Program 2 features five films: Heidrun Holzfeind’s lyrical portrait of the Japanese music duo IRO; a bold visual study of images of holes by the artist Jaakko Pallasvuo; a diary film documenting director Miko Revereza’s exile and return; Lei Lei’s deeply intimate animated collage made using Maoist-era found imagery; and the international premiere of a nostalgic landscape shot on film by the Russian artist Alexandra Karelina. The screening will be followed by a public talk with Alexandra Karelina.
the time is now. (I+II)
A film in two parts about Japan’s avant-garde improvisation duo IRO, whose music combines influences deriving from punk, 1970s free jazz, ethnic sounds, ancient Shinto rituals, and traditional ceremonies. IRO’s musical experimentations go hand in hand with its active involvement in the peace movement and a freedom-loving lifestyle in vehement rejection of capitalism and consumption culture. The first part documents the band’s live show in an inverted pyramid-shaped building. The second is the couple’s lyrical portrait revealing the duo’s fascination with punk and ethnic music, philosophical reflections, lifestyle and political views.
Dir. Heidrun Holzfeind
Austria, Japan, 2019. 48 min. 18+
Hole
Hole is a video essay, an intuitive visual study of mass culture, symmetrically framed by footage of pink circles: the shot in the beginning is a sock with a hole inversed, the final frame shot with a mobile phone shows balloons. As the film progresses, the connection that builds between these two images turns both of them into a symbol of a wound. A wound inextricably tying the transcendental experience of beauty with guilt. Director Jaakko Pallasvuo’s sophisticated collage marks the massive attraction to the Hole.
Dir. Jaakko Pallasvuo
Finland, 2019. 7 min. 18+
Distancing
The film documents the logistics and poetics of Miko Revereza’s decision “to become an exile”: to leave the United States where he grew up and return to the Philippines. “My ticket is one-way,” he explains to his grandmother as she suddenly realizes that Miko isn’t coming back.
Dir. Miko Revereza
USA, 2019. 10 min. 16+
A Bright Summer Diary
The director of the film, at the age of three, and his mother sit in a cardboard car surrounded by a painted Chinese landscape. This is an old photograph taken near Mount Lushan back in 1988. Using black and white amateur flea market photography, postcards, Maoist propaganda imagery, and stills from the movie Lushan Love, the artist creates a film-collage fusing personal and collective memory. Lei Lei’s nostalgia becomes an excuse for the search of the truth about history, family, and personal identity.
Dir. Lei Lei
USA, 2020. 27 min. 16+
The Last Words
The film’s main protagonists are household items of the 1950s–1970s shot on film. Their path goes from the written to the erased. From the clear to the forgotten. Obsession with the past—this is their space. The images gradually become smoothed and blurred down to pure emotion. Nothing can be saved, and it is impossible to return anywhere. This is a film where the characters take to the stage for the last time. The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Alexandra Karelina.
Dir. Alexandra Karelina
Russia, 2020. 8 min.
