daniel Marcu, Roman Morcov, PR & PRESS DEPARTMENT Cristian Radu – interns Emilia Cazan – coordinator, social media Founded in 1864, the NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF ARTS BUCHAREST (UNARTE) proposes, through the creative work of its students, a cultural manager VOLUNTEERS COORDINATOR model that links universal art forms to the contemporary cultural space. The specificity of the curriculum offered by UNARTE, and bythe Andreea Toader – intern Adriana Susmă Photography and Video Department in particular, relies in the fostering of a flexible thinking, and in promoting themes related to contemporary

issues, and a variety of approaches that avoid conservatism and dogma. PRINT TRAFFIC & TECHNICAL LOCATION MANAGERS DEPARTMENT Simona Alecu, Victoria Bălășoiu UNARTE promotes the works and ideas of its students in symposia, exhibitions, and press conferences, and offers them opportunities of Elena Găgeanu – coordinator exchanges and collaborations with art universities all over Europe. Among its most celebrated professors and alumni, UNARTE counts Constantin Andreea Lăcătuș – assistant ACCOUNTANCY Brâncuşi, Theodor Aman, Gheorghe Tattarescu, Ştefan Luchian, Alexandru Ciucurencu, Corneliu Baba. Cristina Serafim GUEST DEPARTMENT Cristina Bîlea – coordinator BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ Teona Galgoțiu – jury assistant \\

8 9 QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS CANNES PARTNER FESTIVAL

PARTNER FESTIVALS / INSTITUTIONS PRESENTATION

QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS CANNES

BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED Parallel section of Cannes Film Festival, created by the French Directors Guild in the wake of the events of May ’68, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS (the DIRECTORS’ FORTHNIGHT) seeks to aid filmmakers and contribute to their discovery by the critics and SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL audiences alike. From its initial program in 1969, it cast its lot with the avant-garde (the glorious seventies), as well as it created a breeding ground where the Cannes Festival would regularly find its prestigious auteurs. INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM Since its inception, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS has showcased the first films of Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Ken Loach, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Haneke, Chantal Akerman, Spike Lee, Luc et Jean-Pierre INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL OBERHAUSEN Dardenne, Sofia Coppola, Robert Bresson, Manoel de Oliveira, Stephen Frears, Jerzy Skolimowski, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola... among others.

Among the various sections at the Cannes Film Festival, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS is distinguished by its independent- mindedness, its non-competitive nature and its concern to cater to non-professional Cannes audiences, which can buy a subscription for the entire Fortnight program or purchase tickets for individual screenings. Striving to be eclectic and receptive to all forms of cinematic expression, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS pays particular attention to the annual production of fiction features, short films and documentaries, to the emergence of independent fringe filmmaking, and even to contemporary popular genres, provided these films are the expression of an individual talent and an original directorial style.

CHRISTOPHE LEPARC

Managing Director of QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS, Festival de CANNES. BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ Has been working in the film industry since 1994 as prospector, member of the selection RÉALISATEURS (DIRECTORS’ FORTHNIGHT), \\ 1990, specialized in the organization of committee, elaborating retrospectives. the other sidebar of Cannes Film Festival. film festivals; has notably worked for the Between 2000 and 2008, he has worked He’s currently working with Edouard International Women Directors’ Film Festival as Program Manager for the International Waintrop, the new Artistic Director of the of Créteil during 10 years as “prospector” Critics’ Week, sidebar of Cannes Film Festival Fortnight. of films. He has begun to work for devoted to new talents. Since 2007, he Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellier in is Managing Director of QUINZAINE DES 10 11 SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED

PARTNER FESTIVAL PARTNER FESTIVAL PRESENTATION PRESENTATION

The Berlinale Forum stands for new trends in world cinema and fresh narrative forms. Unconventional, essayistic works of The Sarajevo Film Festival is an international film festival with a special focus on the region of South-East Europe (Albania, Armenia, cinema, long-term observations, documentaries, cinema from countries off the beaten track - everything which goes beyond the Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Malta, mainstream is brought together in this section of the Berlinale. Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey), shining an international spotlight on films, talent and future projects from the region.

There are few formal limitations when it comes to the selection of films, resulting in even greater freedom. The films in the Forum High quality programming, a strong A most noteworthy section of the straddle the line between art and cinema. In 2006 BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED was launched. Presenting film, video, installation industry segment, an educational Competition Program is Short Films, and performative works on varying themes and in multiple venues across Berlin, works in FORUM EXPANDED provide a critical and networking platform for young which presents films by young and perspective and an expanded sense of cinematography. filmmakers and thus generated presence courageous authors who examine the of the international film industry, film borders film language and create powerful Within the educational partnership with Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival BIEFF, ARSENAL Institute for Film and authors and media representatives interpretations of the world around us. Video Art present a selection of thought provoking works from BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED program. alongside a paying audience of over 100,000, confirm its status as the leading In an emerging territory of more than film festival in the region, recognised 140 million inhabitants, Sarajevo Film ULRICH ZIEMONS by both professionals and the wider Festival serves as a common platform Representative of Berlinale Forum Expanded and Arsenal Institute Berlin audiences. The Competition Program for film businesses from all over the gives priority to the films which have region, setting the future standards in either their world or the international festival organisation, film promotion and ARSENAL INSTITUTE FOR FILM premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival. presentation in South-Eastern Europe. AND VIDEO ART As the main program of the Sarajevo Communicating international film culture in platform for promoting dynamic exchange well as avant-garde film history. Presenting Film Festival, the Competition Program BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ a lively manner is both the aim and mission between film, academia and art linked to a video art and experimental films at the attracts over 150 guest directors, screen- \\ of ARSENAL Institute for Film and Video whole network of different organizations. Filmhaus, at festivals, and in art and gallery writers, producers, actors, actresses and Art. Working at the point where practice Its work encompasses the running of the spaces all plays a part in the ongoing other people from the film industry. Over and theory come together, the institute two-screen Arsenal cinema, putting on the investigation of what the conditions that the past years, this Program has become comprises a space for thinking outside the BERLINALE FORUM and FORUM EXPANDED, constitute cinema actually are. the most important meeting point of the box in (film) cultural terms, a cinema whose distributing films as Arsenal Distribution Eastern European cinema. attention is focused on independent and and collecting and communicating works of 12 experimental film and a communication independent and experimental cinema as 13 INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM ROTTERDAM FESTIVAL OBERHAUSEN PARTNER FESTIVAL PARTNER FESTIVAL PRESENTATION PRESENTATION

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected fiction and documentary feature At its 63rd edition in 2017, the International Short Film Festival OBERHAUSEN is one of the major international crossroads for films, short films and media art. IFFR is one of the largest audience and industry-driven film festivals in the world. Famously, only the short form, unique in the range of forms and genres it presents to the public, and particularly well known for its spotlight on seventeen people attended the opening night of the first Film International Rotterdam on 28 June 1972. experimentation. In the course of more than five decades, filmmakers and artists ranging from Roman Polanski to Cate Shortland, from George Lucas to Pipilotti Rist, have presented their first works in OBERHAUSEN.

Presently, during twelve festival days, hundreds of filmmakers and other artists present The Festival organizes an International Competition, a Children’s and Youth Films and “Short film is a great first step for a their work to a large audience (2018: 329.000 admissions and 2.405 film professionals). a German Competition and the MuVi Award for the best German music video as well as budding filmmaker. That’s how I made The festival’s Official Selection includes more than 500 feature, mid-length, and short the NRW Competition for productions from North Rhine- Westphalia. my beginnings and OBERHAUSEN was films out of over 50 countries. an important step on my path to become In addition, OBERHAUSEN is known for its strong line of thematic programs such as a Director.” Roman Polanski “I smoked The Shorts section of International Film Festival Rotterdam has no fixed agenda, “Provoking Reality” in 2012, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the OBERHAUSEN my first cigarette here. For years, I saw boundaries or statement, but aims to show films that are experimental, innovative and Manifesto from 1962, or “Flatness: Cinema after the Internet” in 2013, a program every single film at the Westdeutsche contemporary, with a maximum length of 60 minutes. It contains, besides the regular that looks at the future of cinematographic production. The 2014 thematic program Kurzfilmtage, looking forward to those competition and spectrum programs, special thematic and solo programs, and also holds (“Memories can’t wait: Film without Film”) focused on the current shift of moving days in OBERHAUSEN every year. These a series of MindThe Gap-nights with live audio-visual events. The selection committee of image and sound from cinemas to galleries and museums world-wide. OBERHAUSEN’s events were important for me, for the IFFR Shorts doesn’t thoroughly reflect in advance on what experimental or innovative series of investigations into the cinema continued in 2015 with the theme “The Third my decision to become a filmmaker.” means. We’re interested in work that challenges generic designations (including the Image – 3D Cinema as Experiment”, while in 2017 the program ‘’Social media before Wim Wenders “There can be no doubt traditional “avant-garde”, “underground” or “video art” ones). Work may also draw on the Internet’’ exhibited forms of alternative media work prior to the advent of the that the OBERHAUSEN Short Film documentary, narrative, animation or any other tradition – or no tradition at all. So, what is worldwide digital web. Festival has written film history... The experimental, what is contemporary in the eyes of IFFR Shorts? This program (partly) gives short film has kept itself young, and so the answer. The festival also operates a well-stocked Video Library, a non-commercial short film has OBERHAUSEN. This atmosphere, BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ distribution branch and a unique archive of short films from more than 50 years of this creative power are what still \\ festival history. distinguishes short films today.” Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor 1998-2005.

14 15 INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY

ANGELIKA RAMLOW BIANCA LUCAS CRISTIAN NEAGOE

Representative of Programmer European Shorts Independent Curator BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED AND SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL Manager CĂRTUREȘTI FOUNDATION ARSENAL INSTITUTE BERLIN

ANGELIKA RAMLOW holds an MA in German BIANCA LUCAS is a filmmaker and Not knowing how to describe his work in and Film Studies. Since 2000 she has worked programmer of the European Shorts section short, CRISTIAN NEAGOE decided to call as an editor for Arsenal – Institute for at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Of Polish and himself a “cultural instigator”. He studied Film and Video Art – and as a freelancing Australian origin, she was born in 1989 in Philosophy at the University of Bucharest journalist, writer and curator for different Switzerland. She graduated from Goldsmiths and worked as a librarian, translator, writer, artspaces, such as Luna International College, University of London in 2010 with a PR, publisher, curator, producer & event or Kooperative Berlin. She is project degree in Media and Communications and organizer in Bucharest, New York, Sibiu manager of „arsenal distribution“ with specialisation in Film Studies. In 2017, she and other places, for organizations such as focus on experimental film, video art and graduated from a three-year filmmaking Cărturești, the Romanian Cultural Institute, installations since 2002. Communicating course (Film.Factory, Sarajevo Film Academy) the British Council, Goethe Institut, MNAC, international film culture in a lively manner helmed by Hungarian director Béla Tarr Omagiu, Șapte Seri, CreativeMornings etc. is both the aim and mission of Arsenal – in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is also working intermittently for film, Institute for Film and Video Art. Working Throughout her studies, she has been arts, music and literature festivals. He has at the point where practice and theory mentored by filmmakers such as Carlos co-founded and curates Street Delivery, a come together, the institute comprises a Reygadas, Gus Van Sant, Abel Ferrara, Pedro national event & manifesto that reclaims space for thinking outside the box in (film) Costa, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Guy public space for people, not only for their cultural terms, a cinema whose attention is Maddin, Agnieszka Holland, and many more. cars. He’s interested in deviant, marginal, focused on independent and experimental She is currently based in Paris. taboo aspects of contemporary culture. film and a communication platform for promoting dynamic exchange between film, academia and art linked to a whole network

of different organizations. Angelika Ramlow BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL is part of the Forum Expanded Team. She \\ has delivered curatorial programs and \\ lectures at Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, IFF Rotterdam, Kansk Filmfestival (Russia), The 4-VIDEOFORMA Festival in St. Petersburg, Dokfest Kassel, (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico (A Coruña, Spain).

16 17 JEANNETTE, THE CHILDHOOD OPENING GALA OF JOAN OF ARC 115’, France, 2017 DIRECTOR: BRUNO DUMONT OPENING GALA CAST: Lise Leplat Prudhomme, Jeanne Voisin, Lucile Gauthier, Victoria SOUND: Philippe Lecteur Lefebvre, Aline Charles, Elise Charles, Nicolas Leclaire, Gery De Poorter, MUSIC: Igorrr Regine Delalin, Anaïs Rivière CHOREOGRAPHER: Philippe Decoufflé SCRIPT: Bruno Dumont, based on “Les Mystères de la Charité Jeanne PRODUCERS: Jean Bréhat, Rachid Bouchareb, Muriel Merlin d’Arc” by Charles Péguy PRODUCTION COMPANY: Taos Production, Arte France, Pictanovo CINEMATOGRAPHER: Guillaume Deffontaines WITH THE SUPPORT OF: EDITOR: Bruno Dumont, Basile Belkhiri

BRUNO DUMONT Photos by D.Koskas©TAOS Films - ARTE France

Bucarest

France, 1425. In the midst of the Hundred Years’ War, the young Jeannette, With his tenth feature, BRUNO DUMONT radically delves into Joan’s DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The important thing is believing in what you DIRECTOR’S BIO-FILMOGRAPHY: BRUNO DUMONT (1958, France) is at the still tender age of 8, looks after her sheep in the small village of childhood with a category-defying period-cum-techno-head-banging see, rather than having a reality before your eyes, and yet which is not one of the most provocative film directors of the past decades. His films Domrémy. One day, she tells her friend Hauviette how she cannot bear musical, derived from two works by French writer Charles Péguy [...] able happen. Everything is transposition, everything is transfiguration. have won several awards, notably at the Cannes Films Festival. Two to see the suffering caused by the English. Madame Gervaise, a nun, tries Exquisitely shot in a palette of royal blues, heather greens, and sand by Young Joan does not walk in the Meuse, she walks in our imagination. But of Dumont’s films have won the Grand Prix award: both L’HUMANITÉ to reason with the young girl, but Jeannette is ready to take up arms Guillaume Deffontaines, JEANNETTE, THE CHILDHOOD OF JOAN OF to walk there, we have to see her walking somewhere in this supposed (1999) and FLANDRES (2006). The only other director who has twice for the salvation of souls and the liberation of the Kingdom of France. ARC oozes elemental beauty. With a touch of Straub-Huillet materialism, stream. That’s what cinema does. Everything else is secondary: The set, the won the Cannes Grand Prix is Andrei Tarkovsky. Dumont has so far Carried by her faith, she will become Joan of Arc. Imagine all of this sung DUMONT casts non-actors in the leading roles and makes use of live sync actors, the screenplay. What counts is the way it all fits together. Cinema directed ten feature films. His major preoccupations in these movies and danced and you will probably get but a vague idea all the same of sound for the sung, a cappella dialogue, creating an intoxicating combination is the right mystification which creates the assembly. Cinema rightly are racism, religious fundamentalism, and questions of the sacred and how daring BRUNO DUMONT’s latest feature really is. His electro-metal of naturalism, amateurism, and anarchic artifice that is bolstered by mystifies, and we are well aware of that: That’s cinema. That in no way the profane, all of which he represents using a style that focuses mainly musical featuring wild head-banging performed by children, teenagers an electro-metal score from French multi-instrumentalist Igorrr and a diminishes the sincerity of the emotions we experience – on the contrary. upon the on-screen interrogation of physicality in a brutally intimate and twin nuns may very well be the most eccentric cinematic take on Joan majorettes-meets–mosh pit choreography with hair-wagging paroxysms. The purification happens just as much because we genuinely believe in it, way. [...] However, with his latest three films a new phase in Dumont’s of Arc’s story to date. Heady, strange, genuinely funny, and completely out of time, JEANNETTE, as if for real and under the benevolent and emancipating protection of its filmography seems to have started: a phase in which austere drama has THE CHILDHOOD OF JOAN OF ARC is one helluva contribution to the canon fiction where our superstitions are fulfilled. It’s the mysterious harmony of given way to eccentric comedy. of “Joan films” and further proof of DUMONT’s astonishing versatility and the whole which tips it into a prodigious transfiguration, an illumination (Amir Ganjavie; Daniel Kasman) FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Directors’ Fortnight Cannes Film Festival 2017 / uncompromising vision. of a radiant truth. Not on the screen, but in the heart of the spectator. The Toronto International Film Festival 2017 / Viennale 2017 / International Film movie spectator is thus the very heart of the work. That is why the young (Andréa Picard, Toronto International Film Festival) Festival Rotterdam 2018 / Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017 / Joan so often looks directly at him or her. Toronto International Film Festival 2017 / Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal 2017 / Festival International de cinema de Morelia 2017 / Busan (BRUNO DUMONT) BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Pitched somewhere between Straub-Huillet and Headbangers Ball, Monty

\\ International Film Festival 2017 / Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival \\ Python and Messiaen, BRUNO DUMONT’s new feature JEANNETTE, 2017 / Rendez-vous with French Cinema in Paris 2018 THE CHILDHOOD OF JOAN OF ARC marks an unexpected and near- FILMMAKER’S WEBSITES: perfect synthesis of the French iconoclast’s many disparate interests and W: http://www.luxboxfilms.com/jeannette-2/ obsessions [...] For all the criticism DUMONT has endured for abandoning WORLD SALES: LUXBOX realism and forsaking characters for caricature, he’s responsible for some T: +33 6 26 10 07 65 of the most exhilaratingly alive cinema in the world right now. E: [email protected] W: www.luxboxfilms.com 18 (Jordan Cronk, Cinema Scope) 19 INSECT CLOSING GALA / SPECIAL SCREENING 98’, Czech Republic/Slovakia, 2018 DIRECTOR: JAN ŠVANKMAJER

CAST: Kamila Magálová, Jiří Lábus, Jan Budař, Ivana Uhlířová, Norbert SOUND DESIGN: Ivo Špalj

CLOSING GALA CLOSING Lichý, Jaromír Dulava PRODUCER: Jaromír Kallista SCRIPT: Jan Švankmajer PRODUCTION COMPANY: Athanor - Film Production Company, Llc CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jan Růžička, Adam Oľha EDITOR: Jan Daňhel, Jan Švankmajer WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

JAN ŠVANKMAJER

Master of surrealist cinema JAN ŠVANKMAJER presents us with yet Using the Čapek brothers’ satire as a springboard, the Czech director DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: This was one of many, many ideas and subjects DIRECTOR’S BIO-FILMOGRAPHY: JAN ŠVANKMAJER (b.1934, Prague) another highly compelling work that plays with the boundaries between develops a complex reflection on modern cinematography, despite that I wasn’t allowed to shoot back in the 1970s because of the regime and is one of the key authors of contemporary experimental cinema, a animation and live-action, while also turning into a central subject the declaring that the film has no moral purpose and that the composition the strict censorship. The 1970s was a very fruitful, very creative time for landmark and strong inspiration for artists like the Quay Brothers, process of its own making. INSECT intertwines the ‘story’ of a troupe is very simple: short shots, characters with no psychological depth, me. Ideas were just flowing from me, so many interesting stories that I admit Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and others. He made his first film in 1964, of actors rehearsing a version of The Insect Play (a satirical work from small animated cutaways [...] Throughout its duration, the film I took for granted back then. So I just put those interesting stories into my and from then on, ŠVANKMAJER has created some of the most the early twenties by the brothers Karel and Josef Čapek which features maintains the didactic and extraordinary tone established at the very drawer, a very big drawer, and now, or more accurately from about the 90s memorable and unique films ever made, an innovative surreal mix insects displaying human traits), with sequences showing ŠVANKMAJER beginning, with great costumes and a crescendo of inventiveness that onwards, I have been revisiting them one by one and shooting the movies. between 3-D stop-motion animation, puppets and live-action. In himself on set while directing. As the actors start mastering their insect ends with an “I told you so” that only a few artists (and artisans) like Of course, certain details have changed from what I envisioned back in the surrealist descent, he explores the areas of subconscious, intuition, roles (the Dung Beetle, the Parasite and Miss Larva, to name just a few), ŠVANKMAJER can get away with, unlike the majority of filmmakers we 70s, but the themes and characters are still very relevant to me. I’m not feelings. ŠVANKMAJER’s first feature film, ALICE (1987), a witty and the film starts employing the animation techniques that have made the see today. interested in fleeting themes, but material that is deeper and constant in subversive adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, opens Czech director famous. Skillfully connecting all these layers, INSECT all our lives. It was just my good luck that I stashed them in these drawers with the instruction: “Now you must close your eyes, otherwise you (Roberto Oggiano, Cineuropa) turns into a highly entertaining and bizzare comment on not only human around my home, so that I could eventually open those drawers and use will see nothing!” The deliberate excision of the visible in this way behaviour, but also on theatre and cinema, thus providing us with an the ideas of a younger man to tell stories as an older one. Thematically, frees sight from its outward alignment with rationality and morality., insight into the filmmaker’s way of approaching his craft. the film is actually one of the darkest I have ever made. There is humour, creating an “opening,” into our inner authentic world. With the JAN SVANKMAJER is the real deal, a brilliant artist who has always but to observe it more closely it casts a very dark perspective, seeks out ensuing feature films FAUST, CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE, LITTLE (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2018) remained true to his vision, making films that are as entertaining as they the very darkest edges of our persona. I don’t want anyone going into this OTIK, LUNACY and SURVIVING LIFE [BIEFF 2010], Švankmajer pushed are challenging, brimming with images and ideas and characters and film thinking they will find the light humour you may find in an American further the boundaries between animation and live-action, deepening stories that burn in the mind, never to be forgotten. film. I’m making imaginative films, works that draw upon specific imagery his explorations and accomplishing his strikingly surreal and uncanny FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018 (Charles Henry Selick) not always of this world. These are not ‘actor’ films: the story, and so much vision. The creative diversity of JAN ŠVANKMAJER exceeds the limits more, that is important to the film I want to make, not necessarily the of film, going into the area of visual arts, sculpture, painting, prose and responsibility of the cast. Each aspect of the production is equally crucial poetry. His work, whether film, visual, or literary, bears the mark of the BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ The greatest interest comes in moments when we see how the director’s to what I want to make as any other aspect. Costumes, sound, editing – Czech Surrealist Group (of which he is one the most active members). \\ WORLD SALES: ATHANOR – Film Production Company T: +420 233 322 905 signature stop-motion special effects are made, from a large slimy tongue all those things have to combine for my films to work. My actors always E: [email protected] to an enormous dung ball. Watching these scenes makes one yearn for a take some time to get used to my sets, because the way I make my films is W: http://www.athanor.cz general ŠVANKMAJER “Making Of” doc covering his whole career. something different. I play with them to get the effect, the end result that I need. I am their puppet master. (Jay Weissberg, Variety) (JAN ŠVANKMAJER interviewed for Screen-Space) 20 21 THE GREEN FOG CLOSING FILM 62’, 2017, USA DIRECTOR: GUY MADDIN, EVAN JOHNSON, GALEN JOHNSON

EDITORS: Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson WITH THE SUPPORT OF: CLOSING FILM CLOSING

CLOSING GALA CLOSING SOUND DESIGN: John Gurdebeke MUSIC: Jacob Garchik, performed by the Kronos Quartet PRODUCERS: Evan Johnson, Guy Maddin PRODUCTION COMPANY: Extra Large Productions, commissioned by the San Francisco International Film Festival

