PROGRAMME APRIL 26TH 11.30 - 13.00 14.:45 - 16:30 16:35 - 18:25 18:50 - 21:00
Panel : Making Films in Ireland and Germany Lost In the Living * You’re Ugly Too * Extra Ordinary*
APRIL 27TH 14:00 - 15:30 16:00 - 17:00 17:05 - 18:30
19:00 - 21:00
Pitching session for delegates Shorts programme 1 -Phoenix -Rhinos* Shorts programme 2 -Don’t Go* -Break Us* -Colour Green* -CTRL+ALT+Z* Arracht*
APRIL 28TH 12:00 - 13:30 14:00 - 14:40 14:40 - 16:05 16:25 – 17:10 17:10 - 18:10 18:30 - 19:05 19:05 - 20:20
Workshop with Rouzbeh Rashidi The Sun is Not to Be Believed* Tension Structures* Made Ground* Prototype I* Saturn and Beyond (excerpt) & The Last Broadcast* Experimental Film Society Short Film Programme *with film maker(s) Q+A
LOST IN THE LIVING
WRITER AND DIRECTOR: ROBERT MANSON The much anticipated debut feature film from award-winning director Robert Manson is a pulsing drama set in Berlin. “Lost in the Living” follows a young man, Oisín (Tadhg Murphy), who travels to the city with his band, buzzing with the potential of a tour and escape from his troubled family life. Oisín meets Sabine (Aylin Tezel), a pretty young Berliner, who shows him the secret places that belong to the city. The band lose patience with him and move on and he decides to stay. But this time of simple pleasures is based on illusions. Oisín’s willful escapism is thrown into a tailspin when Sabine reveals that she has a boyfriend and must return to her real life. Things take an even darker turn when bad news from Ireland reaches him. He’s lonely, homesick and broke. Distraught, he makes his way through the streets of Berlin and begins sleeping rough. His path becomes one of dete mined self destruction. It takes an act of great intervention to save him from the void.
HIS BAND HAS LEFT, HE’S LONELY, HOMESICK, HOMELESS AND BROKE. HE EMBRACES THE DARKNESS, TUMBLES THROUGH THE VOID AND OUT THE OTHER SIDE.
April 26th 14:45 - 16:30 Running Time: 77 minutes Writer and Director: Robert Manson Producers: Lisa Roling, Robert Manson Main Cast: Tadhg Murphy, Aylin Tezel
YOU’RE UGLY TOO DIRECTOR: MARK NOONAN
Mark is an Irish writer and director, currently based in Berlin. His debut feature film, YOU’RE UGLY TOO premiered at the 65th Berlinale and was nominated for both Crystal Bear and Best Debut Feature awards. The film was also nominated for a European Film Academy award and won numerous awards on its festival run including the Directors Guild of America Finder’s Series in Los Angeles; Best Screenplay Awards in Tokyo and Athens; Best Feature Screenplay from the Writers Guild of Ireland; Best Debut Feature at the Galway Film Fleadh; and Best Breakthrough Feature in Boston. His subsequent documentary KEVIN ROCHE: THE QUIET ARCHITECT(2017) was released in Irish and UK cinemas to critical acclaim, selected for the Venice Biennale 2018 and acquired for distribution in North America by Kino Lorber and in Germany by Salzgeber
AFTER THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER, A YOUNG GIRL SUFFERING FROM THE MARGINALISING EFFECTS OF NARCOLEPSY MUST DEAL WITH HER MYSTERIOUS UNCLE WHEN HE’S RELEASED FROM PRISON TO CARE FOR HER.
April 26th 16:35 - 18:25 Berlinale 65th generational selection Running Time: 81 min (1hr21min) Writer and Director: Mark Noonan Producers: Conor Barry & John Keville Main Cast: Aidan Gillen, Lauren Kinsella, Niamh Shaw
EXTRA ORDINARY
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED: MIKE AHERN & ENDA LOUGHMAN Rose, a sweet, lonely driving instructor in rural Ireland, is gifted with supernatural abilities. Rose has a love/hate relationship with her ‘talents’ & tries to ignore the constant spirit related requests from locals - to exorcise possessed rubbish bins or haunted gravel. But! Christian Winter, a washed up, one-hit-wonder rock star, has made a pact with the devil for a return to greatness! He puts a spell on a local teenager making her levitate. Her terrified father, Martin, asks Rose to help save his daughter. Rose has to overcome the fear of her supernatural gift & work with Martin to save the girl, get the guy and be home in time for a light snack... maybe a yogurt or something... April 26th 18:50 - 21:00 Running Time: 94 min Writer: Meave Higgins, Mike Ahern, Demian Fox Directors: Enda Loughman, Mike Ahern Producers: Blinder Films (Ailish Bracken, Yvonne Donohoe, Katie Holly, Mary McCarthy) Main Cast: Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward, Will Forte
ROSE, A MOSTLY SWEET & MOSTLY LONELY IRISH SMALL-TOWN DRIVING INSTRUCTOR, MUST USE HER SUPERNATURAL TALENTS TO SAVE THE DAUGHTER OF MARTIN (ALSO MOSTLY SWEET & LONELY) FROM A WASHED-UP ROCKSTAR WHO IS USING HER IN A SATANIC PACT TO REIGNITE HIS FAME
