Films from Experimenta2017 to catch up on
4.15pm | ARTIST PROFILE 1 | CHICK STRAND 2 | 74 MIN
SURVIVAL AND DESIRE Curated by Mark Toscano, filmmaker, curator, and film preservationist at the Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles, USA
Survival and desire are two very commonly recurring themes throughout Chick Strand’s work, often working simultaneously in an unusual interwoven relationship. This is most richly and brilliantly explored in her amazing film Soft Fiction, in which a series of conceptually linked episodes involving first-person narratives by various women creates a complex empathic web of thoughtful provocations and ambiguities.
Further illuminating these themes are two of her most haunting and beautiful shorts. Artificial Paradise is one of the more evocative films ever created on the subject of sensual longing, while the hypnotic Kristallnacht engages in an unusual dance between the beauty of existence and its inevitable obverse, the horror of suffering.
Artificial Paradise | USA | 1986 | 16mm | colour | sound | 12.5 min
Kristallnacht | USA | 1979 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 7.5 min
Soft Fiction | USA | 1979 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 54 min
In person: Mark Toscano
6.15pm | FEATURE FOCUS | 155 MIN
KALPANA | Uday Shankar | India | 1948 | 35mm on DVD | b&w | sound | 155 min “It’s not every day that a movie has the power to charm both dance lovers and educational reformers. But Uday Shankar’s Kalpana is no ordinary movie. This forgotten gem from the forties is a work of great daring. It offers a manifesto for a new India. The renowned dancer and choreographer’s only celluloid project was released a year after Independence. Shankar used a story-within-a-story narrative and the dance ballet form to advocate his vision of a nation that would reach into the future while remaining tethered to its roots. Kalpana has been out of circulation for decades and emerges only on rare occasions. Shankar’s passion project is equal parts biography, manifesto, critique and celebration.” Nandini Ramnath, Scroll.in
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DAY 6 | DECEMBER 3 | SUNDAY
12.15pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | 91 MIN
OF FORGETTINGS Curated by Desire Machine Collective, the artist team of Mriganka Madhukaillya and Sonal Jain based in Guwahati/Shillong, India.
Oral cultures memorize thousands of songs, stories, chants and poems. Today practically the whole of human knowledge is available to us on the tap of a button. The British neurologist Oliver Sacks said, ‘Each of us constructs and lives a “narrative”, this narrative is us’. However memory in the age of information, caught in a constant stream of data seems to form more a rhizomatic structure that is disordered, non-Narrative even anti-Narrative in their fundamental organization.
Touché | Lorna Collins | UK | 2013 | 16mm to digital | 3 min
The Lost Head & The Bird | Sohrab Hura | India | 2017 | digital | colour | sound | 9.5 min
The Story of Ones | Pham Ngoc Lan | Vietnam | 2011 | digital | colour | sound | 10 min
Vietnam the Movie | Nguyen Trinh Thi | Vietnam | 2016 | digital | colour + b&w | sound | 47 min
Four Windows | Pham Thu Hang, Do Tuong Linh, Khong Viet Bach, Dong Thao, Do Ha Thu, Nguyen Phuong Thao | Vietnam | 2013 | digital | colour | sound | 23 min
In person: Desire Machine Collective
2.15pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | 77 MIN
FIGURES POINTING OUTSIDE THE FRAME Curated by Oliver Husain, filmmaker and installation artist based in Toronto; Yuki Aditya festival director of ARKIPEL International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, held by Forum Lenteng, Jakarta Indonesia; Otty Widasari, artist and filmmaker based in Jakarta, Indonesia
South Asian Visual Arts Centre is pleased to present MONITOR 12 Figures Pointing Outside the Frame. The works that make up this program consider the peripheries of the image as significant as the content within. Whether film, video, or a still image, the technology dictates the parameters of the frame. Decisions an imagemaker makes regarding the composition, duration, performance, and location further contribute to a viewer’s experience. Collaboration is formed between the technology, image maker, and subjects- though this collaboration is often expanded with elements, situations, and conditions beyond that which is scripted. In this way, the program advocates for the viewer to consider the environmental, labour, historical, economical, gendered, and social conditions that influence the constructed experience.
Auxiliary Mirrors | Sanaz Sohrabi | USA | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 12 min
The Rain After | Mohammad Fauzi | Indonesia | 2014 | digital | colour | sound | 12 min
Speculations on India | Harkeerat Mangat | India | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 29 min
Landscape Series no. 1 | Nguyen Trinh-Thi | Vietnam | 2013 | digital | colour | sound | 5 min
Alex & I: Moving Pictures | Sumugan Sivanesan | Australia/ Sri Lanka | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 12 min
Scene 38 | Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit | Thailand | 2015 | digital | colour | sound | 7 min
In person: Oliver Husain, Yuki Aditya & Indu Vashisht (SAVAC)
4.15pm | ARTIST PROFILE 5 | ROX LEE | 60 MIN
JUAN DEKADA Curated by Merv Espina, artist, researcher and program director for Green Papaya Art Projects based in Manila, Philippines
Already a well-respected illustrator and syndicated comic strip artist in the early 1980s, Rox Lee discovered the potential of film and reinvented himself as a filmmaker. His first solo experimental masterpiece was The Great Smoke (1984), followed by his on-camera performative projects like Lizard, or How to Perform in Front of the Reptile (1986), and forays into documentary and diaristic filmmaking. The selection shown here focuses on the films that cemented his reputation as a singular and influential artist: the unbound and ceaseless experimentation, the irreverent humor, the playfulness and the rock ’n’ roll–all done solo or with a revolving cast of collaborators who later made their own mark in contemporary Philippine art and cinema. “Juan” or, when translated, “John” or “Johnny” is an alter ego that recurs regularly in Lee’s works.
Tronong Puti | Philippines | 1983 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 8 min
The Great Smoke | Philippines | 1984 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 6 min
Kalamay | Philippines | 1988 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 5 min
Lizard, or How to Perform in Front of the Reptile | Philippines | 1986 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 5 min
Spit + Optik | Philippines | 1989 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 15 min
Moron’s Monolog | Philippines | 1990 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 9 min
Harajuku | Philippines | 1992 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 12 min
In person: Rox Lee
6.15pm CLOSING FILM | 177 MIN
LIVING ARCHIVE Curated by Nicole Wolf, Senior Lecturer in Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London
ORG | Fernando Birri | Italy | 1967-1978 | 35mm on DVD | colour | sound | 177 MIN Fernando Birri’s ORG is a monstrous, nearly three-hour long film that’s only rarely been screened since it premiered at the 1979 Venice Film Festival. Ever since his debut Tire Dié, this 91-year-old director, who is also a poet, painter, teacher and film school founder, has been a key figure in Latin American cinema. For Birri, ORG was the result of his experience of exile in Italy: “The film is a nightmare with closed eyes because it counts among the most terrible moments of my life, my second exile, which lasted a very long time.” The story of ORG is based on the ancient Indian legend Kathasaritsagara, that Thomas Mann also drew on for his story “The Transposed Heads”. But above all, ORG is an experiment in perception that features over 26,000 cuts and some 700 audio tracks. ORG was partly funded by leading actor Mario Girotti, better known as Terence Hill. Viewing the film today provides a kaleidoscopic insight into the experimental, aesthetic and political trends of the 1970s.