GUY MADDIN EVAN JOHNSON GALEN JOHNSON

Photos by Pamela Gentile

The prologue to THE GREEN FOG shows a dial being turned from “Talk” As befits the MADDIN imagination, THE GREEN FOG is constructed Somehow, not withstanding its fragmented diversity of images, and DIRECTOR’S BIO-FILMOGRAPHY: GUY MADDIN is the director of to “Listen”. In a studio cinema, a man in handcuffs is held at gunpoint as with an eye for the bizarre and the joyously perverse. Discontinuity is despite the fact that it features very little dialogue [. . .], THE GREEN FOG twelve feature-length movies, including THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (2015), he watches the images on the screen. A map can be seen, with a finger sometimes wildly heightened, in classic Surrealist mode […] This is an remains intelligible and remarkably coherent, even as the narrative lines MY WINNIPEG (2007), THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD (2003). He pointing to San Francisco. Reporters stand in front of a building, poised exuberant, celebratory, often marvelously funny piece of work; it’s also expand, bend and contort to include sundry digressions [...] The film, in has also mounted around the world over seventy performances of his to deliver news by loudspeaker; the public wait in fear. The Golden Gate strangely melancholic and mesmerizingly uncanny. essence, is a brilliant exercise in meta-narrative, which raises questions films featuring live elements – orchestra, sound effects, singing and Bridge appears, bathed in green light; a storm rises, the steep streets of galore about reality and representation, time and space, genre and narration. Since 2011 MADDIN has collaborated with Galen Johnson and (Jonathan Romney, Film Comment) the city are entirely deserted. The structure of this film by GUY MADDIN, gender, individual and urban identity, cinematic suture and casting, etc. Evan Johnson under the banner of Develop­ment Ltd., their Winnipeg- EVAN JOHNSON and GALEN JOHNSON pays homage to Hitchcock’s based filmmaking collective. (Geoff Andrew, Sight & Sound) Vertigo: a dizzying assemblage of film and TV images both familiar and At this stage in his career, MADDIN has mastered a particular form of unknown, all from the Bay Area. From this trove of found material, they filmmaking, and has garnered significant approbation for it. But instead have created a cinematic fantasy that pulls the viewer in and never lets go. of simply generating more of the same, his newest work finds him taking DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT: Whether or not you’ve seen Vertigo, Hitchcock’s DIRECTOR’S BIO-FILMOGRAPHY: GALEN JOHNSON worked for several (Berlinale 2018) on new collaborators, trying radically new things, and broadening his internecine engagement with the male gaze, we want you to get lost in the years in the architecture industry before working as Production De­ formal repertoire. In every way, THE GREEN FOG is the work of a bold, mysteries and delights we found in making our own adaptation. Our medium signer, Title Designer, and Composer on THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (2015), forward-thinking artist. is footage repurposed from movies and television shot or set exclusively for which he was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for production in San Francisco. Our version, shaped for our own pleasure out of newly design/art direction. He has since gone on to co-direct BRING ME THE FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2018 / San (Michael Sicinski, Letterboxd) defamiliarized material, is more a Vertigo “shape” that somewhat rhymes HEAD OF TIM HORTON (2015), the experimental short film website Francisco Film Festival 2017 / Vancouver International Film Festival 2017 with, occasionally reconfigures, and sometimes flips like a fried egg the SEANCES (2016), and Vertigo remake THE GREEN FOG (2017) all with Guy savagery and victimhood of the annihilating original. Sit back and let the Maddin and Evan Johnson. More than a literal fusing of the city’s famous atmospheric conditions

emulsions, pixels and taxidermy dust wash over your eyeballs! BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL with the green hues of Vertigo, this fog takes on its own mind-bending WORLD SALES: THE FESTIVAL AGENCY

\\ T: +33 9 54904863 significance, pushing the film toward the fever-dream territory of (GUY MADDIN, EVAN JOHNSON, GALEN JOHNSON) \\ E: [email protected] MADDIN’s other films. Even working with some of the most mainstream DIRECTOR’S BIO-FILMOGRAPHY: EVAN JOHNSON is a writer and W: http://www.thefestivalagency.com ingredients one could possibly find (including, in a funny moment, an filmmaker. He studied film and philosophy at the University of Manitoba NSYNC video) and one of the most familiar settings on earth, GUY and worked at Winnipeg’s Rug Doctor chemical bottling plant before MADDIN knows how to make things strange. being discovered there by Guy Maddin. He co-directed his first feature, THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (2015), with Maddin, and has made a handful of (John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter) his own short films. 22 23 A LIE THAT TELLS THE TRUTH PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION I

Curatorial presentation by: ANDREI TĂNĂSESCU

In a time when fiction trumps fact and the veracity of our sources of information is constantly under scrutiny, how does one make sense of it all to get to the untainted essence? The competition program A LIE THAT TELLS THE TRUTH proposes five films that confront falsehoods head on, burrow deep beneath and deconstruct their surface in order to pull out the truth hiding within.

Whether it’s taking new media propaganda nuclear weapons and a nation-wide training Through the deafening silence of subtitled Out of the clear, still waters, an orange FIND FIX FINISH – the fatal alliteration of drone warfare’s attack cycle. Secretive and to absurdist levels in HARALD HUND’s program aimed at subversive, international court transcripts, we read on as the life-jacket is plucked by a boat. Taken invisible to those targeted citizens, it’s a military operation undertaken by trained soldiers EMPIRE OF EVIL, using forensic sound terrorism. Bit by bit, a country’s tourist prosecution makes its case and witness the along with several other jettisoned vests, in command booths from different continents. Precise and masterfully controlled, analysis to unmask loopholes of systemic attractions and cultural charm are turned reductive (in)ability of legal proceedings our narrative anchor is driven off to a vast visual suspension flattens the image while the military protagonists enrich its contents violence in RUBBER COATED STEEL, or inside out, playing into Western tactics (and its jargon) to assert The Truth. dumping site where it joins an endless through their narrated recollections of voyeuristic intimacy. Their remote contact takes THE DUST CHANNEL connecting the of fear-mongering. A frighteningly re/ Redeeming the humanity splintered by pile of other forgotten narratives, lives an empathic and nervous turn as we look on to recognizable landscapes of Western psychoanalytical pathology of Capitalism’s deconstruction of the manipulation of statistical evidence, HAMDAN delivers a interrupted in their journeys to the new topography, peeling the footage’s veneer of placidity to reveal a Hitchcockian stand- commercialization of purification and media-as-propaganda that has become so sobering look at the imbalance of systems world. In this cemetery of migration, off between hunter and prey. As we descend onto a suburban swimming pool, ‘divine extreme nationalism, these are films prevalent in our digital age, EMPIRE OF of power and their victims. a scarecrow stands guard. Fending off intervention’ begins to take a new, dark turn. which use the language of manipulation EVIL makes us question the message by intruders? Or the judgment of history? against itself. Taking a more literal looking for its didactic fissures (or guerilla The mortuary silence speaks louder than BIEFF-favourite ROEE ROSEN returns with another playful and incisively political work: ‘dimensional’ approach, FIND FIX FINISH chickens and robot mannequins). words, and as the sun sets, beacons of the surrealist/manifesto two-hander brimming with creativity, THE DUST CHANNEL. and 8TH CONTINENT use the vertical and light blink into existence, announcing Structured by a Russian-language operetta devoted to the Dyson vacuum cleaner, horizontal, respectively, to address the Winner of the Tiger and Audience Awards at lost souls terraforming a new layer in the the film follows the ‘degeneration’ of a bourgeois couple’s body-politic, as their falsehood of pervasive imagery that’s Rotterdam and 25 FPS Festivals respectively, metaphorical geology of the 21st century germophobia kicks in at dirt’s invasion of their quarantine-clean apartment. Indulging become associated with threatening RUBBER COATED STEEL is a forensic history. With 8TH CONTINENT, YORGOS their repressed desires, the symbolic psychoanalytic turns political – the contamination NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL I I the West, thereby bringing to light the procedural that revisits the trial against two ZOIS once again addresses the plight of Israel by African refugees. Vacuum cleaner as state purifier, enduring machinery BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ empathic humanity buried inside. Israeli soldiers accused of killing teenagers of mass populations, offering a poetic as military might, consumerism as nationalism; all become the symbolic metaphors \\ Nadeem Nawara and Mohamad Abu Daher. eulogy to their tragic fate. spinning in Dyson’s cyclone suction. Guided by a suspicious voiceover and Within the space of a shooting gallery, insider footage, we’re offered an exclusive, waveforms from video recordings are behind the scenes look at the evil analyzed to prove that live ammunition had machinations of a nation. The country? Iran. been employed – instead of rubber bullets. Its secret operations? The development of 24 25 EMPIRE OF EVIL RUBBER COATED STEEL 11’, 2016, Austria 22’, 2017, Lebanon/Germany DIRECTOR: HARALD HUND DIRECTOR: LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN

CAST: Stephen Mathewson SCRIPTWRITER: Lawrence Abu Hamdan SCRIPTWRITER: Stephen Mathewson, Harald Hund CINEMATOGRAPHY: Lawrence Abu Hamdan CINEMATOGRAPHY: Harald Hund, Alfred Zacharias EDITING: Lawrence Abu Hamdan ANIMATION: Katharina Petsche Harald Hund SOUND: Lawrence Abu Hamdan EDITING: Harald Hund PRODUCER: Fabian Schoeneich SOUND: Benjamin Urbanek, Martin Siewert PRODUCTION COMPANY: Portikus A LIE THAT TELLS TRUTH THE THAT LIE A PRODUCER: Harald Hund

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

HARALD HUND LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN

FILM PRESENTATION: Guided by a suspicious voiceover and insider CURATOR’S COMMENT: In EMPIRE OF EVIL, HARALD HUND poses the FILM PRESENTATION: Winner of the Tiger and Audience Awards at CURATOR’S COMMENT: RUBBER COATED STEEL offers no easy answers, footage, we’re offered an exclusive, behind the scenes look at the evil explosive (media-)political question of trust in visual documents that Rotterdam and 25 FPS Festivals respectively, RUBBER COATED STEEL only the painful realization that the law and the world are riddled with machinations of a nation. The country? Iran. Its secret operations? suggest authority and promise truth. And he does so using a concrete, is a forensic procedural that revisits the trial against two Israeli soldiers distinctions that are seen and heard by some but not by others. Among the The development of nuclear weapons and a nation-wide training current case: Iran and the Western view of it. At the same time, the film accused of killing teenagers Nadeem Nawara and Mohamad Abu Daher. most enraging moments of the film are those in which parts of the court programaimed at subversive, international terrorism. Bit by bit, a carries out a double bind of sorts; in psychological terms, it generates a Within the space of a shooting gallery, waveforms from video recordings transcript are presented struck out, having been officially removed from country’s tourist attractions and cultural charm are turned inside out, mental disposition resting on diverging communicative signals and a are analyzed to prove that live ammunition was employed – instead the record after the fact. The longest struck out section—presented over playing into Western tactics of fear-mongering. A frighteningly re/ reception environment marked by power dispositifs. At the same time, it of rubber bullets. Through the deafening silence of subtitled court the course of several subtitle transitions—describes instructions posted deconstruction of the manipulation of media-as-propaganda that offers continuous moments of self-exposure and to that extent, also the transcripts, we read on as the prosecution makes its case and witness on an Israeli military website for making lethal ammunition sound like has become so prevalent in our digital age, EMPIRE OF EVIL makes us resolution of the previously produced conflict. Yet these moments must the reductive (in)ability of legal proceedings (and its jargon) to assert non-lethal rubber bullets. For me, reading these lines induced two kinds question the message by looking for its didactic fissures (or guerilla be discovered and ‘correctly’ interpreted. What is shown in the video The Truth. Redeeming the humanity splintered by statistical evidence, of horror. The first regarded the callousness and racism of a military chickens and robot mannequins). recordings and the visual material scattered in between, exclusively from HAMDAN delivers a sobering look at the imbalance of systems of power culture bent on dodging its responsibility for willful murder. But the second Western media, and what we see in this audiovisual journey of discovery and their victims came with my realization, even before I finished reading, that what I was (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) constructed along a time axis, turn out to be two very different things. reading would be formally disregarded by those who most needed to see it. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) Without dispute, the film can be given credit for not morally overplaying Recorded only under erasure, these lines—much like Deri’s rubber coated the relevance of this theme, the importance of which has grown immensely steel gunshots—are hidden in plain sight. We know far in advance what FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Youth Jury Award - Dresden Film Festival since the media images of embedded journalists in the Iraq War, and in light follows them in the transcript: Objection. Sustained. I don’t understand, I 2017/ Stuttgart Filmwinter, Expanded Media Festival 2017/ Crossing of the most recent, likewise heavily mediatized terror attacks in Europe. FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Tiger Award for Short Films – Rotterdam didn’t hear you. ABU HAMDAN shows us that to be silent and to be silenced INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL I Europe Film Festival, Linz 2016/ UnderDox, Festival für Dokument Instead, with media-inherent methods, it demonstrates the power and International Film Festival 2017/ Audience Award - 25 FPS Festival, are very different things—wisdom that applies as well in figurative terms BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ und Experiment, Munich 2016/ Victoria Antimatter Underground Film seduction of images, but also the documentary per se as a construction of Croatia 2017 / The New York Film Festival 2017 / Sheffield International as it does to the very literal world of firearm technology. \\ Festival 2016/ Wiesbaden - exground on screen 2016 an audiovisual reality.’ Documentary Festival 2017 / Yamagata International Documentary (John Nyman, peripheralview.com) Festival 2017 (Irene Müller)

WORLD SALES: SIXPACKFILM Dietmar Scwärzler – Festivals T: +43 1 526 09 90 15 WORLD SALES: LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN E: [email protected] E: [email protected] 26 W: http://www.sixpackfilm.com/ W: www.lawrenceabuhamdan.com 27

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: www.haraldhund.com W: www.lawrenceabuhamdan.com 8TH CONTINENT FIND FIX FINISH 11’, 2017, Greece 19.5’, 2017, Germany DIRECTOR: YORGOS ZOIS DIRECTOR: SYLVAIN CRUIZIAT & MILA ZHLUKTENKO CAST: Pavlos Iordanopoulos SCRIPTWRITER: Yorgos Zois SCRIPTWRITER: Sylvain Cruiziat & Mila Zhluktenko CINEMATOGRAPHY: Stelios Pissas CINEMATOGRAPHY: Nikolai Huber EDITING: Yannis Chalkiadakis EDITING: Sophie Oldenbourg SOUND: Alexandros Sidiropoulos/ Aris Louziotis SOUND: Philip Hutter MUSIC: Thaleia Ioannidou MUSIC: Ina Meredi Arakelian A LIE THAT TELLS TRUTH THE THAT LIE A PRODUCER: Yorgos Zois/ Antigoni Rota PRODUCER: Veronika Faistbauer, Mariella Santibáez, PRODUCTION COMPANY: Squared Square Sylvain Cruiziat, Mila Zhluktenko & HFF Munich

WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

YORGOS ZOIS SYLVAIN CRUIZIAT MILA ZHLUKTENKO

FILM PRESENTATION: Out of the clear, still waters, an orange life- DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: This graveyard of life jackets constitutes FILM PRESENTATION: FIND FIX FINISH – the fatal alliteration of drone DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT: Drone warfare has received a lot of attention jacket is plucked by a boat. Taken along with several other jettisoned a modern monument of our absurd world. It does not only represent the warfare’s attack cycle. Secretive and invisible to those targeted citizens, following the well-publicized targeted killings of terrorist leaders. vests, our narrative anchor is driven off to a vast dumping site where aftermath of this massive population movement in the 21st century. It also it’s a military operation undertaken by trained soldiers in command Suddenly we discovered the mighty power of remote-controlled weapons it joins an endless pile of other forgotten narratives, lives interrupted haunts us with images that dig deeply into our own existence and carry a booths from different continents. Precise and masterfully controlled, and technology, seemingly enabling military operations to carefully select in their journeys to the new world. In this cemetery of migration, a universal life meaning that goes beyond the daily news visual suspension flattens the image while the military protagonists their target and deadly meet them without any human cost whatsoever. scarecrow stands guard. Fending off intruders? Or the judgment of enrich its contents through their narrated recollections of voyeuristic Drone warfare is by nature invisible, secretive or even unreal to the average history? The mortuary silence speaks louder than words, and as the (YORGOS ZOIS) intimacy. Their remote contact takes an empathic and nervous turn as person; hence our decision to bring it much closer to us in transposing it to sun sets, beacons of light blink into existence, announcing lost souls we look on to recognizable landscapes of Western topography, peeling our own familiar surroundings and day-to-day peaceful life. The first-hand terraforming a new layer in the metaphorical geology of 21st century the footage’s veneer of placidity to reveal a Hitchcockian stand-off accounts of drone pilots are central to the film: they do not only emphasize history. With 8TH CONTINENT, YORGOS ZOIS once again addresses the between hunter and prey. As we descend onto a suburban swimming the intimate relationships built over long periods of observation between plight of mass populations, offering a poetic eulogy to their tragic fate. pool, ‘divine intervention’ begins to take a new, dark turn. the pilots and their “future targets”, but also they place the viewer in the pilot’s seat and ocular perspective to recreate the same sensations and (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) emotions those pilots go through during their missions. The soundscape of the film enabled us to further demonstrate the incredible level of close- up and voyeurism, whilst also enabling us to “fix” onto specific people or FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Venice International Film Festival 2017/ FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Amnesty International Award - IndieLisboa 2017/ objects on screen. All in an effort to steer the viewer’s attention into an International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / Minimalen Film Festival 2017/ Best Experimental Short Film - Guanajuato IFF 2017/ Short Film Audience imaginative cross-hair. The apparent unmanned warfare becomes suddenly INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL I Trieste Film Festival 2017 Award & Jury Prize “Fugas International Competition” - Documenta Madrid all too human, and the viewer starts to comprehend the psychological BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ 2017/ Special Mention Best Cinematography - Camerimage FF 2017/ Visions effect on the so-called “television warriors”. All that is left to do now is \\ du Réel 2017/ San Sebastian IFF 2017/ Vancouver IFF 2017/ Jihlava IDFF 2017/ “push the little red button”. IDFA 2017/ Clermont-Ferrand ISFF 2017 WORLD SALES: SQUARED SQUARE (SYLVAIN CRUIZIAT & MILA ZHLUKTENKO) Antigoni Rota T: +306944435927 E: [email protected] WORLD SALES: VERONIKA FAISTBAUER Producer T: +49 151 75070577 | E: [email protected] 28 W: http://fff-film.com/ 29

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] THE DUST CHANNEL 23’, 2016, Israel DIRECTOR: ROEE ROSEN

CAST: Inbar Livne Bar-On, Yoav M. Weiss, Udi Bonen, Noam Dubster, Yuri Friedberg, Alisa Goldenberg, Ruslan Gross, Nadav Masel SCRIPTWRITER: Roee Rosen CINEMATOGRAPHY: Avner Shahaf EDITING: Max Lomberg A LIE THAT TELLS TRUTH THE THAT LIE A SOUND: Lawrence Abu Hamdan MUSIC: Igor Krutogolov PRODUCER: Roee Rosen

ROEE ROSEN

FILM PRESENTATION: BIEFF-favourite ROEE ROSEN returns with CURATOR’S COMMENT: THE DUST CHANNEL is a cultural exquisite corpse: another playful and incisively political work: the surrealist/manifesto an operetta with a libretto in Russian about a British home appliance, a two-hander brimming with creativity, THE DUST CHANNEL. Structured Dyson DC07 Vacuum Cleaner, set in an Israeli reality of private perversion by a Russian-language operetta devoted to the Dyson vacuum cleaner, and socio-political phobias. The Russian text is an animation chant, meant to the film follows the ‘degeneration’ of a bourgeois couple’s body-politic, bring to life the vacuum cleaner by telling it its own history. It is a narrative as their germophobia kicks in at dirt’s invasion of their quarantine- of the ingenious designer Dyson and his vacuum cleaners – a story of beauty clean apartment. Indulging their repressed desires, the symbolic and fetishistic seduction that arrives at moment of bigotry. The diegesis, psychoanalytic turns political – the contamination of Israel by African however, offers a different story altogether: a ménage à trois between refugees. Vacuum cleaner as state purifier, enduring machinery as a handsome, affluent couple, and their Dyson DC07 cleaner – a surreal military might, consumerism as nationalism; all become the symbolic affair which pays homage on several levels to a surreal classic wherein metaphors spinning in Dyson’s cyclone suction. perversion and transgression appears from within bourgeois domesticity: Dalí and Buñuel’s chien Andalou. Images of loving cleanliness, fearful (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) dirt and the social and psychological import they breed are linked to the relation between the homeowners and the presences that enter their house: cleaners, refugees, and the policemen who pursue them. While this narrative FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Film Award - Kansk International Video willfully offers itself as an insular, private affair, dirt and dust are associated Festival, Moscow 2016/ FIDMarseille International Film Festival 2016/ figuratively with sand and the desert, obliquely pointing at specific and

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL I Jeonju International Film Festival, Seoul 2017/ FILMADRID International BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL current forms of xenophobia: the detention center “Holot,” wherein political Film Festival, Madrid 2017/ Documenta 14, Kassel 2017/ FICUNAM

\\ refugees unrecognized as such by the State are held for long terms. \\ \\ International Film Festival, Mexico City 2017/ Riccardo Crespi Gallery, Milan 2017/ Viennale, Vienna 2017/ Lo schermo dell’arte film Festival, (artsy.net) Florence 2017/ Transmediale, HKW, Berlin 2017

WORLD SALES: E: [email protected] 30 W: roeerosen.com 31

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: roeerosen.com HUMAN NATURE / MOTHER NATURE PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION II

Curatorial presentation by: ADINA MARIN

Although words such as MOTHER, HUMAN and NATURE supposedly rhyme with peace and kindness and beauty, the truth of the matter is that when talking about Mother Nature and Human Civilization we are looking at a love-hate relationship and feel the urge to slip the word versus between the two. There have been voices to announce the beginning of a new geological time, the Human Age coined ‘’Anthropocene’’, due to the enormous (negative) impact of the humans on the environment.

