Videonale on Tour at Filmfest Braunschweig
Videostill: Cerith Wyn Evans, Degrees of Blindness, 1988, GB, 18:58 Min, Farbe [VIDEONALE.4]
Thursday, 5.11.2015, 7 pm
In the context of Filmfest Braunschweig Videonale presents a selection of earlier festival contributions which approach diverse social, psychic and natural conditions by a strong representation of the bodily.
Programme:
Cerith Wyn Evans, Degrees of Blindness, 1988, GB, 18:58 Min, color [VIDEONALE.4]
Inspired by one of William Blake’s poems, Evans investigates the various ways in which we can perceive the world around us, and examines the different stages of visions. In a multi-layered collage, he brings together the theme of the fall of man, pictures of blind children trying to decode the world with the aid of Braille, and illustrations of the latest forms of visual representation. The result, both on the levels of sound and of vision, is a fantastical, poetic reflection on our visual perception.
Victor Alimpiev, Wetterleuchten (Summer Lightnings), RUS, 2004, 4:11 Min, color [VIDEONALE.11]
That the mouth can be not only a speaking, but also a silent organ, is shown by Victor Alimpiev in his work Wetterleuchten [Summer Lightnings]. Thanks to their non-speaking mouths, the eyes and hands of a group of schoolchildren take on a special vitality. Girls are shown in a classroom rapping on the tables, their lively beauty evident in frequent close-ups. The noise this makes is transformed in the video´s quick scene changes into the wild lightning of a summer night´s storm. But a secret hand signal given by the girls quickly guides the viewer back to the quiet world. The repetition of this process, during which the summer lightning becomes more and more pronounced, seems like a summer night´s dream.
Gonzalo Rodriguez, Rebeca, 2009, GER, 23:36 Min, color [VIDEONALE.13]
How do we approach events that are beyond our comprehension? In his new short film, Gonzalo Rodriguez addresses this question by trying to understand his grandmother’s death. She died in 1993, whilst crossing an expressway. His search leads him back to Lima, Peru, the place it happened. In loose associations, pictures follow narratives without being able to give a clear or true impression, a failing that Rodriguez doesn’t try to make up for, but rather intensifies by using techniques of photomontage and picture collage. The question of the power and the helplessness of pictures and words combined in a cinematic narrative opens up a second layer. It is the backdrop upon which Rodriguez develops his autobiographical documentary, which he finally finishes knowing that every story cannot give more than one of the many perspectives on what has happened.
Laleh Khorramian, Water Panics in the Sea, 2011, IR, 14:00 Min, color [VIDEONALE.14]
With subtle animation techniques, Laleh Khorramian leads the viewer into a surreal, fantasy world of waves, cliffs and grottos. One finds oneself on the deck of a ship, looks towards the horizon, can make out icebergs and then dives down to the seabed, which is inhabited by dream creatures. Recurring motifs surface from this sea of colour; colours cycling between blue and red create a hypnotic effect and intensify the viewing experience. Laleh Khorramian works with liquid colours, applying them to glass sheets. The way in which they run and the style in which she wields her brush lend them their own language and create an exciting collage on the theme of water and sea. The source of its title, and a commentary on the work, is the poem “Water panics in the sea” by Mumtazz and Antonio Poppe, which follows at the end of the work.
Shelly Nadashi, A Hidden Quiet Pocket, 2014, IL, 19:25 Min, color [VIDEONALE.15]
Knead a body. Massage dough.
At first glance, Shelly Nadashi’s video A HIDDEN QUIET POCKET, shows a typical massage session. In its course the client asks the masseuse what rent she could demand for an apartment. With the massage movements and the questions of the masseuse the apartment takes shape. Through the increasingly intense movements of the masseuse, her envy and avarice become obvious – she gets ever closer to her client, more and more aggressively. Like a mantra, the masseuse repeats »A piece of cake, a piece of cake…« over and over again. The dough for this cake itself she is first making with the massage. Or is it, in the end, more than massage? Would you like a piece of cake?
