program
hungry eyes on tour:
short film favourites
Im letzten Jahr haben wir einen Blick ‘zurück’ geworfen, zum einen auf unsere konzeptionellen Wurzeln – das Interesse am experimentellen Kurzfilm – und zum anderen auf die Einreichungen der letzten Jahren.
We are very excited that we are now going on tour with a small programme of films from the last festival editions!
Tour dates:
- 05.06.24 @ Videothek Volksbühne Berlin
- 21.11.24 @ bb15 Linz
Programm:
> Why the Birds by Tomás Souza
> Swimming Lesson by Vardit Goldner
> He Had Got Certain Vibes by Greta Alfaro
> How I Choose to Spend the Remainder of my Birthing Years by Sarah Lasley
> 10 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Where Arab by Sarah Trad
> SOS/Animals/Action by Big Art Group
> Reality Fragment 160921 von 七个木 Qigemu 七個木:
Why the Birds?
Short film by Tomás de Souza
BEL 2022
Why the Birds? is a short movie made with images gathered by cellphones across the world about a soft obsession, birds. Always around us, we often overlook them. But sometimes a breach between us may appear.
Tomás de Souza is an artist, musician and video-maker based in Brussels.
credits:
Written, edited and voiced by Tomás de Souza
Video and photo captures: Members of the ‘Pássaros’ group on Whatsapp.
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Swimming Lesson
Short film by Vardit Goldner
ISR 2021
"Swimming Lesson is a mockumentary film in which Bedouin girls are taught to swim in a waterless “pool”. It aims to stimulate thought about the lack of swimming pools accessible to Bedouins in Israel, actually denying them swimming lessons and causing frequent cases of drowning in the sea. There are over 200,000 Arab-Bedouins living in the Negev region of Israel today, with access to one single swimming pool that was inaugurated in the Bedouin town of Rahat in 2017. Bedouins are not allowed to enter swimming pools in Jewish localities. In addition, the work deals with the lack of swimming pools due to discrimination, but in a future world, in a few years or a little more, there may be a shortage of water due to global warming, drought and evaporation as well.
Additional Statement of the artist:
"In these days when Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and Israeli settlers are murdering and harming Palestinian farmers and residents and their property and burning their homes in the West Bank, I feel that apartheid and discrimination within Israel against anyone who is not Jewish are relatively minor problems.
Still, I would like to raise awareness of the issue."
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Vardit Goldneris a multifaceted artist specializing in photography and videography. Her artistic pursuits primarily focus on capturing the nuances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, shedding light on the everyday lives of Palestinians. She completed the Postgraduate Fine Arts Program at Hamidrasha, Israel and she holds an M.Sc. in physics.
credits:
Work:Vardit Goldner; Artistic Adviser: Einat Weizman; Script-Writing:
Vardit Goldner, Hadar Aviel; Arabic and Hebrew Subtitles: Fatin Abu Ghosh; English: Tal Haran; Filming: Violetta Datskovsky; Filming Assistant: Adi Sav; Sound Recording: Keren Or Menahem; Actresses: Swimming Teacher: Vardit Goldner; Teacher Assistant: Zohar Shitrit; Translator: Fatma Abu Madegam; Swimmers: Arakib Abu Madegam, Saeda Abu Madegam, Hadel Abu Madegam, Aseel Abu Madegam, Njood Abu Madegam, Alia Abu Madegam; Companions: Hakma Abu Madegam, Marem Abu Madegam, Najwa Abu Madegam, Sabah Abu Madegam, Astabrak Abu Madegam, Sojood Abu Madegam.
He Had Got Certain Vibes
Short film by Greta Alfaro
UK/ESP 2019
"He Had Got Certain Vibes is a still life about the fragility of the everyday and the distress that domesticity can entail. Here, real life and on-screen life mix up and show us that, whatever might happen on our screens, social and economic conditions impact directly on people’s health and integrity in the tangible world."
Greta Alfaro is a visual artist. Her work is multidisciplinary, and it relates a critique of power in contemporary society to Western and Mediterranean visual tradition. She works in the United Kingdom and Spain, and exhibits in museums, galleries and film festivals internationally.
credits:
Greta Alfaro
Dir. of Photography: David Ferrando Giraut; Audio: Iban Pérez; TV program: Doug Henning, Statue of the Pharaohs; Produced by Roaming Room, with the support of Arts Council England and Acción Cultural Española.