But like in a tennis game, whenever the skillfully juxtaposes visuals of luxurious and blue backdrop of the floral invasion And because they are visually impaired been taken over by animals, much in Human player sends a ball over the net, nature (static or moving) over dull and explores their stories of nostalgia and therefore can ‘’see’’ only with their the same way as humans had insinuated Nature strikes back. Ozone depletion? concrete-and-steel urban images until it and sorrow of displacement. There is hands, a question promptly pops up: themselves in the wild. Eventually, we Deadly storms. Deforestation? Landslides. becomes difficult to tell the imitations also talk about harvesting and export How would the urban landscape look witness a cohabitation of wild creatures, And so on. Undoubtedly, there is a fight from the real thing. Although the author and flower treatment, meaning that like, if our decisions were based on humans and pets and it would look like of sorts going on, but the environmental claims that the conclusion is left for the the banished humans might have been touch, sound and temperature instead a happy ending but for the disturbing issues, however critical they might be, are viewer to draw, one cannot refrain from the cause of the unhealthy proliferation of visual appearance? circular movements of creatures chasing only the tip of the iceberg. The films in wondering nonsequitously whether after all. their tails. this program take bits of the complicated the fake plants will die when one stops Landscape is the object of dispute relation between nature and humankind pretending to water them. In WHAT THERE IS TO SEE, landscape is between humans and wild animals in and look at them with a fresh and the starting point from which JAANA AFTER THE VOLCANO. The well-ordered inquisitive, cinematic eye. After dragging us into a haunted post- KOKKO embarks on an analysis of its life of a village is interrupted by bursting Although members of the same species, the humans in THEY JUST COME AND GO clubbing landscape with his ‘Fiesta meanings and political perceptions. fire and earth shakes. As the firefighters simply ignore the existence of their fellow beings. At sunrise, a beach becomes the In NATURE: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, Forever’ last year, JORGE JÁCOME returns There is the Romantic Western European prove ineffective, the community takes place of surreal encounters. The young try to prolong the remains of the night. The nature is everywhere: the dentist’s to BIEFF with a different kind of -topia. landscape, as it appears on the 19th to the forest. Using the mishap as a elderly make a start of the coming day. For some brief moments, they move within waiting room is a palm beach (wallpaper), In FLORES the entire population of the century backdrops of theatre stages. starting point for his charming mash- the same space, without acknowledging each other’s existence. The third presence on NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL II I the concrete balcony is green with grass Azores archipelago has been supposedly Then the colonial era sets in, depicted in up, LÉO FAVIER deals with dead serious set is nature. The sand. The sea. The sun. Unlike the humans, it is permanent. BORIS BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ (plastic) and there is a rainforest in the forced to take refuge on the continent the film by the illustrations in a popular topics such as global warming and habitat POLJAK employs stunning images to convey a sense of transience of human existence. \\ conference room (wallpaper again). It’s because of an unmanageable outburst children’s book about the voyage of an invasion under the playful form of a All those superbly perfect bodies burning with lust are doomed to turn into decrepit copyrighted material, of course, but who of the otherwise harmless hydrangeas. elephant to a utopian civilized European fantastic story told with stock footage carcasses, same as those walking aimlessly, as in a limbo, in the shallow waters of a sea will question whether the author and The camera follows the only two young city. The main layer in the cinematic several decades old. After an attempt to unchanged, accompanied by the sound of Leonard Cohen’s Halleluja. first owner, i.e. Nature itself, has given soldiers posted on the island with construction though is the presence of live a hunter-gatherer life, some return permission of use? SEBASTIAN MULDER exquisite shots set against the purple a group of people who act as guides. to the village, only to discover it had

32 33 NATURE: FLORES 26’, 2017, Portugal ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DIRECTOR: JORGE JÁCOME 22’, 2016, The Netherlands DIRECTOR: SEBASTIAN MULDER CAST: André Andrade, Pedro Rosa, Gabriel Desplanque, Jorge Jácome SCRIPTWRITER: Sebastian Mulder SCRIPTWRITER: Jorge Jácome, David Cabecinha CINEMATOGRAPHY: Maxime Brun CINEMATOGRAPHY: Marta Simões EDITING: Wouter Hoek EDITING: Jorge Jácome SOUND: Apollonia van Dun SOUND: Marco Leão MUSIC: Joost van ‘T Hoff MUSIC: Terry Riley PRODUCER: Sebastian Mulder PRODUCER: João Figueiras PRODUCTION COMPANY: University of the Arts Utrecht PRODUCTION COMPANY: Blackmaria HUMAN NATURE / MOTHER / NATURE HUMAN NATURE WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

SEBASTIAN MULDER JORGE JÁCOME

FILM PRESENTATION: We need nature - the urban society firmly declares. DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The ambiguity of fake nature, to me is the core FILM PRESENTATION: After dragging us into a haunted post-clubbing CURATOR’S COMMENT: In most cases, our actions result in detrimental As a result, nature is everywhere: the dentist’s waiting room is a palm beach of this experimental documentary. What does all this kind of fake nature, landscape with his ‘Fiesta Forever’ last year, JORGE JÁCOME returns to impact on nature. FLORES posits the opposite, looking at a scenario where (wallpaper), the concrete balcony is green with grass (plastic) and there like the design of wallpapers, on computer and television screens, tell us BIEFF with a different kind of -topia. The entire population of the Azores one species of flora is reclaiming territory from human encroachment. We is a rainforest in the conference room (wallpaper again). It’s copyrighted about our view on the natural world? To what extent does fake nature archipelago has been supposedly forced to take refuge on the continent can see this in the lavender tone of the visuals (shades of Joseph Cornell’s material, of course, but who will question whether the author and first really satisfy our need for nature? What if one day, all real nature in the because of an unmanageable outburst of the otherwise harmless Rose Hobart), wherein even the atmosphere has been taken over by the owner, i.e. Nature itself, has given permission of use? SEBASTIAN MULDER world is vanished and all that remains is fake nature? The main goal of hydrangeas. The camera follows the only two young soldiers posted on hydrangeas. Considering our own, very real ecological errors, JÁCOME uses skillfully juxtaposes visuals of luxurious nature (static or moving) over this film was to start a discussion by asking questions. But I didn’t want to the island with exquisite shots set against the purple and blue backdrop speculative fiction to ask us how we intend to survive the Purple Reign. dull concrete-and-steel urban images until it becomes difficult to tell engage in a moralistic, fact-based story with a clear conclusion, because of the floral invasion and explores their stories of nostalgia and sorrow of the imitations from the real thing. Although the author claims that the I think there are no conclusion. I want to give the viewer the freedom to displacement. There is also talk about harvesting and export and flower (Michael Sicinski, Toronto International Film Festival) conclusion is left for the viewer to draw, one cannot refrain from wondering create his or her own thoughts. In a way the viewer concludes the film, by treatment, meaning that the banished humans might have been the cause nonsequitously whether the fake plants will die when one stops pretending thinking or talking about it afterwards. of the unhealthy proliferation after all. WORLD SALES: PORTUGAL FILM: PORTUGUESE FILM AGENCY to water them. (SEBASTIAN MULDER) (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) Margarida Moz T: +351 213 466 172 (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) E: [email protected] W : http://www.portugalfilm.org WORLD SALES: SOME SHORTS Wouter Jansen FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Grand Prix - 25 FPS International Experimental FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Short Documentary Film - ON Original T: +31 (0)6 22076717 Film and Video Festival Croatia 2017 / Award of the International BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL II Narrative Student Film Festival Dubai 2017 / Award for Best Student Film E: [email protected] Competition - International Short Film Festival Winterthur Switzerland W: http://someshorts.com/

\\ - Go Short International Short Film Festival Nijmegen, the Netherlands 2017 / Best Short Film Award - Verín International Short Film Festival \\ 2017 / Special Mention - International Film Festival Lanzarote, Spain Spain 2017 / CAMIRA Jury Award - Curtocircuíto International Film 2017 / ZagrebDox Croatia 2017 / REGARD Saguenay International Festival Spain 2017 / Nova New Talent Award - IndieLisboa International Short Film Festival, Canada 2017 / Rotterdams Open Doek Filmfestival Independent Film Festival Portugal 2017 / Toronto International Film Netherlands 2017 / Huesca International Film Festival Spain 2017 / Festival 2017 / Curtas Vila do Conde Portugal 2017 / San Sebastian Film Palm Springs ShortFest USA 2017 / Pärnu Film Festival Estonia 2017 / Festival Spain 2017 / Reykjavík International Film Festival Iceland 2017 / International Short Film Festival Thessaloniki Greece 2017 New York Film Festival 2017 34 35

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] WHAT THERE IS TO SEE AFTER THE VOLCANO 24’, 2017, Finland 17’, 2016, France DIRECTOR: JAANA KOKKO DIRECTOR: LÉO FAVIER

CAST: Riikka Hänninen, Anniina Latikka, Marianne Tenhami, CAST: Tristan Fourneau, Robert Nana, Tiziana Jill Beck, Joose Ojala, Jari Gusev, Markus Tihumäki Léo Favier, Lila Tamazit SCRIPTWRITER: Jaana Kokko SCRIPTWRITER: Léo Favier CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jarkko Virtanen EDITING: Arnaud Viémont EDITING: Jaana Kokko MUSIC: Hideaki Tsuji SOUND: Joonatan Hietanen PRODUCER: Jean-Christophe Soulageon MUSIC: Joose Ojala, Riikka Hänninen PRODUCTION COMPANY: Les Films Sauvages PRODUCER: Jaana Kokko HUMAN NATURE / MOTHER / NATURE HUMAN NATURE WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

JAANA KOKKO LÉO FAVIER

Bucarest

FILM PRESENTATION: Using landscape as a starting point, JAANA DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: In my work I am interested not only in the FILM PRESENTATION: The well-ordered life of a village is interrupted DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Using various storytelling strategies, my KOKKO embarks on an analysis of its meanings and political exploration of the expressive and historical aspects of art, but I find it by bursting fire and earth shakes. As the firefighters prove ineffective, work evolves around documentary and fiction with the use of preexisting perceptions. There is the Romantic Western European landscape, as equally important to understand and be aware of the fact that a finished the community takes to the forest. Using the mishap as a starting point material like archives, stock footage, interviews, diaries, or found footage. it appears on the 19th century backdrops of theatre stages. Then the piece of art and the act of displaying it publicly are political comments. for his charming mash-up, LÉO FAVIER deals with dead serious topics (LÉO FAVIER) colonial era sets in, depicted in the film by the illustrations in a popular such as global warming and habitat invasion under the playful form of children’s book about the voyage of an elephant to a utopian civilized (JANNA KOKKO) a fantastic story told with stock footage several decades old. After an European city. The main layer in the cinematic construction though is attempt to live a hunter-gatherer life, some return to the village, only CURATOR’S COMMENT: During the first stage of writing, LÉO FAVIER the presence of a group of people who act as guides. And because they to discover it had been taken over by animals, much in the same way as selected a corpus of amateur films from the collections of the Ciclic Heritage are visually impaired and therefore can ‘’see’’ only with their hands, a humans had insinuated themselves in the wild. Eventually, we witness a Center. He classified these films and sequences by themes (or motifs). To question promptly pops up: How would the urban landscape look like, cohabitation of wild creatures, humans and pets and it would look like get an overview, he then printed some photograms that he hung on the if our decisions were based on touch, sound and temperature instead a happy ending but for the disturbing circular movements of creatures wall of his home. Thus were born the first characters of the film AFTER THE of visual appearance? chasing their tails. VOLCANO and the first sequences of this fantastic story. (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) (ciclic.fr)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Live Action Short Film - 27th International FESTIVALS/AWARDS: World Premiere WORLD SALES: MANIFEST PICTURES

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL II Film Festival Message to Man, St Petersburg 2017 / Best Short Movie - Anaïs Colpin BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Festival International de Cinema Ambiental FICA 2017, Brazil / Special E: [email protected]

\\ W: http://manifest.pictures \\ Mention - Festival RISC (Rencontres Internationales Sciences & Cinémas) WORLD SALES: AV-ARKKI Marseille 2017 / Honorable Mention - Innsbruck Nature Film Festival 2017 The Distribution Centre for Finnish Media Art / Special Mention - Aspen Shortfest 2017 USA / Dresden Film Festival 2017 T: + 358 50 4356 092 E: [email protected] / Short Wave Festival Poznan 2017 / MedFilm Festival Rome 2017 / London W: http://www.av-arkki.fi Short Film Festival / Uppsala International Short Film Festival Sweden 2017 / Cinemambiente Torino Italy 2017

36 37

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: http://www.jaanakokko.com W: http://www.leofavier.fr THEY JUST COME AND GO 20’, 2017, Croatia DIRECTOR: BORIS POLJAK

SCRIPTWRITER: Boris Poljak CINEMATOGRAPHY: Boris Poljak EDITING: Damir Čučić PRODUCER: Vera Robić-Škarica PRODUCTION COMPANY: Croatian Film Association HUMAN NATURE / MOTHER / NATURE HUMAN NATURE

BORIS POLJAK

FILM PRESENTATION: At sunrise, a beach becomes the place of surreal CURATOR’S COMMENT: In pure documentary form, without text, this encounters. The young try to prolong the remains of the night. The elderly film shows young party spirits and old people sharing the same place – a make a start of the coming day. For some brief moments, they move within beach in Split, Croatia. Exquisite documentary shots coalesce into a round the same space, without acknowledging each other’s existence. The third dance of fervor, desire, loss, maturity, struggle and devotion, stillness and presence on set is nature. The sand. The sea. The sun. Unlike the humans, movement. The young are unaware of it, the old are aware or vice versa, it it is permanent. BORIS POLJAK employs stunning images to convey a doesn’t really matter in these ludicrous observations. Those secret looks sense of transience of human existence. All those superbly perfect bodies are truly human, naughty, loving and full of truth. With strong contrasts burning with lust are doomed to turn into decrepit carcasses, same and precise and brilliant images the film captures the happy futility of life as those walking aimlessly, as in a limbo, in the shallow waters of a sea among different generations. Life will go on living, from beginning to end. unchanged, accompanied by the sound of Leonard Cohen’s Halleluja. In the sea, the water, under the sun, in this film.

(Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) (Best Documentary Award Oberhausen - Jury Statement)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: First Prize of the Jury - International Short Film WORLD SALES: CROATIAN FILM ASSOCIATION Festival Oberhausen Germany 2017 / Best Documentary Award and Best Marina Jurišić T: +385 1 4848 771 Director Award - Croatian Film Days 2017 / Best Short Film - Tenerife E: [email protected] INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL II BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Shorts Spain 2017 / Best Film FeKK Short Film Festival Slovenia 2017 / W : www.hfs.hr

\\ Best Film - Tabor Film Festival Croatia 2017 / Special Mention - Dokufest \\ \\ International Documentary and Short Film Festival Kosovo 2017 / ZagrebDox Croatia 2017

38 39

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] (SELF)PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION III

Curatorial presentation by: ANDREI TĂNĂSESCU

In every work of art, we see traces of its creator (be it an aesthetic or thematic dimension seen as a natural continuation of the artist’s creative output, or a simple, self-reflexive gesture confirming its artistic provenance). As with every work of art, it comes natural for the artist to sometime turn the proverbial canvas into a mirror, reflecting oneself directly rather than obliquely through their art. The intimacy afforded is soul-baring, frightening and cathartic, particularly when the introspective process of self-discovery reaches back into personal memory.

The program titled (SELF)PORTRAIT OF recognized (follow with one’s eyesight and innocently sublime, a dialectic Under the sleepwalking trance of cinema, A melancholic insight into the ties that WHERE DO YOU STAND… is a delicate THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN brings a buzzing fly; answer the mother’s between terra firma and memoria prima the violence of spectatorship goes on bind, ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN is rumination on the transcendental together films in which their creators questions at the same time as his brother; where personal memory transports you while the filmmaker sleeps quietly and a victory of comfort for the aging soul’s intersection of beauty, life and nature, investigate themselves either through the compete in burping contest or suckling to the primordial universal, a perfect unperturbed in his bed. Light slumber existential crisis. Deeply personal and as parsed through filmmaker JOÃO prism of auto-biographical reminiscence milk from a bottle). Together, these companion-piece to Laurie Anderson’s pushes forward and we’re transported candid in its soul-baring, the film is PEDRO RODRIGUES’ self-reflexive (A DOLL’S EYES, ALL THE LEAVES ARE offbeat acts of fraternal competition and The Beginning of Memory. in the otherworldly rooms of natural structured as a diary that catches the auteurial gaze. Using his last recent film BROWN, WHAT TIME IS MADE OF, parental devotement accumulate in a history museums. The only visitor director in pangs of nostalgia for the as a thematic starting-point, RODRIGUES’ WHERE DO YOU STAND NOW JOÃO portrait of familial dependency and unity. What does Spielberg’s aquatic monster haunting its empty halls is CHERRI, city he’s left behind and his father’s figure dissolves its reflection in the PEDRO RODRIGUES) or introspective Mischievously endearing, NATOUR’s and a doll have in common? Their shared walking past the museum’s glass cases accelerating Alzheimer’s. Shot on Super 8 nature outside his window and the film performance (SOMNICULUS, THROUGH performative confessions of emotional cold, dark eyes, whose gaze JONATHAN of taxidermy and ancient iconography of film and using the director’s insights and begins its chronological flow through THE BACKDOOR). As such, these films (and artistic) neediness, allow us to enter WYSOCKI delves into in order to gods and men. In SOMNICULUS, millenia intimate conversations with his father as his haunting home-movie memories. offer us insights into important auteurs his family’s heart through the back door. investigate his early memories for the of human civilization and its relationship its narration, the film is a gentle, autumnal From his appearance at the Venice Film as well as introduce new ones for us to trauma associated with his first viewing of to the natural and artistic world are introspection on disappearance: the Festival alongside his partner João Rui discover. Accompanying them on their In the beginning was the word. For Jaws. Using documentary reenactments grouped together under one roof. An director’s voice is physically fading while Guerra da Mata to on-set footage from journeys, we begin to better understand DIANA VIDRASCU, it was a roll of 16mm and personal testimonials, WYSOCKI takes informative but nonetheless ironic each passing season advances his father’s his third feature, the poetic summation ourselves in the process alongside the footage and a home audio recording. In the viewer through a candid analysis of diagram looms large in the background: Alzheimer’s. Deeply touching and quietly of one’s lived life takes shape. In the NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL III I larger Truth they seek. WHAT TIME IS MADE OF, we are taken his childhood to his developed adult self, classification of the living. In a gesture devastating, ROBIN’s self-portrait is an end, the titular question finds its answer BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ to the proverbial dawn of time and isolating the rooted fear and shame that of solidarity, protest or deific servitude, elegy to memory and the ones we love. in Thoreau’s quote: go confidently in the \\ Structured around ten segments evenly history (memory) via found footage of had trailed his life. An endearing portrait the mummification process absorbs our direction of your dreams. split by an aching child ballad (lip- a rocky, water-locked landscape (and its of a director’s journey of self re-discovery, protagonist – but the eyes remain open, synced in drag), NATOUR’s THROUGH winged inhabitants) and an audio home- A DOLL’S EYES reminds oneself that it is taking in the exaltation of existence in THE BACKDOOR is a series of vignettes recording of the director at the primary never too late to look within and into the company of our ancestors. in which his widowed mother and twin age of ‘one’, undergoing her initiation the past in order to stand up and face a brother perform various tasks. The rules into language with the help of her brighter future. 40 for each session are unclear, but easily grandfather. The effect is intelligently 41 THROUGH THE BACKDOOR WHAT TIME IS MADE OF 18’, 2016, Israel 10’, 2017, France/Romania DIRECTOR: KARAM NATOUR DIRECTOR: DIANA VIDRAȘCU

CAST: Karam Natour, Aziz Natour, Sahar Natour CAST: Diana Vidrașcu, Simion Simionescu SCRIPTWRITER: Karam Natour SCRIPTWRITER: Diana Vidrașcu CINEMATOGRAPHY: Karam Natour EDITING: Diana Vidrașcu EDITING: Karam Natour SOUND: Jean-Michel Béranger SOUND: Karam Natour PRODUCER: Diana Vidrașcu PRODUCER: Karam Natour (SELF)PORTRAIT ARTIST THE OF

KARAM NATOUR DIANA VIDRAȘCU

FILM PRESENTATION: Structured around ten segments evenly split CURATOR’S COMMENT: From the start, THROUGH THE BACKDOOR sets FILM PRESENTATION: In the beginning was the word. For DIANA DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The moment I found the audio recording of my by an aching child ballad (lip-synced in drag), NATOUR’s THROUGH THE up its rules. The camera observes uninterrupted as the director alongside VIDRAȘCU, it was a roll of 16mm footage and a home audio recording. In grandfather, teaching me to talk while showing pictures in a coloring book, BACKDOOR is a series of vignettes in which his widowed mother and twin his widowed mother and/or twin brother, performs a series of tasks within WHAT TIME IS MADE OF, we are taken to the proverbial dawn of time and I became fascinated with the idea of a cameraperson being taught to see brother perform various tasks. The rules for each session are unclear, but the domestic space of their apartment. Offbeat and wholly entertaining, history (memory) via found footage of a rocky, water-locked landscape while shooting a film. I was looking to achieve this new rewiring of the visual easily recognized (follow with one’s eyesight a buzzing fly; answer the the performative games involve a form of familial bonding – the twins (and its winged inhabitants) and an audio home-recording of the director language, in the making of my first film as a director. The memory that gets mother’s questions at the same time as his brother; compete in burping tipping their chairs against each other to prevent themselves from falling at the primary age of ‘one’, undergoing her initiation into language with erased automatically by the age of two, along with the forgotten memory contest or suckling milk from a bottle). Together, these offbeat acts of down, suckling together at a milk bottle or performing the quintessential the help of her grandfather. The effect is intelligently and innocently of my late grandfather’s voice were now accessible. By re-appropriating fraternal competition and parental devotement accumulate in a portrait burping contest. At the center of it all, lies the matriarch of the house, sublime, a dialectic between terra firma and memoria prima where this long-forgotten time, I was however creating a new fictional time. of familial dependency and unity. Mischievously endearing, NATOUR’s NATOUR’s mother, whose bothered yet fully participatory attitude brings personal memory transports you to the primordial universal, a perfect The period authenticity was very important aesthetically, so the age of performative confessions of emotional (and artistic) neediness, allow us into clearer focus the director’s exhibitionist character. In all these games, companion-piece to Laurie Anderson’s The Beginning of Memory. materials coincided with the audio recordings. Expired film stock from the to enter his family’s heart through the back door. regressive states of child-parent dynamics signal an ‘infantile’ need for same year (1988), an amateur 16mm hand-cranked camera, and mechanical (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) attention – similarly demanded by an artist’s ego. The power of the film and chemical interventions on the surface of the frame, along with manual (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) lies in our confrontation with what becomes a home made confessional for processing, all contributed to the film’s patina. Constructing the characters’ NATOUR’s conflated egos (the self-aware artist vs. the innocent infant). soundscape, through layered sound design of landscape ambiences and Facing it, we get to the film’s final puzzle piece of the father’s physical and FESTIVALS/AWARDS: BFI London Film Festival Experimenta 2017/ foley, finally merged the two eras together: the real and the fictional. This FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Oberhausen International Short Film Festival emotional absence (rendered in a sobering and heart-wrenching children’s Côte Court Film Festival, France 2017/ CineAutopsia Festival De Cine film is a piece of fiction, to the very end that any memory is one, as well. 2017/ Tabor Film Festival, Croatia 2017/ “VOID” exhibit Veinti4/Siete song at the film’s halfway mark). Closure is restored at the end, when the Experimental De Bogota, Colombia 2017/ Avvantura Film Festival Vis, BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL III Galería, San José, Costa Rica 2017/ “The Kids Are All Right” exhibit (DIANA VIDRAȘCU) family unit is restructured through the twins’ last performance, of propping Croatia 2017/ Process Film Festival Riga, Latvia 2017/ Walk&Talk Azores Oranim College, Israel 2017/ “Center of Gravity” exhibit The Djanogly

\\ up their mother and carrying her across the room – a touching, symbolic Arts Festival, Portugal 2017/ ATA Other Cinema San Francisco, USA 2017/ \\ Visual Arts Center, Israel 2016 gesture of unity. Camera Obscura, San Francisco, USA 2017

(Andrei Tănăsescu)

WORLD SALES: KARAM NATOUR T: +972525708881 WORLD SALES: DIANA VIDRAȘCU E: [email protected] T: +33 695 81 32 88 14 W: www.karamnatour.com E: [email protected] W: www.dianavidrascu.com 42 43

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: www.karamnatour.com W: www.dianavidrascu.com A DOLL’S EYES SOMNICULUS 12’, 2016, USA 14.5’, 2017, France DIRECTOR: JONATHAN WYSOCKI DIRECTOR: ALI CHERRI

CAST: Gabriel Bennett, Luca Flaim, Arnica Skulstad CAST: Ali Cherri Brown, Camille Schurer, Jonathan Wysocki SCRIPTWRITER: Ali Cherri SCRIPTWRITER: Jonathan Wysocki CINEMATOGRAPHY: Alexandre Berger CINEMATOGRAPHY: Todd Bell EDITING: Suzana Pedro EDITING: Christine Kim SOUND: Mikaël Barre SOUND: Colette Dahanne PRODUCTION COMPANY: Jeu de Paume, Paris, Fondation MUSIC: Chanda Dancy Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques et CAPC musée

(SELF)PORTRAIT ARTIST THE OF PRODUCER: Jonathan Wysocki d’art contemporain de Bordeaux. With the support of: Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Musée du Louvre, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Musée de l’Homme, Musée du WITH THE SUPPORT OF: Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac JONATHAN WYSOCKI

ALI CHERRI

FILM PRESENTATION: What does Spielberg’s aquatic monster and a doll DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: A DOLL’S EYES began as an abstract CURATOR’S COMMENT: Filmed inside a series of empty museum galleries have in common? Their shared cold, dark eyes, whose gaze JONATHAN exploration of my lifelong obsession with Spielberg’s masterpiece JAWS. FILM PRESENTATION: Under the sleepwalking trance of cinema, the across Paris, ALI CHERRI’s SOMNICULUS (the Latin word for light sleep) WYSOCKI delves into in order to investigate his early memories for the Plagued with memories of the first time I had seen the film as a child, I set violence of spectatorship goes on while the filmmaker sleeps quietly articulates the tension between the lives of dead objects and the living trauma associated with his first viewing of Jaws. Using documentary out to recreate not only the moment when I first watched the movie, but and unperturbed in his bed. Light slumber pushes forward and we’re world that surrounds them. Artefacts from museums of ethnography, reenactments and personal testimonials, WYSOCKI takes the viewer also the effects the movie had on me. This included my fraught relationship transported in the otherworldly rooms of natural history museums. archaeology and natural sciences are all presented in their existing cultural through a candid analysis of his childhood to his developed, adult with the ocean, which I refused to go in for 7 years as a child, but returned to The only visitor haunting its empty halls is CHERRI, walking past the context as the surviving objects of human interest. Preserved inside this self, isolating the rooted fear and shame that had trailed his life. An as an adult with the twisted desire to face the shark that had been haunting museum’s glass cases of taxidermy and ancient iconography of gods and structure of historiographic display, each object is representative of a endearing portrait of a director’s journey of self re-discovery, A DOLL’S my imagination. In recreating events, I chose to mix medias to mimic the men. Millennia of human civilization and its relationship to the natural place or a time and each artefact lives on as a container of its own history. EYES reminds oneself that it is never too late to look within and into the patchwork of my memories, including Super 8mm, Super 16mm, Hi8 video, and artistic world are grouped together under one roof. An informative What if we suspended these objects outside this constructed framework past in order to stand up and face a brighter future. and HD video. After cutting the film together, however, I discovered there but nonetheless ironic diagram looms large in the background: of controlled meaning? Would their ideological value become any less was something lurking underneath the documentary. Why was I compelled classification of the living. In a gesture of solidarity, protest or deific tangible? … Shining a light on these spaces of perpetual significance (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) to make it? And was I really afraid of the shark in my imagination – or did servitude, the mummification process absorbs our protagonist – but the within Western culture, Somniculus brings a heightened awareness to the the shark represent something else? These unexpected questions forced eyes remain open, taking in the exaltation of existence in the company act of looking and seeing in the museum. As an anonymous man sleeps in me to reexamine the film I had made, and after months of digging down and of our ancestors. an otherwise empty gallery we realise that he too is representative of a FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Busan Cinephile Award - Busan International discovering the truth with my editor, we ended up with the layered essay culture, a time, a place. These fragments of loss, destruction and violence (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) Short Film Festival 2016/ Best Short - Oslo/Fusion International film you now see. It was an artistic journey like nothing I’ve experienced stand in as representations of civilizations’ past. In accordance with the Film Festival 2016/ Best Short Documentary - SENE Film, Music and on a project before, and while the result is much more personal (and thus cultures they serve to represent, these objects are neither caught inside the INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL III Arts Festival, Providence 2016/ Best Short Documentary - Frontdoc scary!) than I intended, I am grateful for uncovering the truth in the process. deep dark past nor immediately visible in the light of our present day, but BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ International Documentary Film Festival Italy 2016/ Jury Award, It’s not easy, but I have learned there is so much power that comes from FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Concorde, Paris 2017 forever waiting to be awakened. \\ Audience Award - Kaleidoscope LGBT Film Festival 2016/ Best LGBTQ+ being vulnerable. (Osei Bonsu) - Paris Play Film Festival 2016/ Silver Award: Documentary - WorldFest- (JONATHAN WYSOCKI) Houston International Film Festival 2016/ Cleveland International Film WORLD SALES: ALI CHERRI Festival 2016/ London Short Film Festival 2016 T: +33 6 03 77 88 31 E: [email protected] WORLD SALES: JONATHAN WYSOCKI T: +1 310.699.2008 44 E: [email protected] 45

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN WHERE DO YOU STAND NOW, 11’, 2017, USA DIRECTOR: DANIEL ROBIN JOÃO PEDRO RODRIGUES? 21’, 2017, Portugal/France CAST: Stanley Robin, Beth Robin, Daniel Robin DIRECTOR: JOÃO PEDRO RODRIGUES SCRIPTWRITER: Daniel Robin CINEMATOGRAPHY: Daniel Robin CAST: João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata, Maria EDITING: Daniel Robin Rosa Colaço, Ricardo Meneses, Amândio Coroado, Maria João SOUND: Daniel Robin Guerra da Mata, Amândio Coroado MUSIC: Gordon Vernick SCRIPTWRITER: João Pedro Rodrigues PRODUCER: Daniel Robin CINEMATOGRAPHY: João Pedro Rodrigues, Jacob Wiener,

(SELF)PORTRAIT ARTIST THE OF José Magro, João Rui Guerra da Mata, Amândio Coroado EDITING: João Pedro Rodrigues, Tomás Paula Marques SOUND: Nuno Carvalho WITH THE SUPPORT OF: PRODUCER: João Pedro Rodrigues for Centre Pompidou DANIEL ROBIN

JOÃO PEDRO RODRIGUES

FILM PRESENTATION: A melancholic insight into the ties that bind, CURATOR’S COMMENT: What do we become when we realize that we are CURATOR’S COMMENT: Having recently passed the age of 50, media ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN is a victory of comfort for the aging no longer what we used to be? Are we still ourselves, even though we no FILM PRESENTATION: WHERE DO YOU STAND… is a delicate rumination vita so to speak, JOÃO PEDRO RODRIGUES looks back over his life up to soul’s existential crisis. Deeply personal and candid in its soul-bearing, longer remember what we used to be? Through a collage of excerpts from on the transcendental intersection of beauty, life and nature, as parsed now. The Portuguese filmmaker reflects on what has brought him where the film is structured as a diary film that catches the director in pangs conversations, thoughts, pictures of places and intimate family moments, through filmmaker JOÃO PEDRO RODRIGUES’ self-reflexive auteurial he is today and what people and experiences have shaped his vision of nostalgia for the city he’s left behind and his father’s accelerating ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN is an autobiographical reflection, in film, of gaze. Using his last recent film as a thematic starting-point, RODRIGUES’ and way of working. We hear about his early career as one of the first Alzheimer’s. Shot on Super 8 film and using the director’s insights and the American director DANIEL ROBIN. The nostalgia for the past and for figure dissolves its reflection in the nature outside his window and the openly gay directors in his country, and about his relationship with the intimate conversations with his father as its narration, the film is a his life in California (as in the music by The Mamas & The Papas suggested film begins its chronological flow through his haunting home-movie Mozambican screenwriter João Rui Guerra da Mata. In this lyrical self- gentle, autumnal introspection on disappearance: the director’s voice by the title) is imprinted in the beautiful landscapes shot in Super8, which memories. From his appearance at the Venice Film Festival alongside portrait, RODRIGUES mixes home movies with excerpts from his own films is physically fading while each passing season advances his father’s are in contrast with the narrator’s feeling of anguish, regarding the present his partner João Rui Guerra da Mata to on-set footage from his third and impressionist images accompanied by an associative flow of ideas. The Alzheimer’s. Deeply touching and quietly devastating, ROBIN’s self- and the future, a time that is characterized by what no longer exists or what feature, the poetic summation of one’s lived life takes shape. In the end, annual migration of the monarch butterfly from Canada to Mexico acts as portrait is an elegy to memory and the ones we love. has ceased to be. In a touching and intimate portrait about memory, family the titular question finds its answer in Thoreau’s quote:go confidently in a metaphor for these fluttering, yet purposeful, associations. RODRIGUES and loss, the fallen leaves of ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN represent the the direction of your dreams. looks forward as well as backward. The cemetery in which the writers (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) end of a season and the beginning of another cycle: Daniel knows that, next Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne are buried symbolizes not (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF 2018) year, the tree he sees from his window will once again be filled with leaves. only RODRIGUES’ sources of inspiration, but also his own end. He will have to learn to be another one. FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Jury Award: Best Documentary Short - Sidewalk (IDFA) Film Festival 2017/ Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival (Lídia Queirós - Curtas Vila do Conde) FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Portuguese Short Film – Curtas Vila do INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL III 2017/ Moviate Underground Film Festival 2017/ New Orleans Film Conde 2017/ International Documentary Film Amsterdam 2017/ Mar Del BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ Festival 2017/ Antimatter Media Festival 2017/ Cork Film Festival Plata IFF 2017/ Curtacinema 2017/ Queer Lisboa 2017 \\ (Ireland) 2017/ l’Alternativa 2017 - 24th Barcelona Independent Film Festival 2017/ Analogica Selection 7 2017/ Minimalen Short Film Festival 2017 WORLD SALES: AGÊNCIA - PORTUGUESE SHORT FILM AGENCY Liliana Costa T: +351 252 646683 E: [email protected] WORLD SALES: DANIEL ROBIN W: http://www.curtas.pt T: 415 307 1396 46 E: [email protected] 47

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] [email protected] EMBRACING THE FEMALE GAZE PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IV

Curatorial presentation by: DIANA MEREOIU

Is it what we do that makes us female or male, or do we do certain things because we are female, respectively male? Judith Butler famously delineated behaviour from gender, thus unveiling the extent to which our constructed notions of sex and gender (and thus to a certain degree of identity) have become unconscious, almost instinctual mental connections.

The competition program EMBRACING film turns from foe to friend, a friend confusing and beguiling visual worlds WHAT HAPPENED TO HER deconstructs INTO ALL THAT IS HERE goes on to deconstruct “basic human experiences through THE FEMALE GAZE follows in the logic of through which liberated fantasies birth drafted by KATRINA DASCHNER close the usual way of “seeing” through a a combination of noise, imagery, and words”, as director LAURE PROUVOST herself Butler’s thinking, in that it deconstructs and enforce one another. The director the five protagonists climbing doggedly forensic exploration of our cultural states in an interview for Sleek Magazine. “I wanted to explore ideas of pleasure and and scrutinizes the relationship between explores the whole spectrum of carnal up through a snowstorm, further up and obsession with images of the dead anxiety. There was a lot of metamorphosis in this piece. Suddenly you are digging into word, image and meaning. By analysing and filmic pleasures: of watching, of out, beyond the picture. The filmmaker woman on-screen. Interspersing this hole, and then assuming the view of an insect in a cocoon that comes out and cinematic tropes, it makes the (chiefly inciting, of living the fantasy on your “masterfully succeeds in staging the found footage from films and police wants to swallow everything it sees, and then slowly dies, consumed by consuming. It’s masculine) language of cinema apparent, own, or becoming part of the fantasy. ruptures and irritations that are so procedural television shows and one a comment on humanity and the way we consume images. thus laying the possibility for new Permeating the limits between spectacle essential for showing and wanting, with a actress’ experience of playing the part associations to arise. With attention and and spectator, he leaves room for real subtle humour and grandiose human and of a corpse, the film offers a meditative Utilizing and exploring archetypes, STRANGELY ORDINARY THIS DEVOTION proposes wit, the films in this segment understand exploration of sexuality, in a space non-human actors”. (Christiane Erharter) critique on the trope of the dead female a visceral exploration of feral domesticity, queer desire, and fantasy in a world under that for our genuine embracing of new equally conscious as it is subconscious, body. The visual narrative of the genre, the threat of climate change. The film offers a radical approach to collaboration and the connotations, it is not sufficient to merely where desire is separated from rules, and one reinforced through its intense and conception of family. The two female directors collect and arrange images and moments lay down new words, but it is necessary masculinity and femininity shape each pervasive repetition, is revealed as a that are at once peculiar and banal, precious and disturbing, creating resonance and to bridge the distance between spectator other. highly structured pageant. Concurrently, contrast through experimental modes of storytelling. (Dani Leventhal, Sheilah Wilson) and film. When the eye that sees and what the experience of physical invasion and is being seen become one, then novel HORSE BOOBS furthers the exploration of NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL IV

I exploitation voiced by the actor pierce the BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ways of seeing can arise altogether. representation, while also inching closer fabric of the screened fantasy. The result

\\ to a minimizing of distances between \\ is recurring and magnetic film cliché laid YANN GONZALEZ turns narrative tropes the eyes that see, and that which is bare. (Kristy Guevara-Flanagan) on their head in ISLANDS. He starts with seen: the gaze´s object and subject the typical horror genre in which sexual become one. Every shot culminates desire is being punished by a monstruos in desire and fantasy. Every close-up character. In a meta-cinematic turn, deployed like a fetish. The wonderfully

48 49 ISLANDS HORSE BOOBS 23’, 2017, France 9’, 2017, Austria DIRECTOR: YANN GONZALEZ DIRECTOR: KATRINA DASCHNER

CAST: Sarah-Megan Allouch-Mainier, Mathilde Mennetier, CAST: Nora Safranek, Gisi Hakanson, Hyo Lee, Sushila Alphonse Maîtrepierre Mesquita, Denise Kottlett SCRIPTWRITER: Yann Gonzalez SCRIPTWRITER: Katrina Daschner CINEMATOGRAPHER: Simon Beaufils CINEMATOGRAPHER: Hannes Böck EDITOR: Raphaël Lefèvre EDITOR: Katrina Daschner. Hannes Böck SOUND: Damien Boitel SOUND: Oliver Stotz MUSIC: Thibault Deboaisne PRODUCER: Katrina Daschner, Denice Bourbon

EMBRACING THE FEMALE GAZE PRODUCER: Emmanuel Chaumet, Yann Gonzales PRODUCTION COMPANY: Lady Chutney Productions PRODUCTION COMPANY: Ecce Films WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

YANN GONZALEZ KATRINA DASCHNER

FILM PRESENTATION: YANN GONZALEZ begins with the typical horror DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: It is a project written in the manner of a FILM PRESENTATION: Wonderfully confusing, beguiling visual worlds CURATOR’S COMMENT: A serrated oval passageway, strobe light, title genre scenario in which sexual desire is being punished by a monstruous waking dream. A film conceived as an erotic and surreal maze where the are drafted in close-ups deployed like a fetish. The point of culmination panels, “Pferdebusen – horse boobs,” glittery curtain - horse´s mane - fade character. In a meta-cinematic turn, he explores the whole spectrum only logic is that of desire: one fantasy produces another, then a following, of every take is desire and fantasy; the gaze´s object and subject out. On the sound track, the sound of horse hooves, in the image, a theater of carnal and filmic pleasures: of watching, of inciting, of living the until the last one ends up joining the first. As its title suggests, it borders become one. The film closes with a climbing scene in a snowstorm. The space, details of glass and wood, seat grooves and crystal chandeliers, fantasy on your own, or becoming part of the fantasy. Permeating the on utopia and I believe that despite the unconscious writing that presided five protagonists climb up the wall and without ropes, so it appears, aroused horse eyes - cut to the starting shape: five protagonists move limits between spectacle and spectator, the filmmaker leaves room over it, it also tells something of another possible world: a world where resolutely upward, out, beyond the picture. In HORSE BOOBS, KATRINA through this vagina dentata and thus begins the unfolding of a sexually for real exploration of sexuality, in a space equally conscious as it is there would be no more boundaries between the sexes, genders, humans DASCHNER masterfully succeeds in staging the ruptures and irritations compact visual dramaturgy in which human body and horse body meld in a subconscious, where desire is separated from rules, and masculinity and and monsters. And where all could hug infinitely - or, at least, for one night. that are so essential for showing and wanting, with a subtle humour and beautiful and peculiar way: naked bottoms on saddles, leather masks hiding femininity shape each other. grandiose human and non-human actors. faces, horse anus and the bat of an eye. HORSE BOOBS is the fifth part of (YANN GONZALEZ) a series based on Arthur Schnitzler´s Dream Story. KATRINA DASCHNER is (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF 2018) (Christiane Erharter) interested in the ambiguity of fiction and reality, the tension of unrealized sexual desire of the middle-class couple, deconstructing this framework in her development of queer relationship scenarios. FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Grand Prize - Curtas Vila do Conde 2017 / CURATOR’S COMMENT: With the soberly lyrical and infinitely gracious FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Award for Innovative Cinema - Diagonale Queer Palm Award – Directors’ Fortnight Cannes 2017 / Jury Prize ISLANDS, YANN GONZALEZ gives his personal version of La Ronde by Max Austrian Film Festival 2017 / Oberhausen International Short Film (Christiane Erharter) - QueerLisboa 2017 / AFI Fest 2017 / Féstival du Nouevau Cinema / Ophüls. The endless circularity in the mechanisms of desire are conveyed in Festival 2017 / Winterthur International Short Film Festival 2017 / Kassel Encounters International Film Festival 2017 / Neuchâtel International joyful sequencing from the actors to the spectators. Instead of desire, the Documentary Film and Video Festival 2017 / Uppsala International BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL IV Fantastic Film Festival 2017 / Guanajuato Film Festival 2017 need for the theatre, maliciously revealed with the forces of cinema (the Short Film Festival 2017 opening game of the frame scale) and the pleasures of the eye (the direct \\ elation), of the ear (the deferred elation, with the sound recording). At the \\ crossroads of the two given entities (the theatre stage and the frame of a WORLD SALES: ECCE FILMS WORLD SALES: SIXPACK FILMS Louise Rinaldi shot), which are the body of this beautiful erotic poem, the islands bear wings. Dietmar Schwärzler T: + 33 616 312 952 T: +43 1 526 09 90 15 E: [email protected] (Charles Tesson, Directors’ Fortnight Cannes) E: [email protected] W: www.eccefilms.fr W: www.sixpackfilm.com

50 51

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] W: http://katrinadaschner.net/ WHAT HAPPENED TO HER INTO ALL THAT IS HERE 15’, 2016, USA 10’, 2015, UK DIRECTOR: KRISTY GUEVARA-FLANAGAN DIRECTOR: LAURE PROUVOST

CAST: Danyi Deats SCRIPTWRITER: Laure Prouvost EDITOR: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan PRODUCER: Laure Prouvost SOUND: Jesse Malings PRODUCER: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan PRODUCTION COMPANY: Chuparosa Film EMBRACING THE FEMALE GAZE

Courtesy of Laure Prouvost and LUX, London

WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

KRISTY GUEVARA-FLANAGAN LAURE PROUVOST

FILM PRESENTATION: WHAT HAPPENED TO HER is a forensic DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: WHAT HAPPENED TO HER began with a FILM PRESENTATION: INTO ALL THAT IS HERE explores the notion DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: It’s a video that deconstructs basic human exploration of our cultural obsession with images of the dead long percolating series of observations. I started to notice a trend in films of lust after times of darkness. Within her film, the artist continues experiences through a combination of noise, imagery, and words. I woman on-screen. Interspersing found footage from films and police of scenes of dead women floating in water. There seemed to be a clear the exploration of themes addressed in WANTEE, a story linked to was trying to translate emotion, [as well as] the subconscious of my procedural television shows and one actress’ experience of playing the message equating these bodies with flotsam and jetsam, the detritus of a her grandfather. This time, PROUVOST focuses on digging into the grandfather. I wanted to explore ideas of pleasure and anxiety. There was a part of a corpse, the film offers a meditative critique on the trope of culture that gave them little value. At some point this becomes a trope— subconscious of this character, deep into his fantasies, like an insect lot of metamorphosis in this piece. Suddenly you are digging into this hole, the dead female body. The visual narrative of the genre, one reinforced nothing signals the dark turn of a society more than a white, nubile female or bird is attracted to the pollen and once the flower is reached it gets and then assuming the view of an insect in a cocoon that comes out and through its intense and pervasive repetition, is revealed as a highly body found stripped, violated and discarded in its midst. The truth must indulged with pleasure. The video depicts a warm and slimy atmosphere wants to swallow everything it sees, and then slowly dies, consumed by structured pageant. Concurrently, the experience of physical invasion both figuratively and literally be extracted from her passive, silent body. and a sensation of relief after a long search for darkness, giving the consuming. It’s a comment on humanity and the way we consume images. and exploitation voiced by the actor pierce the fabric of the screened It doesn’t take long to see a macabre and somewhat sadistic narrative at impression to the visitor that they have just penetrated a viscid, sweaty fantasy. The result is recurring and magnetic film cliché laid bare. work. Ultimately, she is left behind (mostly tagged and then pushed into flower, till the images burn and disappear. (LAURE PROUVOST, interview for Sleek Magazine) a morgue drawer). It’s a process in which the forensics of death become (KRISTY GUEVARA-FLANAGAN) (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF 2018) a highly sexualized pageant. Juxtaposed with this sequence is the voice of the actor, Danyi Deats, strangled to death (off-screen) and then left CURATOR’S COMMENT: The audio emanating from the surreal and to decompose (on-screen) for the remainder of the film The River’s Edge. intimate video lures the viewer into its space. The seductive sonic richness FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Honorable Mention for Best Short Documentary The intention is for her voice to give dimension to an on-screen formula FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam / Hamburg is a semblance of erotic moans, eerie whistling, slurping and puckering Award - Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival 2016 / International Film so commonplace as to be routine: the parade of almost ritually murdered, International Short Film Festival / Kyiv Biennial 2015 / carlier|gebauer, mouths: the imagery is equally as sensual. Subterranean tunnelling that Festival Rotterdam 2017 / New York Film Festival 2016 / DOK Leipzig dissected, and discarded female bodies. Berlin, 2015

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL IV frames the narrative, along with fraught attempts to navigate through BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2016 / Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival 2017 / Uppsala the unknown land using Google Maps. (…)The film dramatically departs

\\ International Short Film Festival 2017 (KRISTY GUEVARA-FLANAGAN) \\ from the underground bewilderment, emerging finally into a lush, colour- WORLD SALES: LUX DISTRIBUTION saturated meadow. Flowers press together like two mouths, anonymous Alice Lea T: +44 (0)20 3141 2961 hands massage prosthetic limbs and sexual fantasy is conveyed through WORLD SALES: KRISTY GUEVARA-FLANAGAN E: [email protected] both rhythmic and abrupt jump cuts, spurting fountains, leaking tree sap E: [email protected] W: www.lux.org.uk W: www.chuparosafilms.com and subtitles that read it will be pure lust.

(Abigail Toll, Sleek Magazine) 52 53

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: www.chuparosafilms.com W: http://www.laureprouvost.com/ STRANGELY ORDINARY THIS DEVOTION 27’, 2017, USA DIRECTOR: DANI LEVENTHAL, SHEILAH WILSON

SCRIPTWRITER: Dani Leventhal, Sheilah Wilson SOUND: Bonnie Jones, Paul Hill PRODUCTION COMPANY: Video Data Bank EMBRACING THE FEMALE GAZE

WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

DANI LEVENTHAL, SHEILAH WILSON

FILM PRESENTATION: STRANGELY ORDINARY THIS DEVOTION is a DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: STRANGELY ORDINARY THIS DEVOTION visceral exploration of feral domesticity, queer desire, and fantasy confronts constructs of the maternal through numerous imaginings of in a world under the threat of climate change. Utilizing and exploding birthing, domesticity, and the guttural love that arises when a child is archetypes, the film offers a radical approach to collaboration and the born. The subject of the devotion to which the title refers is WILSON and conception of family. WILSON and LEVENTHAL collect and arrange LEVENTHAL’s daughter, Rose. The young family’s daily life is juxtaposed images and moments that are at once peculiar and banal, precious and with surreal imagery that calls into question the contingency of the spaces disturbing, creating resonance and contrast through experimental that they occupy—as women, as lesbians, as mothers—and the bodies modes of storytelling. they possess. Re-born as sensation over material, the womb is depicted as a gaping incision made across the surface of a woman’s head, a gush (DANI LEVENTHAL, SHEILAH WILSON) of blood pushing through a body of water, a coil of seaweed rolled across a hardwood floor. Brakhage’s WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING comes to mind, but WILSON and LEVENTHAL do not gawk at pregnancy or sink under FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Toronto International Film Festival 2017 / the hand of a father figure, instead separating the mother from genitalia, Whitney Museum of American Art New York 2017 genitalia from gender, gender from tradition, and tradition from form. Via the couple’s television screen, the outside world is exchanged for an intimacy shaped by the self-assured androgyny of Prince’s I Would Die 4 U WORLD SALES: VIDEO DATA BANK ( I am not a woman / I am not a man) and the amorous friction of Chantal INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL IV Emily Eddie – Distribution Assistant Akerman’s JE, TU, IL, ELLE. Though its many abstractions may extend BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL T: +1 312 345 3550

\\ beyond immediate comprehension, the film eschews the belief that clarity \\ \\ E: [email protected] W: www.vdb.org is honesty, that honesty must always be clear. (Kelley Dong, Mubi)

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: www.danirestack.com, www.sheilahwilsonrestack.com INTIMACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION V

Curatorial presentation by: DIANA MEREOIU

As the definition of selfhood changes within the context of immersive digital experience and the increase of our identification with these digital mannerisms, so too does the idea of connection evolve and morph. Our virtual personae are now integrated with our sense of identity. What used to be “I see you and you see me, we are connected” has changed into “I experience you and you experience me. We are connected”.