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How I Choose to Spend the Remainder of my Birthing Years
Short film by Sarah Lasley
US 2020
"Blending personal narrative with shared pop cultural experience, the artist manifests a longheld childhood fantasy set within the love scene from Dirty Dancing (1987). How I Choose to Spend the Remainder of my Birthing Years juxtaposes pre-pubescent sexual desire with that of a woman descending her sexual peak. Fantasy is both a balm to religious piety and an act of resistance to the pressures put upon women approaching middle age. Here the digitally simulated image, in its wavering visual verisimilitude, exposes our willingness and desire to believe. Made alone at the onset of the Covid-19 quarantine."
Sarah Lasley is an award-winning filmmaker from California. Her no-crew, no-budget short films critique our current moment with absurdist humor. Her work has screened in festivals such as Slamdance Film Festival, Cairo Video Festival, and the Wrong Bienniale. She has an MFA from Yale School of Art.
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10 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Arab!
Short film by Sarah Trad
"10 Celebrities You Didn't Know Were Arab! explores racial construction and perception in American pop culture. Aesthetically inspired by GIF/meme content on Instagram or TikTok, the clip looks at an online article featuring “Arab” celebrities such as Salma Hayek who portrays SWANA people in acting roles, to the pro-Zionist of Syrian heritage, Jerry Seinfeld. The celebs and their identifications expand perceptions of what Arabs can look like and raises questions of white supremacy, racial appropriation and authenticity."
Sarah Trad is a Lebanese-American filmmaker and curator who focuses on Arab American history and futurism, queerness, and mental health. She is the Founder/Director of the pop-up cinema and gallery, Batikh Batikh and the Director of Programming for the MENA Film Festival in Vancouver.
credits:
Sarah Trad
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SOS/Animals/Action
Short film by Big Art Group
US 2021
"In SOS/Animals/Action, a multi-camera and multi-screen forest of technology located within a landscape of refuse gives the audience a corrupted panoptic view of colliding narratives. Unlike traditional theatrical performance, Big Art Group’s extended mediated performances reposition viewers into active editors, challenging audience members to problem-solve complex issues of sexuality, race, narrative and truth as a theatrical mirror to the process of navigation through contemporary society."
Big Art Group is a New York based experimental performance ensemble founded by Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson in 1999. Big Art Group uses language and media to push formal boundaries of theatre, film and visual arts; it creates culturally transgressive works and innovative performances using original text, technology and experimental methods of communication.
credits:
Created by Big Art Group with Caden Manson, Jemma Nelson, Kathleen Amshoff, David Commander, Edward Stresen-Reuter, Michael Helland, and Willie Mullins.
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Reality Fragment 160921
Short film by 七个木 Qigemu 七個木
(April Lin 林森 and Jasmine Lin 林思穎)
US/SWE 2018
"Reality Fragment 160921 follows two people in their process of reality-curation, as they create their own spaces against and via understandings of distance, as they go through the motions of growing themselves by growing their universes. We witness not only their movements, but also partake in the thoughts of two witnesses and how by seeing these two people, worlds are merged. In turn, we ask you, a viewer of this film and thus also a witness, to pay attention to your own movements of perception and reflect around the ways in which you build your own world. Who have you merged your world with, and what does that mean for the subjective truths you tend to?"
七个木 Qigemu 七個木 is a duo consisting of coordinates April Lin 林森 and Jasmine Lin 林思穎 exploring the interstices of movement, visual media, identity, and the global Asian diaspora as respectively, Chinese-Swedish and Taiwanese-American. Using the potential of this hybrid space, Qigemu engages in conversations dealing with bodies, information, and energies, and how these are conceptualized in the Internet Age.
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Credits:
Directors, Producers, Editors, Performers: April Lin 林森 and Jasmine Lin 林思穎
Voiceovers: Tessa Qiu and Madeleine Han
Sound editor: Oscar Ulfheden
Music: Redundancy Charm Study — G. S. Sultan
UX Design — DJ Supermarket
imessage In A Bottle — soy
Chinese subtitling: Qafone