This competition program looks at how to the limit where truth and belief are objective truth than with subjectivity, SU’s love. But when it appears that the boy she On the other hand, in OUR SKIN, virtual the act of being, of seeing and of being interchangeable, the concept of “reality” is work foregrounds experience, desire, and remembers never actually existed, reality spaces are best kept private and thus seen has changed in the context of the rendered obsolete. memory in the construction of history and as a whole is questioned, in a struggle to become an extraordinary place to connect growing importance of our digital selves identity.” (Arron Santry, Frieze) distinguish between dream and waking beyond prejudice. Hushed late-night and duly raises questions on whether the In SUPER TABOO, connection is explored life, futility and meaning. conversations over the phone break down real/virtual dichotomy still makes sense or through the idea of fantasy, of an erotica Once upon a time space was seen as the the barrier of biases and breed intimacy if the two have merged into one and the bringing together individual imaginations. final frontier. Nowadays it is virtual space Taking it one step further, BINARY LOVE where there would have otherwise been same state of being. Spilling into each other, they grow to be that piques the imagination, but once imagines the virtual space as our main ignorance or, even worse, contempt. a collective imaginary more powerful both are conquered, what insight can stay. In the harsh neon lights of a virtual Using the authentic recorded conversation In INFORMATION SKIES, however, the than censorship. The film explores be gained from this experience? When cityscape contained within a motherboard, between a trans-woman and an ex-marine virtual takes precedence over our current “the intersection of cultural history and you’ve seen all the sunsets of the world, Eugene and Jessica finally meet, after officer, the film goes beyond militarized definition of the real and the weight of collective fantasy. The video pans in slow all the blossoming of flowers and their having been paired by an app that matches and gendered bodies to reach the intimate the soul is measured in terabytes. A young motion through an unidealized Taiwanese autumnal decay, what does it all amount you according to your dream. In BINARY core of feeling. The dreamy black and couple wearing VR headsets retreats into a wilderness in which a variety of sexual to? Splicing together YouTube videos, LOVE immediate and virtual reality collide: white shots pull into focus and „become forest. A convoluted voice-over combines tableaux vivants play out, corresponding Google Earth captures and virtual tours, time loses its linearity, the existence of our images of graceful dancers. As the exchange splinters of different thoughts and to well-worn pornographic tropes, and is HOTARU questions the reliability of selves (digital or otherwise) becomes an flows between awkwardness, eroticism, NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V I realities. Visuals that echo the early years framed by older businessmen reading from memory and humanity’s obsession over open-source question and the prospects tension and emotion, we witness two people BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ of the PC, oneiric live footage, abstract a pornographic novel and being carried being remembered. With a mind that for a human connection fall under scrutiny. who need to make contact, despite their \\ animations and anime-style avatars off by uniformed policemen. The fantasy eternally records everything, teenage In an existentialist twist, digital suicide superficial differences.” (IDFA) challenge the archaic notion of reality as produced in the work, in conjunction with Martha is sent into space, as a message appears to be the only solution: risking it being rooted in materiality. In the era of its specific historical references, suggests for potential extraterrestrial civilizations. all, going off the grid and searching for a experiential technology, the weight of the capability of the moving image to both Her only connection to Earth is the voice moment of real connection. data alters the understanding of the world document and reconstruct cultural and of Bernard and the memory of a late-night around us. With our perception pushed personal histories. Less concerned with any 56 57 INFORMATION SKIES SUPER TABOO 24’, 2017, South Korea/ The Netherlands 19’, 2017, Taiwan DIRECTOR: METAHAVEN DIRECTOR: SU HUI-YU

CAST: Georgina Dávid, Artur Chruszcz CAST: Chin Shih-Chieh SCRIPTWRITER: Vinca Kruk, Daniel van der Velden SCRIPTWRITER: Su Hui-Yu CINEMATOGRAPHER: Remko Schnorr CINEMATOGRAPHER: Chen Kuan-Yu EDITOR: Vinca Kruk, Daniel van der Velden EDITOR: Su Hui-Yu MUSIC: M.E.S.H. SOUND: Su Hui-Yu PRODUCER: Anna Laederach, Metahaven PRODUCER: Su Hui-Yu PRODUCTION COMPANY: Metahaven INTIMACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

METAHAVEN SU HUI-YU

FILM PRESENTATION: In INFORMATION SKIES images come before CURATOR’S COMMENT: INFORMATION SKIES (…) questions the politics FILM PRESENTATION: SUPER TABOO uses a personal recollection DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: SUPER TABOO leads us back to the 1980s the Word that creates the image. A young couple wearing VR headsets of truth and justice, but here via a design fiction based on the experience of encountering pornography to explore the intersection of cultural [...] in Taiwan. Pornographic content was then edged to the periphery of retreat into a forest. A convoluted voice-over combines splinters of of virtual reality and its cultural effects. Splicing semi-abstract anime history and collective fantasy. The video pans in slow motion through an the audio-visual system and merely tolerated by late night shows, secret different thoughts and realities. Visuals that echo the early years of the sequences and hyper-cinematic live action footage with CGI overlays (…) unidealized Taiwanese wilderness in which a variety of sexual tableaux rooms in video rental shops, or inconspicuous corners in bookstores. PC, oneiric live footage, abstract animations and anime-style avatars METAHAVEN reconsider the relationship between digital subjectivity and vivants play out, corresponding to well-worn pornographic tropes, and However, banned pornographic content tended to put greater erogenous challenge the archaic notion of reality as being rooted in materiality. the notion of truth, producing what EFA competition jurors referred to as is framed by older businessmen reading from a pornographic novel and temptation in our way than that freely accessible to us did. Pornographic In the era of experiential technology, the weight of data alters the a post-truth essay film. A disjointed, poetic text runs through the work, being carried off by uniformed policemen. The fantasy produced in the content holds its allure at the expense of being salacious, nasty, and understanding of the world around us. With our perception pushed to spoken aloud in Hungarian and (deliberately) obtrusively subtitled in work, in conjunction with its specific historical references, suggests immoral. [My] fascination with this subject matter is reminiscent of the limit, where truth and belief are interchangeable, the concept of Korean and English; some elements of the voiceover reflect on the effects of the capability of the moving image to both document and reconstruct Georges Bataille who was interested not so much in the pleasures of the reality is rendered obsolete. virtual reality, others point to some unrevealed judicial context. Originally cultural and personal histories. Less concerned with any objective truth flesh but what is classified as dirty. Physically pleasant sensation seems to screened via custom online platform, the video’s translation to the cinema than with subjectivity, SU’s work foregrounds experience, desire, and be perilous and ergo requires the endorsement by the transcendental love (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF 2018) tends to emphasize the cinematic sequences, which borrow from the sci-fi memory in the construction of history and identity. or a social context as the foundation. As shown in the vintage pornography films of Tarkovsky, at the expense of some of the browser-specific digital displayed in this exhibition, the pink fellatio image is accompanied by the (Arron Santry, Frieze) motifs. The effect of this, however, is to call into question more effectively true confession: we are fellows who suffer in the society where people are FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Nominee for Best European Short Film – the utopian vision of a virtual paradise that has long been the promise of snobbish and indulgent in unbridled desires, which is why we should feel European Film Awards 2017/ International Film Festival Rotterdam digital technology. mutual sympathy and take care of one another. 2017/ Seville European Film Festival/ I See International Video Art FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017/ NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V

I (Arron Santry – Frieze.com) (SU HUI-YU) BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Festival 2016/ Crosstalk Video Art Festival 2016 Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival BAFICI 2017/

\\ Féstival du Nouveau Cinema 2017/ VIS Vienna Shorts 2017/ Uppsala \\ International Short Film Festival 2017/ Hamburg International Short WORLD SALES: SU HUI-YU Film Festival 2017/ Moscow Experimental International Film Festival WORLD SALES: METAHAVEN T: +886-2-2597-2525 T: +31624276797 2017/ Gijón International Film Festival 2017 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] W: http://www.suhuiyu.com/site/ W: http://mthvn.tumblr.com/

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: http://mthvn.tumblr.com/ W: http://www.suhuiyu.com/site/ HOTARU BINARY LOVE 21’, 2015, France 13’, 2017, France DIRECTOR: WILLIAM LABOURY DIRECTOR: EWAN GOLDER

CAST: Julia Artamonov, Olivier Lin, Bernard Blancan, CAST: Ina Mihalache, Ewan Golder, Nicolette Picheral, Shanti Masud, Garance Marillier, Yamato Itakura Félix Verhaverbeke SCRIPTWRITER: William Laboury SCRIPTWRITER: Ewan Golder CINEMATOGRAPHER: Raphaël Vandenbussche CINEMATOGRAPHER: Noé Bach EDITOR: William Laboury EDITOR: Ewan Golder SOUND: Maxence Dussère SOUND: Amine Arrom, Yannick Delmaire MUSIC: Maxence Dussère MUSIC: Stanislav Makovsky INTIMACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE PRODUCER: Yannick Beauquis PRODUCTION COMPANY: Le Fresnoy, Studio national PRODUCTION COMPANY: La Fémis des arts contemporains WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

WILLIAM LABOURY EWAN GOLDER

FILM PRESENTATION: When you’ve seen all the sunsets of the world, CURATOR’S COMMENT: HOTARU is a piece about the images that shape FILM PRESENTATION: In the harsh neon lights of a virtual cityscape DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: We roam freely through this digital playground all the blossoming of flowers and their autumnal decay, what does it all memory, about the obsession of memory and its opposite, amnesia. With contained within a motherboard, Eugene and Jessica finally meet, after but we are consumed and logged by the faceless, omnipresent machine, amount to? Splicing together YouTube videos, Google Earth captures the aid of CGI, the film immerses us in a mind full of recollections resembling having been paired by an app that matches people according to what they herded and branded like cattle with ruthless efficiency. Every adventure and virtual tours, HOTARU questions the reliability of memory and the aesthetics of 80s video games. This virtual realm recalls Chris Marker’s dream. In BINARY LOVE immediate and virtual reality collide: time loses starts with a Wi-Fi connection. But where do we go? Does it matter? humanity’s obsession over being remembered. With a mind that CD-ROM, “Immemory”, through its attempt to reconstruct the flow of its linearity, the existence of our selves (digital or otherwise) becomes Where is our narrative drive? Anywhere to distract us from our planned eternally records everything, teenage Martha is sent into space, as a consciousness, to get lost in a cartography of memories where hazardous an open-source question and the possibility of human connection falls obsolescence. Our secret selves travelling through the circuitry of a million message for potential extraterrestrial civilizations. Her only connection connections cannot be summed up in a simple chronological sequence. (…) under scrutiny. In an existentialist twist, digital suicide appears as the microprocessors which work tirelessly; calculating, multiplying, utterly to Earth is the voice of Bernard and the memory of a late-night love. Reminiscences, often arbitrary, sometimes fragmented or repetitive, are only solution: risking it all, going off the grid and searching for a moment indifferent to their incomprehensible creators. And on the surface, we, But when it appears that the boy she remembers never actually existed, accompanied by several voice-offs that guide us between the mental world of real connection. the lazy, proud and lustful bags of inadequate flesh and incomprehensible reality as a whole is questioned, in a struggle to distinguish between of the heroine, Martha, and that of and Bernard. These voices tell us that emotions, clumsily search for a connection. Binary Love. Algorithm Blues. (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF 2018) dream and waking life, futility and meaning. one day, Martha was sent into space. She is hypermnesic: she remembers A convulsive love, burning and whirring like an overheating hard drive, everything, down to the most insignificant detail of a distant conversation corrupting your senses. If we could only find a connection, to embolden us (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF 2018) (…) So uniqueness has disappeared and in a multitude of red sun-sets, one in the face of this avalanche of digital detritus, to help us hack through the no longer believes to ever be able to marvel at something. Therefore, in FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Panorama 19 - Le Fresnoy 2017 jungle to find ourselves, to find each other, smashing the avatar within an order to play life again, you have to pretend to believe in it. avatar within an avatar, to find you in your purest data form, a glorious FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Special Jury Award - Clermont-Ferrand Labo algorithm of incomprehensible beauty. Share your drive with me, let our 2016/ IndieLisboa 2016/ Winterthur International Short Film Festival (Bulles de culture - bullesdeculture.com) data streams merge, and whatever you do, never log off.

NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V WORLD SALES: LE FRESNOY, Studio national des arts contemporains

I 2016/ Golden Donkey Award - Concorto Film Festival 2016/ Imagine BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Natalia Trebik – Head of Distribution and Festivals Science Film Festival 2016 T: +33 03 20 28 38 64

\\ (EWAN GOLDER) \\ E: [email protected] W: http://www.lefresnoy.net

WORLD SALES: LA FÉMIS Géraldine Amgar T: +33 01 53 41 21 16 E: [email protected] W: http://www.femis.fr 60 61

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: https://williamlaboury.myportfolio.com/ W: http://ewangolder.co.uk/ OUR SKIN 16’, 2017, USA/ Portugal DIRECTOR: JOÃO QUEIROGA

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jesseca Ynez Simmons, Shuhan Fan, João Queiroga EDITOR: João Queiroga SOUND: Alex Inglizian, João Queiroga PRODUCER: Kevin P. Gorey INTIMACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

JOÃO QUEIROGA

FILM PRESENTATION: “A late-night call unfolds between two strangers, CURATOR’S COMMENT: An ex-marine transitioning to civilian. A man set against unfocused, dreamlike black-and-white images. This real audio transitioning to woman. Two individuals that get to live at both ends of recording of a conversation between a woman named Jane and a U.S. army the spectrum, and their harrowing rupture from one status to another. veteran gets off to a tentative start, and just like the two callers, we are By directing its soft glance towards these two, OUR SKIN goes beyond also groping in the dark: why is this man calling this woman, and what’s militarized and gendered bodies to reach the intimate core of feeling. Flesh their relationship? The shots pull into focus and become images of graceful proves to be a receptacle of trauma, a false prophet of gender. There is much dancers. As the exchange flows between awkwardness, eroticism, tension to be said with a word, and much that cannot be contained in it. Focusing on and emotion, we witness two people who need to make contact, despite characters that escape conventional definitions, director JOÃO QUEIROGA their superficial differences.” decides on choreographed moments to give shape and concreteness to his protagonists. Movement is not only a means of communication but a (IDFA) refusal of constraints.

(Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF 2018)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2017/ Visions du Réel 2017/ QueerLisboa 2017/ DocLisboa 2016/ XPOSED Queer Film Festival 2017/Hot Docs 2017/ BFI Flare 2017 NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V I BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ WORLD SALES: JOÃO QUEIROGA \\ \\ T: 224-803-7902 E: [email protected] W: http://www.joaoqueiroga.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: http://www.joaoqueiroga.com BERLINALE SPOTLIGHT: FORUM EXPANDED PRESENTATION

Presentation by ULRICH ZIEMONS, Curator of Berlinale Spotlight: Forum Expanded

In cooperation with:

Since 2006, Forum Expanded This interest in finding a new, A wolf, a tree and other non-human The two films of Program 3 map the presents Experimental Cinema, Film- grounded perspective on the world is actors. Colorfields exploding out of ideology of city planning in Tehran and and Videoinstallations, Talks and especially prevalent in the multifaceted nowhere. A group of people singing Beirut. Ranging from formally rigid Performances in the context of the documentary forms in the Forum together in an abandoned building. An to essayistic in their approach, and Berlin International Film Festival. Expanded selection. Organized in three actress and her director discussing their focussing on building developments Over the last 12 years, the section has programs, the Spotlight combines works trade. The films in Program 2 question in the city’s outskirts in the case of established itself as a showcase of made for the cinema and for installation. the anthropocentrism of cinematic Tehran and a destroyed and rebuilt moving image works which probe the narration, produce visual phenomena neighborhood in the centre of Beirut, boundaries of the form in and outside The four films in Program 1 approach in microscopic structures, witness an both works highlight the spacial the cinema. violence, trauma, loneliness and improvised voice performance and construction of political and economic displacement through stark formal take a humorous look into the analog- systems. The Berlinale Spotlight: Forum Expanded languages. Subjects are the pictorial digital divide in Indian popular cinema. brings together ten works presented at representation of war in Gaza and Playful narrative styles interweave with the 2017 edition of Forum Expanded. the global dissemination of images documentary and avant-garde traditions Under the title „The Stars Down to of violence, the translation of voice in this investigation of formal and Earth“, the Forum Expanded 2017 and image into subtitles, the material performative aspects of filmmaking.

BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED SPOTLIGHT: proposed a necessity for re-adjusting embodiment of trauma, and the BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL one’s gaze to one’s surroundings, for inscription of self into the walls that \\ looking and listening as closely as surround us. \\ possible.

64 65 TASHLIKH (CAST OFF) PURPLE, BODIES IN TRANSLATION – 11’, 2017, Israel/The Netherlands DIRECTOR: YAEL BARTANA PART II OF A YELLOW MEMORY FROM THE YELLOW AGE CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mick Van Rossum ART DIRECTION: Yael Bartana 40’, 2016, Austria, Germany EDITING: Yael Bartana DIRECTOR: JOE NAMY \\ PROGRAM\\ ONE SOUND DESIGN: Daniel Meir PRODUCER: Naama Pyritz SCRIPTWRITER: Lina Mounzer, Stefan Tarnowski PRODUCTION COMPANY: Naama Pyritz for Ingenue PRODUCER: Joe Namy Productions Ltd., Yael Bartana for My-i Productions

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

YAEL BARTANA JOE NAMY

FILM PRESENTATION: Private belongings are material testimonies CURATOR’S COMMENT: Tashlikh is the name of a Jewish atonement FILM PRESENTATION: This video reflects on the role of the subtitle, DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The installation is based on two texts that of personal histories, which evoke feelings, thoughts and ideas ritual, in which bread or other objects are thrown into the river to symbolize what details get lost in translation, and the weighted influence created discuss the act of translating war and resilience. It is designed as an connected to past experiences. In the context of war and survival, the casting off of sins. YAEL BARTANA’s film takes a fresh look at this ritual. in the juxtaposition between an image and its subtitle. For PURPLE, immersive experience, to create a reflective space for the audience to think such objects become both comforting and hurtful signifiers of a world In slow motion, accompanied by a hypnotic soundscape, a diverse collection BODIES IN TRANSLATION the image is defined by what is heard–– through the intricacies of the wars in Syria and Iraq, mediated through that has been lost, or is no longer accessible. In many cases, they are of objects tumble down across the screen. They are the photos, keys, guns subtitled voices woven together with threads sampled from stories, testimony. The video merely shows a color: purple, projected on a mirrored kept and cherished, even achieving a certain degree of sanctity, while and countless other personal possessions of both the victims and the poems, songs––all addressing the poetics of purple as a feeling. screen that allows the viewers to see their own reflection, to see themselves also operating as a continuous reminder of the devastating past. YAEL perpetrators of genocide. Not only is the Holocaust represented, but also This video is part of an ongoing project on how we render the ever within the subtitled text. Lina Mounzer’s essay War in Translation: Giving BARTANA’s video TASHLIKH (CAST OFF) serves as a platform for both the Armenian genocide of 1915, and the more recent ethnic cleansing in expanding militarized tones, colors, and language, on both a physical Voice to the Women of Syria weaves the testimonies she is translating with perpetrators and survivors of genocides or ethnic persecutions to Sudan and Eritrea. It’s as if we’re looking from above at the flow of a virtual and metaphysical level. her own personal experience of living through the civil war in Lebanon, and confront their personal, material links to the horrors. river. The objects tell personal stories, and at the same time they speak for how her own experience shapes how she processes and internalizes the (Berlinale Forum Expanded) a larger, shared history. They are the silent witnesses of past suffering, and testimonies in order to distill the essence of the words. Stefan Tarnowski’s (Berlinale Forum Expanded) their rehabilitation opens the way for admissions of guilt, recovery from essay Subtitling a Film describes the intricacies of translating subtitles for trauma, forgiveness and liberation. the anonymous film collective Abounaddara and the special collaborative FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2017/ Kassel process of working for someone he has never met. (IDFA, 2017) FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2017/ Dokfest Germany 2017 (JOE NAMY) Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival 2017/ UK Jewish Film 2017 BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED SPOTLIGHT: BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] TURTLES ARE ALWAYS HOME WHEN THINGS OCCUR 12’, 2016, Canada, Qatar, Lebanon 28’, 2016, Palestine, UK DIRECTOR: RAWANE NASSIF DIRECTOR: ORAIB TOUKAN

SCRIPTWRITER: Rawane Nassif CAST: Lara Abu Ramadan, Hosam Salem, Khalil Hamra, CINEMATOGRAPHY: Rawane Nassif Walaa Al Ghussein, Ashraf Al Masri EDITING: Rawane Nassif CINEMATOGRAPHY: Oraib Toukan \\ PROGRAM\\ ONE SOUND: Sasha Parsons, Rawane Nassif EDITING: Oraib Toukan SOUND MIXING: Victore Bresse PRODUCER: Oraib Toukan PRODUCER: Rawane Nassif, Doha Film Institute

WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

RAWANE NASSIF ORAIB TOUKAN

FILM PRESENTATION: A Qatari town’s colorful architecture replicates DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I left Lebanon in 2006. For the past 10 years FILM PRESENTATION: WHEN THINGS OCCUR is based on Skype CURATOR’S COMMENT: WHEN THINGS OCCUR (2016) by ORAIB TOUKAN that of Venice, Italy. But here, the buildings are empty, and the canal’s I have lived in seven countries, 10 cities, and 21 homes. I have slept in 21 conversations with Gaza-based photographers, fixers, and drivers who is so compelling due to its update of the urgency to re-engage with the waters are still. A filmmaker ventures to peek behind the town’s beds, cooked in 21 kitchens, cleaned 21 bathrooms, written on 21 desks, were behind specific images that were transmitted from screen to question of the image as a geopolitical issue for the Palestinian cause. mysterious facades. TURTLES ARE ALWAYS HOME is an intimate and locked 21 doors behind me. I packed all of my life into two suitcases screen in the summer of 2014. The film probes the face of mourning and Its image-regimes offer a contested terrain as well as a lived reality and exploration about the search for home in a transient world. (Chicago and a backpack. The rest stayed behind. Somebody somewhere uses my grief – its digital embodiment, transmission, and representation. It asks politics of the domestic in which nobody will understand how we are living, Film Festival) bed, somebody somewhere has my shoes, somebody somewhere maybe how the gaze gets channeled within the digital realm, and how empathy as Gaza international photojournalist and blogger Lara Abu Ramadan remembers me in those fragmented traces of mine. I was there. But now travels. Equally, how the documentary signifier – and its abstraction – states in her conversation with ORAIB TOUKAN. The 28 minute desktop- ‘’This is a short essay about the meaning of home and and the search for I am here. In Qatar. In a fake Venice with colorful houses. Houses have operate when viewing suffering. What exactly is viewing suffering ‘at video investigates and labours the techno-spatial conditions of image it in a transient environment. It is a personal journey inwards with an memories too. They hide them under their windowsills, tuck them in layers a distance’ – and how many meters or kilometers is that? What is the processing. It considers the particular situation of Gaza after the 2014- intimate camera that observes and takes its time to look at the buildings of paint and sometimes whisper them to birds passing by. I wonder whose behavior and political economy of the image of war? Who is the ‘local’ wars entangled with global infrastructures. Thus it provides an important and the surroundings only to find its reflections’’. memories these houses will keep. I live here but I am unable to leave a trace. in the representation of war? What is the daily routine of those who analysis of a visually exhausted and exploited terrain that has been (RAWANE NASSIF) I try to attach myself to the walls, dirty them, mark them… but I fail. They represent war? overproduced by media images for decades, by Human Rights discourses are constantly cleaned, watched, and protected. I caress them instead. And as well as by the field of international contemporary art, the arena where (ORAIB TOUKAN) I film them, lest I forget. WHEN THINGS OCCUR is presented.

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Golden Gate Award for New Visions Short - (RAWANE NASSIF) (Doreen Mende for Vdrome) San Francisco International Film Festival 2017/ Jury Prize Winner for FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2017/ Biennale

BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED SPOTLIGHT: Experimental Short - New Orleans Film Festival 2017/DOC-TAI Award for BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL für aktuelle Fotografie Mannheim, Germany 2017 / Bonniers Konsthall a Talented Emerging Filmmaker – DOCUMENTAMADRID 2017/ Special WORLD SALES: RAWANE NASSIF

\\ Centre for Contemporary Art Stockholm, Sweden 2017 \\ Festival Mention - Delhi Shorts International Film Festival 2017/ Berlin E: [email protected] International Film Festival 2017/ Kinodot Experimental Film Festival, Sankt Petersburg 2017 / Toronto International Film Festival 2017 / Chicago Film Festival 2017 WORLD SALES: ORAIB TOUKAN T: +44 7943663338 E: [email protected] W: www.oraibtoukan.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] STUDIES ON THE ECOLOGY DARK ADAPTATION 14’, 2016, Canada OF DRAMA DIRECTOR: CHRIS GEHMAN 26’, 2017, Finland DIRECTOR: EIJA-LIISA AHTILA CINEMATOGRAPHY: Chris Gehman EDITING: Brian Kent Gotro CAST: Kati Outinen, Hugo Husky (Old Husky), Gebüsch, Wacholder, MUSIC: Graham Stewart \\ PROGRAM\\ TWO Eiche, Faulbaum (Plants), Ufra (Horse), Dschowo’s Harrison (Dog), PRODUCER: Chris Gehman, Kitab Al-Manazir Zitronenfalter (Butterfly), Tapio Laakkonen (Trampoline acrobat), Myrsky, Annamari, Hedda, Nora, Jilka (Acrobats) SCRIPTWRITER: Eija-Liisa Ahtila CINEMATOGRAPHY: Arto Kaivanto EDITING: Heikki Kotsalo SOUND: Peter Nordström WITH THE SUPPORT OF: PRODUCER: Ilppo Pohjola CHRIS GEHMAN EIJA-LIISA AHTILA

CURATOR’S COMMENT: STUDIES ON THE ECOLOGY OF DRAMA FILM PRESENTATION: The film’s title refers to the human eye’s CURATOR’S COMMENT: At festivals, critics see so many films that we FILM PRESENTATION: Making the ecology of drama visible requires can be seen as a performance for and with the camera. It is a practical, adaptation to conditions of darkness by becoming more sensitive to low often discover common themes and patterns. Usually this happens with establishing a reflexive distance and a representational dimension representational philosophical meditation upon the inability of our levels of light. Working in a darkened studio with a single light source and narrative films, but this year among the avant-garde works I’ve made whereby the processes of technological recording and the expressive anthropocentric depictive tradition to reach beyond the human realm. shooting on 16mm reversal film, GEHMAN explores visual phenomena at a discovery. 2016 is the Year of Saturated Color. Judging by new works devices of the moving image can be made perceivable. In STUDIES ON Experiences from previous works are brought to bear here, and the the edge of perceptibility, creating analogues for images experienced by Sky Hopinka, Sophie Michael, Terra Long, and now CHRIS GEHMAN, THE ECOLOGY OF DRAMA a human actor leads us through the argument narrative is built upon instances that have been opened up over the years. with the eyes closed. The film proposes that powerful images can be Wavelengths will be your connection for fiery crimsons, deep emeralds, hot of the film. In the style of a lecture performance she introduces The surrounding projected space is an entire panorama that encompasses generated by the body’s own systems; in this sense, DARK ADAPTATION whitish yellows, and a full submersion in cobalt blue. DARK ADAPTATION, the themes of the work by conducting reduction exercises with the the viewer within it. The story functions centrifugally, envelopes us, represents an epic interior journey. unlike the other films, provides nothing but color, liquid and striated as it surroundings: a field, a forest, a garden, a corral. Other performers physically and narratively, to then break apart piece by piece. filters across the screen. Very reminiscent of the abstract mandala films of (Berlinale Forum Expanded) in the work include a bush, a juniper tree, a common swift, a horse, a Jordan Belson, DARK ADAPTATION frequently prompts a viewer to wonder (Maria Hirvi-Ijäs) brimstone butterfly, and a group of human acrobats. just how GEHMAN got these semi-solid colorforms onto celluloid—whether we are watching smoke patterns with lights and gels shining through them, (Berlinale Forum Expanded) FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2017 / or some sort of optical-printer manipulation. International Festival of Independent Cinema Lagofilmfest, Italy (Michael Sicinski, Mubi Notebook) 2017 / International Festival Of Films On Art Montréal 2017 / Toronto FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2017/ Curtas International Film Festival 2016 Vila do Conde, Portugal 2017/ Vancouver International Film Festival, BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED SPOTLIGHT: Canada 2017/ Sheffield International Documentary Festival 2017/ Helsinki BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ International Film Festival, Finland 2017 \\ WORLD SALES: CANADIAN FILMMAKERS DISTRIBUTION CENTRE Toronto, Canada T: +1 416 5880725 E: [email protected] WORLD SALES: CRYSTAL EYE Ilppo Pohjola T: +358 400 454033 E: [email protected] W: www.crystaleye.fi/ 70 71

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] THE RAIN IS GONE CAMERA THREAT 17’, 2016, Israel/France 30’, 2017, Germany DIRECTOR: NOAM ENBAR DIRECTOR: BERND LÜTZELER

CAST: Awet Asheber, Dawit Tsegai, Nouraldin Musa, Liat CAST: Mansi Multani, Pushpendra Singh, Girish Pardeshi, Boltsman, Liat Shabtai, Goytom Brahne, Yonatan Yohanns Harish Bhimani, Shai Heredia Estifanos, Ybrah Menan, Liat Shabtai, Shaharit Yerushalmi SCRIPTWRITER: Bernd Lützeler \\ PROGRAM\\ TWO CINEMATOGRAPHY: Philippe Bellaiche CINEMATOGRAPHY: Bernd Lützeler EDITING: Noam Enbar EDITING: Bernd Lützeler SOUND: Tully Chen SOUND: Johannes Hampel MUSIC: Noam Enbar SOUND DESIGN: Bernd Lützeler PRODUCERS: Avi Mograbi, Serge Lalou MUSIC: Guido Möbius PRODUCTION COMPANY: Les Films d’Ici PRODUCER: Bernd Lützeler WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

NOAM ENBAR BERND LÜTZELER

FILM PRESENTATION: Holot is a detention center in the Israeli desert DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: THE RAIN IS GONE is a participatory event. We FILM PRESENTATION: Set in the dreary nooks of Mumbai’s film CURATOR’S COMMENT: LÜTZELER’s fascination [with popular Indian near the Egyptian border. It houses asylum-seekers from Eritrea and take a famous Israeli agricultural song dealing with the passing of winter industry, stuck between star-cult, superstition, and the daily gridlock, cinema] grew, according to himself, from having watched an Indian film on Sudan who can’t be sent back to their own countries, but who have and beginning of spring, turning it into an expressive polyphonic chant. CAMERA THREAT explores the ambivalent and sometimes paranoid a VHS cassette without subtitles (it was Chahat by Shah Rukh Khan, so the no prospects in Israel either thanks to the country’s policies. Theater The participation of a group of asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan in relationship that this film city has with the moving image itself. Seated legend goes): not understanding the dialogues highlighted the narrative director Chen Alon and filmmaker Avi Mograbi decided to initiate a this public rite throws the event into the realm of metaphor, where winter on a casting couch, a director and an actress get trapped in their formula known as Masala Formula which prioritises the spectacular over theater workshop with these people in the most precarious of situations. is associated with oppression and spring with the yearning for freedom. impromptu conversations on the unwanted side effects of a world that the logical. (…) Love or family tragedies are interrupted by sequences of The structured-improvisatory composition THE RAIN IS GONE has The work deals with the desire to free ourselves from outside oppressive no longer bothers to tell facts from fiction. An expanded multi-genre action, romantic songs or dances. Besides this tribute to Masala cinema, been devised by NOAM ENBAR and performed in collaboration with political forces, like our government or the one in Eritrea, or internal film within the constraints of the so-called Masala Formula popularly CAMERA THREAT deals with the disappearance of celluloid, absorbed as the workshop participants. It takes a popular Israeli agricultural song, oppressive forces, that are as dangerous. known from Indian cinema. in the rest of the world by the digital. This idea, aided by the filmmaker’s associated with the kibbutz movement, turning it into an expressive experience working in different analogue and digital formats, coupled (NOAM ENBAR) (Berlinale Forum Expanded) polyphonic chant. with the concept of the film, conceived to be screened in a double projection (35 mm and digital) that blends with the screen. (Berlinale Forum Expanded) FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Honourable Mention – Indian Film Festival (Miguel Dias, director Curtas Vila do Conde IFF) Stuttgart, Germany 2017/ Berlin International Film Festival 2017/ Curtas FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2017 Vila do Conde, Portugal 2017/ Festival International Signes de Nuit (Signs of the Night), France 2017/ Moscow International Experimental

BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED SPOTLIGHT: Film Festival, Russia 2017 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

WORLD SALES: LES FILMS D’ICI \\ \\ T: +33 1 44522323 E: [email protected] WORLD SALES: BERND LÜTZELER W: www.lesfilmsdici.fr T: +49 172 3947635 E: [email protected]

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] CONSTRUCTED FUTURES: HASHTI TEHRAN 59’, 2016, Iran HARET HREIK DIRECTOR: DANIEL KÖTTER 28’, 2017, Germany DIRECTOR: SANDRA SCHÄFER CAST: Sara Reyhani, Ramash Imanifard, Alireza Labeshka, Amoo Abbas CAST: Ibtissam Malak, Hassan el-Jeshi, Rahif Fayad SCRIPTWRITER: DANIEL KÖTTER Sandra Schäfer DANIEL KÖTTER

\\ PROGRAM THREE \\ CINEMATOGRAPHY: CINEMATOGRAPHY: EDITING: Sandra Schäfer EDITING: DANIEL KÖTTER SOUND DESIGN: Martin Ehlers-Falkenberg SOUND: Hedieh Ahmadi SOUND: Sandra Boutros SOUND DESIGN: Marcin Lenarczyk PRODUCER: Sandra Schäfer, Ekaterina Degot PRODUCER: DANIEL KÖTTER, Sadra Keyhani

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

SANDRA SCHÄFER DANIEL KÖTTER

FILM PRESENTATION: The architecture of post-war reconstruction CURATOR’S COMMENT: The Shiite dominated neighborhood Haret Hreik FILM PRESENTATION: The film HASHTI TEHRAN portrays the DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Based on the idea that Tehran itself is always something profoundly ideological, almost as violent as in Beirut houses the headquarters of the Hezbollah Party, invisible to the peripheral spaces between urbanity and suburbia just outside the city of represents a house, so to speak the inner circle of The Islamic Republic the destruction of war itself. Such is the case of the architecture outside. In 2006 the Israeli Army bombarded the neighborhood, which Tehran. DANIEL KÖTTER opens up four different spaces of transition on of Iran, the outskirts of the city become the space of transition between that arose in Lebanon after the wars of the last decades, whose Hezbollah then quickly rebuilt. This rebuilding project is part of a military the outskirts and shows parts of the Iran that rarely get to be seen. The inside and outside, between urban and non-urban. Thus the film and visual politics are questioned by filmmaker SANDRA SCHÄFER in her conflict and a geopolitical network in which architecture takes part in slow paced pans of the camera across the buildings and landscapes are discursive project HASHTI TEHRAN looks at four very different areas in project CONSTRUCTED FUTURES. Her video HARET HREIK visits the the production of space, landscape, and memory. The video installation accentuated by conversations between real estate agents and clients, the outskirts of Tehran: the mountain of Tochal in the north, the area neighbourhood where Hezbollah has its headquarters and supporter shows offices where the reconstruction was planned and designed, one of or people living in the area who talk about expulsion and migration. around the artificial lake Chitgar in the West, the construction of social base – bombed extensively during the 2006 war with Israel, but rebuilt to the rebuilt houses itself, as well as a hall where Hezbollah sympathizers HASHTI TEHRAN tells the story of how social spaces are not created due housing called Pardis Town in the far east and the neighbourhood Nafar be “even more beautiful”. It traces the rebuilding’s visions and concept, regularly gather to attend video addresses by the party leader Hassan to their centricity, but through the use and occupation by people. Abad at the southern edges of the city. By combining Road movie and analysing its production of space and its construction of memory. Nasrallah. What does it mean when new buildings are meant to be added architectural documentary and by inverting the techniques of inside (Berlinale Forum Expanded) without rupture or break into the existing urban structure and into and outside shots the film HASHTI TEHRAN portrays Tehran through its (Videoex International Experimentalfilm & Video Festival Zürich, individual memories? How has the interpretation of resistance by Hezbollah peripheral spaces. Switzerland) become a dominant project that is manifest spatially? What does building (DANIEL KÖTTER) mean if it leaves no room for ruins and commemoration, because it thinks FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Arkipel Award for Best Film – Arkipel in a logic of brief intervals of warlessness? Documentary and Experimental Film Festival Jakarta, 2017/ German FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlin International Film Festival 2017/ Kasseler Shorts Special Award - Köln 2017/ Berlin International Film Festival Dokumentarfilm und Videofest 2017/ Duisburger Filmwoche 2017/ (Berlinale Forum Expanded) 2017/ Munich International Documentary Film Festival 2017/ Tirana

BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED SPOTLIGHT: FemAgenda und Kunsthochschule Bern 2017/ Contemporary Image BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL International Documentary Film Festival 2017/ European Media Art Collective Cairo 2017/ Diagonale - Festival of Austrian Film, Graz 2018

\\ Festival, Osnabrück, Germany 2017 \\

WORLD SALES: MAZEFILM WORLD SALES: DANIEL KÖTTER Sandra Schäfer T: +491637296782 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] W: www.mazefilm.de/ W: www.danielkoetter.de 74 75

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] IDENTITY AND BELONGING - SARAJEVO THEME PROGRAM PRESENTATION

Curatorial text by: ADINA MARIN

Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival BIEFF is proud to announce the beginning of an inspiring collaboration with The Sarajevo Film Festival. It has been suggested that festivals may influence their host community to the same extent as they in their turn are influenced by it. In our case, the profile of the festival has undoubtedly been shaped by its position. Sarajevo is a vibrant cosmopolitan city where East meets West.

It is the very place where WW1 originated Western myths are questioned in Moving to somewhere in the computer ARTIFICIAL SUNSHINE proposes a What does it mean to be a patriot On the outskirts of a neighbourhood in (or at least the excuse for it). It is the ULU BRAUN’s THE HOSTEL, while the gaming world, JONATHAN VINEL creates different quest of identity by means today? In a lively pace borrowed from Le Port (Reunion Islands), a teenager only major European city to have a European urban space is denounced in MARTIN CRIES a story of tenderness of a threefold audio-visual account of its musical namesake, POLONAISE asks fimmaker JOHANNES FRESE to give Mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox as a place of violence and alienation in wrapped in layers of violence and Blackpool, a place of contrasts, the takes the appearance of comedy to him a euro and then, out of the blue, church and a Synagogue within the MARTIN CRIES. In ARTIFICIAL SUNSHINE, anger. One is prompted to imagine British version of Las Vegas. There is the cast a harsh look at people’s grasp attacks him with a bottle. TITAN switches same neighborhood. In the 1990s it was the identity of a place swings between how it would feel to wake up one day depiction in stunning imagery of a town of patriotism. A contest planned to from a personal unfortunate encounter besieged and on the edge of annihilation. naturalness and artificiality, and so do and realize that all one’s friends have by the sea; then, its artificial counterpart take place on Independence Day in a to the attacker’s background-story. The Towards the end of the siege, the the lives of its inhabitants. Patriotism as disappeared. Both Martin and the with strident people and sounds, slot Polish town is supposed to select the filmmaker seeks out the boy’s father, Sarajevo Film Festival was initiated with a sense of belonging is tackled with wry places he searches in the quest of his machines and even an Elvis lookalike. region’s patriot number one. The film is interested in the family, visits them the aim of helping to reconstruct civil humour in POLONAISE, and in TITAN we lost friends are computer generated And there comes a third layer lying is constructed with expert precision and gets to talk to them. A film telling a society and retain the cosmopolitan spirit learn how the loss of identity in an urban imagery, but the voice accompanying deep underneath, made of childhood and wry humour for good measure: the story about far-reaching injustice and its of the city. If there is a place in Europe environment of violence and crime is it is warm, soft-spoken and profoundly recollections continuously altered by jurors are a small-scale representation toxic ability to reproduce. where the whole lot of questions related bound to distort the lives of teenagers. human, creating a powerful contrast. new memories stored on top of the of Polish society, and the show itself to multi-ethnicity, (in)tolerance, identity Friendship is like a lighthouse in a old ones. CONOR ROLLINS cleverly is a Poland Got Talent of sorts, with and belonging are genuinely rooted in In his unique collage-style, ULU BRAUN sea of hostile urbanity, hence the intermingles archive footage shot on 8 contestants going out of their ways to reality, this place is definitely Sarajevo. creates a space betwixt and between friends’ absence generates anger and mm and 16 mm, VHS home videos and praise the homeland. Eventually, the

SARAJEVO THEME PROGRAMSARAJEVO And since it is the digital age we are living reality and the digital world in THE HOSTEL, violent reactions. However, like a true beautiful digital images to create the most patriotic of all takes home a tv set BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in, the search of identity can take new where people of the past or present, either computer-generated character, Martin cinematic portrait of an urban space of Japanese making and the viewer is \\ forms. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), mythological or real creatures, and their eventually promises himself and us that which, like the double-faced Janus, turns left with a bitter laugh at the ridicule of \\ the films in this selection address, each in artefacts are juxtaposed on dramatic he’ll go on searching all his life, and that to the viewer its natural and artificial patriotism pushed beyond its sense of its own way, these very issues. naturescapes. The derelict building of a he’ll never die. side in alternate succession. identity and belonging, where it ceases timeless inn lies at the confluence of this to be a virtue. political and social landscape across ages, somewhere in Europe.

76 77 THE HOSTEL MARTIN CRIES 15’, 2017, Germany 16’, 2017, France DIRECTOR: ULU BRAUN DIRECTOR: JONATHAN VINEL

CAST: Asef Hussaini, Lisa Baumgarten, Evelyn Kobusingye, CAST: Paul Hamy, Clémence Diard, Sarah-Megan Alexander Tripitsis, Eckhart Liss, Klaus Kruger, Alexandra SCRIPTWRITER: Jonathan Vinel Faruga, Michel Amin Dickler, Rajab Haidari, Fabian Hoffmann, EDITING: Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel Daniel Hewekerl, Timm Busche SOUND: Lucas Doméjean SCRIPTWRITER: Ulu Braun PRODUCER: Emmanuel Chaumet, Mathilde Delaunay CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ulu Braun PRODUCTION COMPANY: AKA Productions IDENTITY AND BELONGING ANIMATION: Ulu Braun EDITING: Ulu Braun SOUND: Max Knoth PRODUCER: Ulu Braun WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

ULU BRAUN JONATHAN VINEL

FILM PRESENTATION: In his unique collage-style, ULU BRAUN creates CURATOR’S COMMENT: An unreal place, half dream, half reality, which FILM PRESENTATION: Using elements from the computer game DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: My interest in this movie was not to make a space betwixt and between reality and the digital world, where people shows itself to be a meeting point for people from all epochs, is taking Grand Theft Auto V, JONATHAN VINEL creates a story of tenderness a gangster movie. In some ways it’s the opposite of a gangster movie, of the past or present, either mythological or real characters, and shape in front of us in a long planned sequence. In a nearly surreal time wrapped in layers of violence and anger. One is prompted to imagine because it’s very romantic. I like this opposition. The film plays with the their artefacts are juxtaposed on dramatic naturescapes. The derelict journey, the pictures unveil themselves as if they were painted in strong, how it would feel to wake up one day and realize that all one’s friends audience’s understanding of the character—whose voice comes from an building of a timeless inn lies at the confluence of this political and social rich colours – disturbing, unsettling and fascinating. Where is the journey have disappeared. Both Martin and the places he searches in the quest IRL (in real life) person, but whose body is stuck in the digitally-rendered landscape across ages, somewhere in Europe. This video collage combines going? [...] a politically relevant work that is treading along new paths. of his lost friends are computer generated imagery, but the voice world of the video game. It’s like Martin wants to escape the game to pop culture and western movie myths with biblical narratives, biker culture accompanying it is warm, soft-spoken and profoundly human, creating find his friends, but he is locked in. [...] I think I’ve been playing the other and the waste products of civilisation with cultural set pieces to subtly a powerful contrast. Friendship is like a lighthouse in a sea of hostile iterations of the game since I was a kid. It’s a game that really influenced (Jury of the Hamburg International Short Film Festival) create an intriguing and mesmerising narrative critique of civilization that urbanity, hence the friends’ absence generates anger and violent the aesthetic of my other movies. [...] I think the world is so strange, that resonates for a long time. reactions. However, like a true computer-generated character, Martin I’d prefer to live in video games. [...] Some of the youth think they can’t eventually promises himself and us that he’ll go on searching all his life, change the world, but in video games you can. I think video games allow (Jury of the German Competition 2017 - International Short Film Festival and that he’ll never die. these people to just live how they want to, and be happy. Oberhausen) (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) (JONATHAN VINEL interviewed by Josie Thaddeus-Johns for Vice)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best German Film - Oberhausen Short Film Festival 2017 / Arte Shortfilm Award - Hamburg International Short FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Award for Best European Short Art Film - SARAJEVO THEME PROGRAMSARAJEVO Film Festival 2017 / Sarajevo Film Festival 2017 / Uppsala International International Short Film Festival Nijmegen Go Short, The Netherlands WORLD SALES: AKA PRODUCTIONS BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Emmanuel Chaumet, Mathilde Delaunay

\\ Shortfilm Festival 2017 2017 / Berlin International Film Festival 2017 / IndieLisboa Portugal 2017 \\ T: +33 1 42583714 / BFI London Film Festival 2017 / Leipzig - International Documentary and E: [email protected] Animated Film Festival Germany 2017 / Uppsala International Short Film Festival Sweden 2017 / Thessaloniki International Short Film Festival, WORLD SALES: ULU BRAUN T : +49 (0)176-22 25 30 40 Greece 2017 / Hamburg International Short Film Festival, Germany 2017 E: [email protected] W: www.ulubraun.com 78 79

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] ARTIFICIAL SUNSHINE POLONAISE 18’, 2016, UK 16’, 2016, Poland DIRECTOR: CONOR ROLLINS DIRECTOR: AGNIESZKA ELBANOWSKA

SCRIPTWRITER: Conor Rollins SCRIPTWRITER: Agnieszka Elbanowska CINEMATOGRAPHY: Louis Hollis CINEMATOGRAPHY: Paweł Chorzępa EDITING: Meenu Sureshlal & Conor Rollins EDITING: Agnieszka Elbanowska SOUND: Ella Rowberry PRODUCTION COMPANY: Studio Munka, IMPAKT FILM MUSIC: Isaac Magner PRODUCER: Conor Rollins IDENTITY AND BELONGING

CONOR ROLLINS AGNIESZKA ELBANOWSKA

FILM PRESENTATION: ARTIFICIAL SUNSHINE proposes a threefold DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Making films is a process of reconstruction, FILM PRESENTATION: In a lively pace borrowed from its musical CURATOR’S COMMENT: During the past few years, AGNIESZKA audio-visual account of Blackpool, a place of contrasts, the British just like our experience of memory. ARTIFICIAL SUNSHINE explores this namesake, POLONAISE takes the appearance of comedy to cast a harsh ELBANOWSKA has become one of the main Polish creators of comedic version of Las Vegas. There is the depiction in stunning imagery of a relationship by experimenting with the visual portrayal of that memory. look at people’s grasp of patriotism. A contest planned to take place on documentary in style of Marek Piwowski according to the critics’ opinion. town by the sea; then, its artificial counterpart with strident people and By fluctuating between the past and the present, I wanted to evoke both Independence Day in a Polish town is supposed to select the region’s In his cult film THE CRUISE (1970) Piwowski parodies life in the People’s sounds, slot machines and even an Elvis lookalike. And there comes a the visceral experience of memory while exploring its physical connection patriot number one. The film is constructed with expert precision and wry Republic of Poland, reducing a weekend river cruise to a hilarious third layer lying deep underneath, made of childhood recollections to the present. The film reflects a combination of my own childhood humour for good measure: the jurors are a small-scale representation of caricature of the entire communist system. Scaled down to a short continuously altered by new memories stored on top of the old ones. memories, relationships with people in Blackpool, social preconceptions, Polish society, and the show itself is a Poland Got Talent of sorts, with format, ELBANOWSKA does pretty much the same in her POLONAISE, CONOR ROLLINS cleverly intermingles archive footage shot on 8 mm and real-time experience of filmmaking. Its aim is to be non-linear, sensory contestants going out of their ways to praise the homeland. Eventually, taking real people out of an observational documentary environment and and 16 mm, VHS home videos and beautiful digital images to create and experimental. the most patriotic of all takes home a tv set of Japanese making and pastiching them into satirical comedy characters. To her credit, she treats the cinematic portrait of an urban space which, like the double-faced the viewer is left with a bitter laugh at the ridicule of patriotism pushed them without mischief, even when they land in ridiculous, even grotesque (CONOR ROLLINS) Janus, turns to the viewer its natural and its artificial side in alternate beyond its sense of identity and belonging, where it ceases to be a virtue. situations. It is not mockery she seeks, but understanding and in her light- succession. hearted manner she sends a message of caution. (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018) (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Honorable Mention - It’s All True - International WORLD SALES: KRAKOW FILM FOUNDATION FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Sarajevo Film festival 2017 / Sheffield Documentary Film Festival Brazil, 2017 / Special Mention - Lviv Katarzyna Wilk SARAJEVO THEME PROGRAMSARAJEVO International Documentary Festival UK 2017 / Lisbon Film Festival 2017 / International Short Film Festival, Ukraine 2017 / Vilnius International T: +48 12 294 69 45 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL E: [email protected]

\\ BFI London Film Festival 2016 Short Film Festival, Lithuania 2018 / Sarajevo Film Festival 2017 / W: http://www.kff.com.pl \\ Tampere Film Festival, Finland 2017 / Doc Aviv, Israel, 2017 / Valladolid International Film Festival, Spain 2017 / Encounters International WORLD SALES: CKROLLINS Documentary Film Festival, South Africa 2017 / True/False Film Festival, Conor Rollins USA 2017 / Palm Springs International ShortFest, USA 2017 / DOKer T: +44 (0)75 90 33 66 46 Russia 2017 / Dokufest Kosovo 2017 / Ljubljana Short Film Festival, E: [email protected] W: http://www.ckrollins.com Slovenia 2017 / CinEast Central and Eastern European Fim Festival, 80 Luxembourg 2017 / International Film Festival Camerimage, Poland 2016 81

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] TITAN 25’, 2017, Germany DIRECTOR: JOHANNES FRESE

SCRIPTWRITER: Johannes Frese CINEMATOGRAPHY: Johannes Frese EDITING: David Gómez Alzate SOUND: Branimir Petev PRODUCER: Johannes Frese PRODUCTION COMPANY: Johannes Frese IDENTITY AND BELONGING

JOHANNES FRESE

FILM PRESENTATION: Le Port. Island of La Reunion. On the outskirts DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: [A reversal of roles takes place] between father of the neighborhood of Titan a teenager asks FRESE to give him a and son, which is symptomatic for a society faced with a youth indifferent euro and then, out of the blue, attacks him with a bottle. In TITAN the towards the authority of parents and state institutions and regarding filmmaker switches from his own personal unfortunate encounter to the imprisonment as the ultimate mark of strength. As an outsider I was attacker’s background-story. He seeks out the boy’s father, is interested confronted with distrustful adolescents and a father seeing an opportunity in the family, visits them and gets to talk to them. A film whose gripping to make public his sons´ development. On the basis of a ceaselessly recited collage, made of revealing interviews and quiet insights, is offering us story I intended to make visible a dynamic of unpunished violence and blank spaces so that we are relentlessly urged to reflect and complete arbitrary law. A different notion of visibility plays an important role in its content. A film telling a story about far-reaching injustice and its toxic the film – Ulrich refuses to appear in front of the camera. He is brought to ability to reproduce. mind by his father’s narration. In this context the choice of black-and-white photography provides a concentrated view of a disreputable neighborhood (Kasseler DokFest) that is only ever becoming visible in the superficial style of breaking news.

(JOHANNES FRESE) FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Special Mention - Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival 2017 / Sarajevo Film Festival 2017 / Oberhausen Film Festival 2017 SARAJEVO THEME PROGRAMSARAJEVO BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\ \\

WORLD SALES: JOHANNES FRESE E: [email protected]

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] A DUTCH PERSPECTIVE: ROTTERDAM THEME PRESENTATION PROGRAM

Curated by PETER VAN HOOF and THEUS ZWAKHALS Presentation by IOANA FLORESCU

Taking further the inspiring collaboration with the innovative International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), BIEFF offers the Romanian cinephile audience the rare opportunity to see some of the most interesting shorts which had their world premiere at the IFFR 2017.

abstracted by colour filters; a female voice speaks in Na’vi (the language invented for Spanning from reflections on fictionality representation, THE LOST OBJECT by means of a mechanical interruption, The theme of image potency is the film Avatar), and the subtitles muse on the relation between images, words and and reality as a construct to the creative focuses on the objects located in a film but through the protagonist’s impressive approached from a completely different phantasy. Same as its main character who can no longer distinguish reality from yearning, cinematic use of sound and silence and studio set and the film crew who film mastering of her facial expression and angle in #67. Black and white renditions of THE SAILOR creates an intermedial realm, unwilling to obliterate the abundance of of words and music, the relationship them. The intentionally odd soundtrack vocal cords. KATARINA ZDJELAR’s five electromagnetic waves look like the ocean aesthetic and narrative possibilities by putting an end to the story. between art, science and human nature, as well as the use of extremely slow minute long video work ultimately goes to as seen through a kaleidoscope and then and censorship and the freedom of camera movements, make the set itself show that perfectly controlled acting and proceed to take on the shape of a spinning Some stories, though, should not be ended and forgotten. The remains of a huge hedge speech, all the films in this program are and reality of the shooting process shifts in soundtrack can enable multiple wheel as we start hearing what seems of wild almond trees now growing in the Cape Town Botanical Garden serve in JUDITH signed by artists of diverse (non-Dutch) appear equally strange, distant and temporalities to coexist and collide in a to be the sound of motorcycle passing WESTERVELD’s film as key element in understanding the history of Dutch colonialism in nationalities who have all found in the artificial. Hence, SEBASTIÁN DIAZ single shot. us by. There are endless possibilities for South Africa. By mingling a botanical account on almond trees with the opinions of a tour Netherlands a creative hotspot and a MORALES’ work reflects both on its what one may believe to discern on the guide on colonialism, THE REMNANT builds a powerful metaphor of colonialism and its fertile terrain for their artistic enterprise. own fictionality and on that of the world The voice, this time with its meaning of screen while watching JOOST REKVELD’s aftermaths. The almond branches are so tightly interwoven that they are forced to co- These directors enrich the Dutch artistic beyond it. The viewer is left with the an attitude expressed, is the subject of abstract images. The work’s exploration of exist, same as the sufferings caused by the colonial past are bound to be remembered, milieu, bringing fresh and unique visual challenge to make sense of the glass AYHAN AND ME’s rich meditation on the fascinating patterns science delivers since they are so deeply entwined in the South African present. approaches and, at times, tackling in cubes recurring in the film. censorship, an alarming issue in present in its investigation of the human body their work issues concerning their often day Turkey. belit sağ embeds the story of develops itself the capacity to stimulate Past and present meet in the flamboyant EXPLOSION MA BABY which presents us with less permissive homelands. And while Moving from the visual representation the censorship applied to this very project visual pleasure.

ROTTERDAM THEME PROGRAM glimpses of an extravagant annual catholic procession in honor of Saint Sebastian. BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL not all the films in the program make a to the auditory realm, AAA (MEIN into a far-reaching enquiry on the ethics Using a Super 8 camera and virtuously playing with rhythm and pace, PAULINE CURNIER

\\ straightforward approach to the freedom HERZ) oscillates between sound, of representation. Alternating between Equally fascinating, THE SAILOR reflects \\ JARDIN succeeds in conveying the odd sides of the event. Just like the ritual is an act of artistic expression encountered by silence, words and music, showing a documenting the repeated rejection of on the creation of its own story and in which ancient beliefs meet the exuberant present, the film itself becomes the place their makers in the Netherlands, all of woman simultaneously performing four the project and the compelling opinions the need to use an invented language where the distant and the more recent past collide and merge into a singular unfolding them validate it by their mere existence. compositions in a single shot. The video of famous thinkers about the freedom of to express it. In GIOVANNI GIARETTA’s of screaming colors and sights. thus confronts us with a sort of reverse TV expression AYHAN AND ME progressively film, image, voice-over and subtitles Guided by Jean Baudrillard’s notion channel surfing, the abrupt shifts between develops into a rich essay on the power of deliberately fail to synchronize. The links that reality is a construct and the the individual compositions and sound images and, implicitly, on the power and between them are kept wonderfully 84 world has disappeared behind its own registers being achieved not necessarily responsibilities of those who control them. ambiguous. Landscape stills are slightly 85 THE LOST OBJECT AAA (MEIN HERZ) 14’, 2016, The Netherlands 5’, 2017, The Netherlands DIRECTOR: SEBASTIÁN DIAZ MORALES DIRECTOR: KATARINA ZDJELAR

SCRIPTWRITER: Sebastián Diaz Morales CAST: Barbara Kinga Majewska CINEMATOGRAPHER: Niels Boon SCRIPTWRITER: Katarina Zdjelar EDITOR: Sebastián Diaz Morales CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mikolaj Syguda, Laurent Fluttert, SOUND: Dyno Hedges Katarina Zdjelar

A DUTCH PERSPECTIVE MUSIC: Claudio F. Baroni EDITOR: Katarina Zdjelar PRODUCER: Sebastián Diaz Morales SOUND: Robert Migas, Ting Fung Cheung, Katarina Zdjelar PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mondrian Fonds, Sonsbeek ’16, MUSIC: Claudio F. Baroni Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen PRODUCER: Katarina Zdjelar PRODUCTION COMPANY: Le Confort Moderne Poitiers, WITH THE SUPPORT OF: Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

SEBASTIÁN DIAZ MORALES KATARINA ZDJELAR

FILM PRESENTATION: Guided by Jean Baudrillard’s notion that DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Today reality is manipulation. In a certain FILM PRESENTATION: Oscillating between sound, silence, words and CURATOR’S COMMENT: KATARINA ZDJELAR distills contemporary reality is a construct and the world has disappeared behind its own way, it already is imaginary. Reality has been created the way we want it music, AAA (MEIN HERZ) shows a woman (with piercing blue eyes) themes to their essence, setting them to focused, compelling, and insistent representation, THE LOST OBJECT focuses on the objects located in to be. In truth, we’re directing it ourselves. We assign meaning and order simultaneously performing four compositions in a single shot. The imagery. She returns the societal to the individual, which in turn is a a film studio set and the crew who film them. The absence of diegetic to things, and that’s how we comprehend them. In most cases, however, video thus confronts us with a sort of reverse TV channel surfing, the reflection of society. sound, the intentionally odd soundtrack as well as the use of extremely people assign just one meaning to things, and they’re not open to different abrupt shifts between the individual compositions and sound registers slow camera movements (slowed down even more in editing), make the interpretations. When I turn to reality, I change it, I manipulate with it, I try being achieved not necessarily by means of a mechanical interruption, (Dolf Henkes Award, Jury’s motivation) set itself and the reality of the shooting process (fictionalized by being to discover new conceptual meanings. but through the protagonist’s impressive mastering of her facial present in the film) appear equally strange, distant and artificial. Hence, expression and vocal cords. AAA (MEIN HERZ) manages to create a SEBASTIÁN DIAZ MORALES’ work reflects both on its own fictionality (SEBASTIÁN DIAZ MORALES) polyphonic composition, allowing each of the individual compositions WORLD SALES: EYE Experimental and on that of the world beyond it. The viewer is left with the challenge it encompasses to preserve its inherent rhythm. KATARINA ZDJELAR’s T: +3120 58 91 446 E: [email protected] to make sense of the glass cubes recurring in the film. five minute long video work ultimately goes to show that perfectly W: www.international.eyefilm.nl controlled acting and shifts in soundtrack can enable multiple (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2018) temporalities to coexist and collide in a single shot.

(Ioana Florescu BIEFF 2018)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017 / International Documentary ROTTERDAM THEME PROGRAM Festival Amsterdam 2017 / Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin 2017 FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2017 / Kassel Documentary \\ Film and Video Festival 2017 / Into the Great Wide Open Festival Vlieland, Netherlands 2017 WORLD SALES: LIMA Theus Zwakhals T: +31(0)20 389 20 30 E: [email protected] W: www.li-ma.nl

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] AYHAN AND ME #67 14’, 2016, The Netherlands 17’, 2017, The Netherlands DIRECTOR: belit sağ DIRECTOR: JOOST REKVELD

SOUND DESIGN: Sergio González Cuervo SCRIPTWRITER: Joost Rekveld PRODUCER: Akbank Sana CINEMATOGRAPHY: Joost Rekveld EDITING: Joost Rekveld SOUND: Joost Rekveld

A DUTCH PERSPECTIVE PRODUCER: Joost Rekveld PRODUCTION COMPANY: Mondrian Fonds, Creative Industries Fund Netherlands

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

belit sağ JOOST REKVELD

FILM PRESENTATION: Chubby children, the so-called Putti, are DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Art helps me reflect on images, while my FILM PRESENTATION: Black and white renditions of electromagnetic DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I’m really inspired by a lot of scientific theories gathered around the representation of a slit tongue, hitting it with background in video-activism and political engagement pushes me to waves look like the ocean as seen through a kaleidoscope and then and I also like to go into the history of science and find aspects which have wooden hammers. This half-millenium old engraving symbolizes the define my practice and position myself. Since 2014 my work is very much proceed to take on the shape of a spinning wheel as we start hearing not been explored further, which still have the potential for generating punishment of freedom of speech and opens the way for AYHAN AND reflecting on several issues including the role of the camera, the role of what seems to be the sound of motorcycle passing us by. There are images or just strange and interesting ideas. If you look at the images ME’s rich meditation on censorship, an alarming issue in present day images and how they are used, the nature of activist images, and whether endless possibilities for what one may believe to discern on the screen mathematical models can produce, then you recognize lots of things. Turkey. belit sağ embeds the story of the censorship applied to this it is possible to be open, honest and transparent with images while being while watching the abstract images of JOOST REKVELD’s #67. The artist For me that’s really the appeal of these kinds of theories. Once you start very project into a far-reaching enquiry on the ethics of representation. aware of their manipulative nature – the manipulative nature of editing, reprises the theme of the intricate relationship between art, science and visualizing these things you actually see how they resonate with things Alternating between documenting the repeated rejection of the project framing etc. My practice is increasingly a practice that reveals its own human nature in this analog HD video work centered on the concept of much closer to us, for example with what we know from our own bodies. and the compelling opinions of famous thinkers about the freedom of processes and especially its relationship to its subjects, and attempts to ‘reafference’, a term that refers to the perceptual changes and sensory I find it interesting to show those kind of analogies and also make it possible expression AYHAN AND ME progressively develops into a rich essay on make sense of conflicts through their images. I realized that I can’t make stimulation caused by movements of the body. The work’s exploration to connect to these ideas in a way which is completely non-verbal, where the power of images and, implicitly, on the power and responsibilities of images without talking about these relationships that form around the of the fascinating patterns science delivers in its investigation of the also you don’t need a Masters in Philosophy to understand it. those who control them. camera, I can’t take these relationships for granted. human body develops itself the capacity to stimulate visual pleasure. (JOOST REKVELD, Interview for Four Three Film) (Ioana Florescu BIEFF 2018) (belit sağ, biennalefotografie.de) (Ioana Florescu BIEFF 2018)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Toronto International Film Festival 2016 / FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / Los ROTTERDAM THEME PROGRAM International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / International Documentary Angeles Film Forum 2017 / 25 FPS - International Experimental Film and BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ Film Amsterdam 2017 / Courtisane Festival Belgium 2017 Video Festival Zagreb, Croatia 2017 / Alchemy Film and Moving Image \\ Festival Scotland, UK 2017

WORLD SALES: LIMA Theus Zwakhals WORLD SALES: LIMA T: +31(0)20 389 20 30 Theus Zwakhals E: [email protected] T: +31(0)20 389 20 30 W: www.li-ma.nl E: [email protected] 88 W: www.li-ma.nl 89

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] THE SAILOR THE REMNANT 9’, 2016, The Netherlands 20’, 2016, South Africa, The Netherlands DIRECTOR: GIOVANNI GIARETTA DIRECTOR: JUDITH WESTERVELD

SCRIPTWRITER: Giovanni Giaretta CAST: Andrew Jacobs, Adam Harrower, Bongani Vellem CINEMATOGRAPHER: Giovanni Giaretta SCRIPTWRITER: Judith Westerveld EDITOR: Giovanni Giaretta CINEMATOGRAPHER: Judith Westerveld SOUND DESIGN: Emanuele Cicconi EDITOR: Judith Westerveld, Ivo van Stiphout

A DUTCH PERSPECTIVE MUSIC: Claudio F. Baroni SOUND DESIGN: Tessa Joosse PRODUCER: Giovanni Giaretta PRODUCER: Judith Westerveld, Tijs de Bie PRODUCTION COMPANY: Studio Giovanni Giaretta, PRODUCTION COMPANY: Framer Framed Amsterdam Art Funds

WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

GIOVANNI GIARETTA JUDITH WESTERVELD

FILM PRESENTATION: A sailor dreams of a homeland he’s never DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I feel that this in-depth research is in fact all FILM PRESENTATION: The remains of a huge hedge of wild almond DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The interchange between the different voices, had and keeps shaping it day after day in his imagination. Inspired by about my constant obsessions, which by its means I then cut, interlink and trees now growing in the Cape Town Botanical Garden serve in JUDITH as well as the aesthetic visualization of the hedge, allows for its botanical Fernado Pessoa’s drama The Mariner, THE SAILOR reflects on the finally assemble. The work-part starts when I try to get out of the phase WESTERVELD’s film as key element in understanding the history of form to function as a double metaphor in the video. Its growth emphasizing creation of its own story and the need to use an invented language of strong infatuation towards the subject, It’s a kind of healing process, a Dutch colonialism in South Africa. The trees were planted in 1659 the rise of segregation and its deterioration the suffering that this caused. to express it. In GIOVANNI GIARETTA’s film, image, voice-over and transformation of my obsession into work. by Dutch Commander Jan van Riebeeck with the aim of keeping out Hereby the video aims to unveil the underlying trauma that remains subtitles deliberately fail to syncronize. The links between them are indigenous peoples who were raiding the colonists’ settlements. By compartmentalized in the personal memories and societal landscape of kept wonderfully ambiguous. Landscape stills are slightly abstracted by (GIOVANNI GIARETTA) mingling a botanical account on almond trees with the opinions of a South Africa and the innate difficulty for the remnants of past systematic colour filters; a female voice speaks in Na’vi (the language invented for tour guide on colonialism, and with fragments from Riebeeck’s diary, oppression and exclusion to be dissolved. the film Avatar), and the subtitles muse on the relation between images, THE REMNANT builds a powerful metaphor of colonialism and its (JUDITH WESTERVELD) words and phantasy. Same as its main character who can no longer aftermaths. The almond branches are so tightly interwoven that they distinguish reality from yearning, THE SAILOR creates an intermedial are forced to co-exist, same as the sufferings caused by the colonial past realm, unwilling to obliterate the abundance of aesthetic and narrative are bound to be remembered, since they are so deeply entwined in the possibilities by putting an end to the story. South African present.

(Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2018) (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2018)

ROTTERDAM THEME PROGRAM FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / Jihlava FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ International Documentary Film Festival 2017 / Edinburgh International film Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival 2017 \\ Festival 2017

WORLD SALES: LIMA WORLD SALES: LIMA Theus Zwakhals Theus Zwakhals T: +31(0)20 389 20 30 T: +31(0)20 389 20 30 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] W: www.li-ma.nl 90 W: www.li-ma.nl 91

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] EXPLOSION MA BABY 8’, 2016, The Netherlands, France, Italy DIRECTOR: PAULINE CURNIER JARDIN

SCRIPTWRITER: Pauline Curnier Jardin GOLDEN SHORTS: CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Pauline Curnier Jardin, Julien Hogert EDITOR: Margaux Parillaud SOUND DESIGN: Vincent Denieul

A DUTCH PERSPECTIVE MUSIC: Vincent Denieul BEST FILMS IN MAJOR PRODUCER: Pauline Curnier Jardin, Christine Moldrickx PRODUCTION COMPANY: Le Confort Moderne Poitiers, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam FESTIVALS WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

PAULINE CURNIER JARDIN

FILM PRESENTATION: EXPLOSION MA BABY is a flamboyant DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: It’s August. Feel the suffocating heat of the experimental documentary which presents us with glimpses of an sun penetrating your skin. All around you, an abundance of flesh is spinning. extravagant annual Catholic procession in honor of Saint Sebastian. Thousands of men offer up the naked bodies of baby boys to the angelic SPECIAL PROGRAM Using a Super 8 camera and virtuously playing with rhythm and pace, icon of San Sebastian. Screams, colours, chants and explosions. Money- PAULINE CURNIER JARDIN succeeds in conveying the odd sides of the garlands. Imagine no women except for me. Wait, yes, behind us women event. Babies wearing garlands made of banknotes are held up by the are following with devotion, all dressed up in well pressed clothes and their muscular arms of their fathers, massive amounts of yellow and red stocking feet. Now, come back here. Imagine how badly I fell in love with confetti erupt from the cathedral’s windows and an ecstatic crowd this. I desperately want to be part of it. To be there. I wanted to belong. But is screaming and singing. Just like the ritual is an act in which ancient I know I can’t. And so, I try to capture it on film. I go there and film it every beliefs meet the exuberant present, the film itself becomes the place year, over and over, again and again. One day I will tell the story of a poor where the distant and more recent past collide and merge into a singular and sterile man who wants to replace San Sebastian. But more summers unfolding of screaming colors and sights. will have to pass before our hero appears.

(Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2018) (PAULINE CURNIER JARDIN)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Age d’Or Prize - EXPRMNTL L’Âge d’Or Festival WORLD SALES: EYE Experimental ROTTERDAM THEME PROGRAM Brussels 2017 / International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017 / 25 FPS T: +3120 58 91 446 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL E: [email protected]

\\ Festival Zagreb 2017 / Guanajuato International Film Festival Mexico \\ W: www.international.eyefilm.nl 2017 / Lima Independiente Film Festival Peru 2017 / Festival Internacional de Cine independiente de La Plata Buenos Aires, Argentina 2017 / Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, Germany 2017 / IDFA- International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2017 / VideoEx Zürich, Switzerland 2017 / L’Alternativa, Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona 2017 92 93

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] YOU WILL BE FINE THE MEN BEHIND THE WALL 15’, 2017, France 28’, 2018, Israel DIRECTOR: CÉLINE DEVAUX DIRECTOR: INES MOLDAVSKY

CAST: Swann Arlaud, Victoire Du Bois CAST: Ines Moldavsky, Izzeldin Naqshband, Mazin SCRIPTWRITER: Céline Devaux Misleh, AbadyPhy T. Hijaji, Ahmad Asmar GOLDEN SHORTSGOLDEN CINEMATOGRAPHY: Paul Guilhaume SCRIPTWRITER: Ines Moldavsky ART DIRECTION: Céline Devaux CINEMATOGRAPHY: Silke Schönfeld ANIMATION: Céline Devaux EDITING: Keren Or Bitton EDITING: Raphaëlle Martin-Holger SOUND: Lionel Guenoun SOUND: Lionel Guenoun PRODUCER: Ines Moldavsky MUSIC: Flavien Berger PRODUCTION COMPANY: Bezalel Academy of Arts PRODUCER: Ron Dyens and Design PRODUCTION COMPANY: Sacrebleu Productions

CÉLINE DEVAUX INES MOLDAVSKY

FILM PRESENTATION: Give it time. You’ll get over it. Jean celebrates CURATOR’S COMMENT: YOU WILL BE FINE is the story after a love story, FILM PRESENTATION: THE MEN BEHIND THE WALL offers a unique CURATOR’S COMMENT: Tinder. Woman seeks men. Man seeks women. his birthday, gets drunk and recalls the dreadful weekend that led to an epilogue of passion. CÉLINE DEVAUX says that animation allows her to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the swipes of a dating Everything could be so simple if she weren’t in Israel and the guys his break-up with Mathilde. “Do you want me to leave you? I will” Jean disconnect art from synthese within the image, so as to free oneself from app, as an Israeli woman is being suggested meetings with (Palestinian) nearby that the app suggests in search mode weren’t in the West Bank. becomes victim of a freefall that he himself has decided to undergo. words, from excessive decors. The director has preserved such a way of men who live on the other side of the barrier. Where do boundaries Israeli filmmaker INES MOLDAVSKY makes herself the subject of her Jumping from the lovers’ quarrel (live-action) to visual images of thinking in this film of a heavy dramatic violence, the poetry of the editing begin and where do they end? INES MOLDAVSKY personally sets out to investigation. In her work THE MEN BEHIND THE WALL she crosses these deconstructed human figures, silhouettes without heads, people in the cuts, the sound mash-up of irritating and inherent advice of close friends discover the answer to the question, and then to overstep these limits. and other boundaries in order to enter into conversation nonetheless. Some form of glasses, abstract shapes (animation) – YOU WILL BE FINE shows in varying degrees of rupture and the expressivity of animated scenes only An experimental approach to both current social issues and intimate of the men show themselves, others read poems aloud – time and again the symbolic confusion and mind-wandering of a separation, depicting heighten this permanent human tragedy with hints of elegiac beauty. [...] human interactions, the film emphasises the absurdity of power and the talk comes back to their needs, their lust, the possibility of sharing what a break up might actually feel like, with hints of existentialism and The collaboration of all the dimensions of the film comes together by this segregation, and, further, that of stereotypes and gender roles in the that lust. The filmmaker’s aesthetic strategy is that of a double exposure a pinch of French humour. intertwining of his confused ramblings. From precise memories of the last digital age. in her search – she experiences the personally unfamiliar physical space in weekend still in love (in live-action) to impressions of the world following Palestine as well. The conversations oscillate between virtual phone calls (Teodora Leu, BIEFF 2018) (Teodora Leu, BIEFF 2018) it (in animated form), with symptomatic phrases of close friends heard on and concrete encounters. The artist stands provocatively at an intersection the soundtrack, the mix between these three forms of expression and their in downtown Ramallah, dressed in a red spaghetti strap dress, outstretched entanglement which does not follow any timeline or dramatic progression arms balancing a microphone boom in the air. Violence resonates – in the FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film – Venice Film witness an individual crisis of an Alpha without his Omega. FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Golden Bear for Best Short Film - Berlin search for a violation of boundaries. Festival 2017/ Young Jury Award for Best Short Film - Gijón International International Film Festival 2018 Film Festival 2017/ Special Mention from the Jury, Tenerife Shorts 2017/ (Gary Delépine, www.formatcourt.com) (Maike Mia Höhne) BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS London Short Film Festival 2017/ European Film Awards 2017/ Hong BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ Kong International Film Festival 2018 WORLD SALES: INES MOLDAVSKY \\ E: [email protected]

WORLD SALES: SACREBLEU PRODUCTIONS T: +33 (0)1 42 25 30 27 E: [email protected] W: http://www.sacrebleuprod.com/ 94 95

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] LES INTRANQUILLES GENESIS 13’, 2017, Switzerland 17’, 2016, Switzerland DIRECTOR: MAGDALENA FROGER DIRECTOR: LUCIEN MONOT

CAST: Arthur Jaquier, Simmon Asgedom, Ernest Gachet, CAST: Daniel Richard Arthur Diop-Dubois SCRIPTWRITER: Lucien Monot GOLDEN SHORTSGOLDEN SCRIPTWRITER: Magdalena Froger CINEMATOGRAPHY: Lucien Monot, Davide Prudente CINEMATOGRAPHY: Catherine Georges EDITING: Lucien Monot EDITING: Rémi Langlade SOUND: Lucien Monot, Adrien Kessler SOUND: Antoine Bertucci, Florent Tupin PRODUCER: Jean Perret MUSIC: B777 PRODUCTION COMPANY: Geneva University of Art PRODUCER: Lionel Baier and Design PRODUCTION COMPANY: ECAL / Ecole Cantonale d’art de Lausanne WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

MAGDALENA FROGER LUCIEN MONOT

FILM PRESENTATION: In FROGER’s introductory shot, an ominous fog CURATOR’S COMMENT: It makes sense that FROGER has the backing FILM PRESENTATION: In order to run away from a monotonous CURATOR’S COMMENT: An Extra becomes Extraordinary. LUCIEN is slowly rising above a forest. The mood is set for our meeting with of established auteurs such as Bertrand Bonello, because if this is any everyday life, 63 years old Daniel found an activity which gives him a way MONOT’s film succeeds to bring the spectator in only a few minutes into the LES INTRANQUILLES, ‘the restless’, three young men wearing military indication she’s destined to be a powerful and prominent future voice. to exist : working as an extra in movies. For ten years, he has travelled intimacy of the life of this simple man, who becomes touching, whimsical uniforms who roam around in a ghost town. They wander through a There’s a certain aimlessness and distance to the subject that is reminiscent from one set to the next and put on costumes of various characters. It is and familiar to our eyes. The texture of the film is beautifully rendered variety of landscapes: a deserted city, some rocky terrain, a forest, with of Herzog’s SIGNS OF LIFE and Dumont’s FLANDERS, yet with deeply poetic the fictional side of cinema that makes this man dream and leave behind like a portrait painting, a tableau vivant, with colors and the emotion and a vague aim to make it to the sea, perhaps for the last time. In this rather undertones - whereas the other two are quite brutal and manic. While the humdrum of an ordinary life. LUCIEN MONOT’s GENESIS (the title emulsion of the 16mm film. The rhythm is musical and resembles a partition unconventional tale of camaraderie, with little dialogue other than narratively understated, FROGER is able to pack quite the emotional punch of the film is Daniel’s stage name) is a skilful cinematic account not of of the conductor. A gentle deep portrait of an Extra Celluloid being!’ short personal confessions, the young men seem to be drawn together at the end by quietly subverting her opening images into something far the man himself, but of the meeting between a young filmmaker and by quiet despair and a state of intranquility that pushes them towards a more sinister. As the natural elegy that introduced us to her world is twisted someone elderly, with a mutual passion for cinema. (Marie Losier, Cut-Up) metaphysical search. into man-made destruction. (HEAD Genève) (Teodora Leu, BIEFF 2018) (Nello De Angelis)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Pardino d’argento and Special Mention – Locarno FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Swiss Newcomer - Locarno Film Festival Film Festival 2016 / Best Film - Nahal Student Film Festival 2016 / Athens 2017 / Solothurn Film Festival 2017/ Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival 2017 / Solothurn Film Festival 2017/ Fribourg International Film Festival 2018/ Chicago International Film Festival 2017/ Namur Film Festival 2017 / Open City Documentary Film Festival London 2017 BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS Film Festival 2017 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

WORLD SALES:GENEVA UNIVERSITY OF ART AND DESIGN WORLD SALES: ECAL/ECOLE CANTONALE D’ART DE LAUSANNE T: +41/22/388 58 00 Jean Guillaume Sonnier E: [email protected] E: [email protected] W: head.hesge.ch/cinema W: http://www.ecal.ch/

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] temporar (din catalog 2016) BURKINA BRANDEMBURG KOMPLEX 19’, 2018, Germany DIRECTOR: ULU BRAUN ROMANIAN CINEMATIC

GOLDEN SHORTSGOLDEN CAST: Joachim Stargard, Evyonne Muhuri, Katja Franziska Müller, Valentin Lorenz, Hans Drews, Edeltraut Drews, Dietlind Sommer SCRIPTWRITER: Ulu Braun EXPERIMENTS CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ulu Braun EDITING: Ulu Braun SOUND: Valentin Lorenz MUSIC: Max Knoth PRODUCER: Ulu Braun

ULU BRAUN

FILM PRESENTATION: ULU BRAUN sets out once more to deconstruct DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The film is a geographic construct in accordance cultures, civilizations and spaces, picks up their most meaningful with „our“ collective perception of Africa and its image as presented by the synecdochal parts and puts them together using surprising associations media. The setting is an African village apparently inhabited by Germans to make up a powerful fable about the ridicule of preconception and a seemingly African mine, in which a Ferrari® is discovered during an and stereotype. In BURKINA BRANDEMBURG KOMPLEX, everything excavation, like an archeological artefact. Additionally, Western consumer appears out of place: stereotype elderly Germans inhabit a stereotype goods like Red Bull®, archaic agricultural products like coffee, and wildlife African village; excavations in an African mine produce a red Ferrari; the with possible connotations with Africa and Germany as well as black/white ‘’Museum of Prussian Cultural Heritage’’ displays artifacts the likes of are interwoven with the narrative, increasingly blurring dividing lines and vacuum cleaners, food mixers and FedEx envelopes; the African curator stereotypes. The protagonist, Joachim, is set on achieving his vision of “The talks passionately about the ‘’softness to the touch of German plastic.’’ Collective Energy Project”. A ‘’Museum for Prussian Culture’’ treasures The cinematic juggle climaxes with the Ferrari in a frantical drive across artefacts of Western consumer culture, and its curator, a black woman, the African landscape getting smashed to pieces that drift in the air, seems to be the only person to keep the Prussian epoch alive. As the energy possibly awaiting to be cast in ULU BRAUN’s next fable. production reaches its climax, Joachim gloriously catapults himself at full speed out of the story/history. (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2018)

(ULU BRAUN) BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ 2018 - Berlin International Film Festival 2018 \\

WORLD SALES: STUDIO ULU BRAUN E: [email protected] W: http://www.ulubraun.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] STATES UPROOTED ADORE III WHERE TOUCH BEGINS, WE ARE 15’, 2017, Romania / USA 4’, 2017, Romania 4 ‘, 2016, China / Vietnam / Romania / SUA 4’, 2017, Romania DIRECTOR: IOANA ȚURCAN DIRECTOR: CRISTIAN FIERBINȚEANU DIRECTOR: YUEYING FENG, KIEU ANH TRUONG, DIRECTOR: NONA INESCU IOANA ȚURCAN

IOANA ȚURCAN CRISTIAN FIERBINȚEANU IOANA ȚURCAN NONA INESCU

FILM PRESENTATION: Shot in the period 2012-2017 during travels FILM PRESENTATION: ADORE proposes a multiple paradox: a FILM PRESENTATION: WHERE TOUCH BEGINS, WE ARE is a visual

to and fro between Romania and the USA, using personal archive and geographical / religious / ideological, utopian and dystopian one, YUEYING FENG KIEU ANH TRUONG representation of the tactile sense. A series of slow-motion sequences combining 8mm film with digital files, STATES UPROOTED attempts progresist and at the same time dysfunctional. This paradox claims to emphasizes the connection between action and reaction. The video to challenge the idea of rituals in transition, identity, longing and its adore all ramifications of civilization, from minorities to crime. work assembles a collection of gestures on touch sensitive surfaces, perception in different countries. FILM PRESENTATION: The film III tackles the issues of rape culture and ranging from natural elements, such as the Mimosa pudica plant to (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) sexual assault through three different cases in three different countries: touch-screens or memory foam. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) China, Vienam and Romania; it also considers the way these cases where (NONA INESCU) similarly “dismissed” by the authorities. (IOANA ȚURCAN) CURATOR’S COMMENT: The transition rituals captured in the video essay CURATOR’S COMMENT: The film’s eye-candy aesthetic is glossy and surreal, STATES UPROOTED are both traditional and political, exploring the process combining religious elements with glitchy, SF-like images and providing a CURATOR’S COMMENT: The shocking three cases presented by the feminist CURATOR’S COMMENT: NONA INESCU’s work concentrates on the

ROMANIAN EXPERIMENTS CINEMATIC in which the personal becomes generic in cinema. IOANA ȚURCAN’s approach modern, musical preach as its sound background. Both the idea of the short film BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL visual-manifesto directed by Yueying Feng, Kieu Anh Truong and Ioana Țurcan interpretation of the post-humanist relations of the human body to the of what transition means begins with an occult tradition practiced by her and the artistic approach of the director provide a post-modernist attitude which

\\ are depicted by the representation of three bodies, all of them women, standing surrounding space and to technology. In her video production WHERE TOUCH \\ grandmother and continues until it touches the most generic and fragile makes the experimental audio-visual project lively and cinematographically between a projector and a wall. On them there are projected fragments of short BEGINS, WE ARE, of all the senses, touch is the most directly charged with transitions of the present: the condition of women, of immigration, the and ideologically challenging. films directed by Maya Deren and Carolee Schneemann, iconic female voices in intimacy. In this way, touch can transfigure and blur the edges of both the socio-political -isms, feminity in sports, protesting against political power the history of cinema. Their nudity becomes a visual wake-up call which rejects individual as well as the objects in an interaction. By building a language based etc. All these elements are brought together by a chaotic but well-mastered (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) the male gaze and embraces victimization which state strongly that rape on sensuality, the human body can expand infinitely through touch. directing method which combines analogue with digital shots, performance culture is one of the most actual and worrying issues of modern society. with ciné-vérité and black&white with color. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) (Diana Marincu, Art Encounters 2017) 100 (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) 101

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] [email protected] | [email protected] E: [email protected] INSIDE A DARING ATTEMPT OF STARS IN AN OCEAN OF DARKNESS CONSUMERS VALEA JIULUI NOTES 4’, 2017, UK / Romania 4’, 2017, Romania 14’, 2017, Romania APPROACHING A PHILOSOPHICAL DIRECTOR: RED-COR (CORINA ANDRIAN) DIRECTOR: GABRIELA FIERBINȚEANU DIRECTOR: ALEXANDRA GULEA THEOREM 3’, 2017, Romania DIRECTOR: NIKITA DEMBINSKI RED-COR (CORINA ANDRIAN) GABRIELA FIERBINȚEANU ALEXANDRA GULEA

NIKITA DEMBINSKI

FILM PRESENTATION: In the music video directed by Red-Cor, the artist FILM PRESENTATION: CONSUMERS is a glossy, eye-candy musical FILM PRESENTATION: ALEXANDRA GULEA’s video essay depicts follows a few characters that resemble Magritte’s Lovers - generic but journey through ideologies, politics, activism and the condition of the loneliness, poverty and depression by developing the tragic story of a FILM PRESENTATION: INSIDE A DARING ATTEMPT OF APPROACHING A individual, anonymous and mysterious. Their structure is human and people who were born to follow them all. young boy from Jiului Valley who commits suicide due to his mother’s PHILOSOPHICAL THEOREM proposes a deep insight into the relativization beyond, just like the one of demigods, containing natural elements absence, a story which becomes a cry of alarm and a revelation of (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) of the narrator’s role by blurring the lines between postmodernism and which are inserted in their shapes and that provide the background for disturbing information about the “white orphans” and “the Italian observation, information and misleading affirmation, character and their actions, suggesting a utopic balance. syndrome”. The omniscient and distant narrator can be heard in the narrator. A she, the narrator, presents a him, the character, but never on voice-over reading journalistic texts about the case that wind down the (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) CURATOR’S COMMENT: Using two characters either with their backs screen, always raising questions about where he is and what makes him dramatism of the story, conferring an impactful audio background to at the camera or breaking the fourth wall during dizzy dances, GABRIELA leave. In the end, she becomes him, breaking the norms of identification by the cinematic, observative portrait of the small town and its community. FIERBINȚEANU explores the passivity lying behind any activity involving all means. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) CURATOR’S COMMENT: RED-COR provides a fanciful visual for the band political movements. The surreal background and the burlesque music with its ROMANIAN EXPERIMENTS CINEMATIC Fjord’s song Stars in an Ocean of Darkness. By searching for a representation ironic, amusing lyrics create a flamboyantly wrapped social critique. BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL CURATOR’S COMMENT: VALEA JIULUI NOTES represents a counter direction

\\ DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Once the importance of maintaining an objective of the connection between the human being and nature, the director captures \\ (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) to the iconic cinematic symphonies dedicated to cities. Through quotidian manner/behaviour towards different types of situations occurred to me, it a lyrical mix between earthliness and astral realm, which is suggested by means images of the Jiului Valley’s community presented in observational shots and has stuck with me ever since. Translating that into a short film seemed like an of visual effects. accompanied by a soundtrack that combines the sombre music of Stephane interesting material to work upon, hence the whole scenario. The approach of (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) Karo, sounds taken from the observational shots and a voice over that quotes the narrator towards the dilema pushes the meaning of her role to the limits, journalistic texts from the local press, the director decries a disadvantaged therefore resulting into a mess of misleading information; sometimes looking place while heroizing its people. for a thing results in losing it even more. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) 102 (NIKITA DEMBINSKI) 103

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: [email protected] Panel: MEET THE EXPERTS The Lifespan of Cinematic Experimentation

The panel is conceived as a meeting platform for the international professionals invited at the festival, the main Romanian SIDE educational institutions in the field of cinema and visual arts – the National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest and the A LONG STORY SHORT brief conversation about National University of Arts Bucharest – and film / visual arts 10’, 2017, Romania the d word students and professionals. The seminar is an opportunity which DIRECTOR: ANDREI OLĂNESCU EVENTS should not be missed by young Romanian filmmakers and artists, 4’, 2017, Romania functioning as an introduction to the international cinema and DIRECTOR: TEONA GALGOȚIU visual arts markets. The seminar is open to all those interested to learn directly from and to gain insight in the experience of experts in major festivals and institutions, such as Berlinale ANDREI OLĂNESCU TEONA GALGOȚIU Forum Expanded, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art and Sarajevo Film Festival, regardless of their creative genre or experience. FILM PRESENTATION: In A LONG STORY SHORT, the director’s gamble FILM PRESENTATION: The d word the title refers to might not be the is to create an allegory of human life using two snails as a starting first one to come in mind when reading the abbreviation, but perhaps point and building up a discourse on the stages in the life of a human, one much more controversial. The director interviews a friend and Participants: which works two-ways: on the one hand, there is the romantic approach follows his personal story about Depression, deepening its impact at embracing both the natural and the norm. On the other hand, it works a young age, and the taboo surrounding it in the 21st century. Along ULRICH ZIEMONS – Berlinale Forum Expanded program just as well as a banalization of its own cycle. with the detached but impactful interview about a state of depression coordinator; Berlinale Spotlight: Forum Expanded curator at which almost led the director’s friend to suicide, a series of black and BIEFF 2018 (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) white archive films with animals are shown, which, just as stated in the ANGELIKA RAMLOW – Representative of Berlinale Forum beginning, “look like humans but not quite”. Expanded and Arsenal Institute Berlin; BIEFF 2018 jury member CURATOR’S COMMENT: In ANDREI OLĂNESCU’s short film, the equating the (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018)

ROMANIAN EXPERIMENTS CINEMATIC BIANCA LUCAS – Programmer of the European Shorts section of BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL apparently irrelevant life of two snails to the apparently relevant life of any Sarajevo Film Festival; filmmaker; BIEFF 2018 jury member

\\ two human beings happens organically, even if no human presence is apparent. CURATOR’S COMMENT: A slow interview in which two friendly voices depict \\ Using intertitles to delimitate the stages of the snails’ lifelines, the director the meanings and faces of depression based on the personal experience of one of achieves a cinematic and ideological staging of a series of shots of noteworthy them is shaped by an ingeniously edited, almost orchestrated series of footage observational value with animals exhibiting diverse reactions. The visual images provide the audio part with an organic cover, combining the rhythm of the given information with (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2018) an alert, almost anxious rhythm of the animals. TEONA GALGOȚIU’s aim seems to be to offer a specificity to a term which is common but vague: depression.

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] LOVING VINCENT 94’, 2017, UK / Poland

Written and directed by: Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman Cast: Robert Gulaczyk, Douglas Booth, Jerome Flynn, Saoirse Ronan, Helen McCrory, Chris O’Dowd, John Sessions, Eleanor PREVIEW SCREENING PREVIEW Tomlinson, Aidan Turner Producer: BreakThru Productions Distributed in Romania by Follow Art

The words “Loving, Vincent” were the ending of every one of the over 800 letters the Vincent van Gogh sent to his brother Theo. The film begins with the last unfinished letter to Theo and through a modern technique of animation combined with the classical oil painting it reconstructs the life of the painter, leading up to his controversial death.

The film is co-directed by the Oscar winner SIDE EVENTS British director Hugh Welchman and the Polish BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ filmmaker Dorota Kobiela. It is an animation \\ like nothing else seen before. 107 painters from all over the world created 62.450 frames handpainted in oil to be screened at a rate of 12 paintings per second. Nominated for the Academy Awards, BAFTA, EFA Awards and many other distinctions, this is a film to be 106 admired on the big screen. 107 Dionisie Lupu 78

Praporgescu 31 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

108 109 Arcului 8 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

110 111 \\

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