PHOENIX
DIRECTOR: AYLIN TEZEL Aylin Tezel, born in 1983 in Germany. As an actress she is known for Almanya – Welcome to Germany (Berlinale Competition 2011) and Breaking Horizons (2012) for which she received the Best Actress Award at the Torino Film Festival by festival director Paolo Sorrentino. On television she is known for her lead role in Germany´s most popular police drama series Tatort and for her regular role of a Polish resistance fighter in the 3rd season of the Canadian CBC Spy Series X Company alongside Evelyne Brochu and Warren Brown. Most recently she has filmed the thriller 7500 alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt. She directed a short documentary about British choreographer Royston Maldoom and the short film Inhale (Tanz mit ihr) which aired on FrenchGerman TV Channel ARTE in 2015. Aylin is currently developing her directorial debut, the English-language drama Falling into Place, a love story set in London and Scotland. Her script was picked up by Germany´s
Producers Weydemann Bros. (System Crasher) who aim to start principal photography next year. Phoenix is her first English- Language short film, starring Irish Actors Killian Scott (Damnation), Brid Brennan (Brooklyn) and German Actress Leonie Benesch (The White Ribbon)
ANTON IS ABOUT TO LOSE THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT WOMEN IN HIS LIFE BUT IT TAKES THE STORY OF THE KING´S SON TO MAKE HIM FACE HIS FATE. April 27th 16:00 - 17:00 Featured in Shorts Programme 1 Running Time: 16 min Writer and Director: Aylin Tezel Producer: Miriam Klein Co-Producer: Aylin Tezel Main Cast: Killian Scott, Brid Brennan, Leonie Benesch Languages: English & German
RHINOS
DIRECTOR: SHIMMY MARCUS RHINOS tells the story of young couple Ingrid and Thomas, thrown together by circumstance, who despite a language barrier, learn much about each other and themselves. While Ingrid is vivacious, carefree, full of life and Thomas is reserved and introverted, over the course of a few eventful hours they learn to communicate in many ways other than language, and help each other resolve problems in their own lives. Shimmy Marcus is a filmmaker and educator. He has won a variety of awards for his films including the features Soul Boy starring Felicity Jones and Martin Compston, and Headrush with Wuzza Conlon and Steven Berkoff. He has also directed numerous award winning Shorts, Documentaries, TV Dramas, and Music Promos. He has taught filmmaking and acting for many years and is a co-founder of The Screen Directors Guild of Ireland. He is Artistic Director at Bow Street Academy in Dublin.
- Best Film - Audience Award - 27th European Short Film Festival at Brest - Best Foreign Short Film - Audience Award Cork Film Festival - Best Short - Audience Award - Green Bay Film Festival - Best Short - Audience Award - Cine Gael Montreal - Best Short Film Irish Film & TV Awards Nomination - 2nd place - Best Short Film Foyle Film Festival -Best Short - Audience Award Chicago Irish Film Festival 3rd place
LOVE KNOWS NO BORDERS. April 27th 16:00 - 17:00 Featured in Shorts Programme 1 Running Time: 17 minutes Writer and Director: Shimmy Marcus Producers: Let’s Not Lose It Productions Main Cast: Fionn Walton, Aylin Tezel, Cal Kenealy
DON’T GO WHERE I CAN’T FIND YOU WRITER / DIRECTOR: RIOGHNACH NI GHRIOGHAIR
Rioghnach Ni Ghrioghair has a BA in Film and TV Production and a MA in Screenwriting from National Film School, Ireland. She has directed short films, NEON (2017), BREAK US (2019), DO I KNOW YOU?(2020). BREAKUS premiered at Galway Fleadh Film Festival and went on to over 30 festivals internationally including Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. She has also worked as a Development Executive for both Blinder Films
and Samson Films, two of Ireland’s leading production companies. She is also the lead writer on TV show THE LIDO (2021) for RTE, which is in late stage development with creator Nadia Forde
A HAUNTED COMPOSER USES MUSIC TO CONNECT WITH THE GHOST OF HER DEAD LOVER BUT HER MIND STARTS TO SPIRAL INTO CHAOS.
April 27th 17:05 - 18:30 Featured in Shorts programme 2 Running Time: 19 min Writer and Director: Rioghnach Ni Ghrioghair Producers: David Collins & Claire McCabe Main Cast: Juliette Crosbie, Stephanie Dufresne, Marie Ruane
BREAK US
WRITER / DIRECTOR: RIOGHNACH NI GHRIOGHAIR April 27th 17:05 - 18:30 Featured in Shorts Programme 2 Running Time: 9 mins Writer and Director: Rioghnach Ni Ghrioghair Producers: Claire McCabe & Laura McNicholas Main Cast: Gavin Drea, Danielle Galligan, Tristan McConnell
MARK AND SOPHIE PLAN TO ROB A POST OFFICE BUT AS THINGS GO AWRY, THEY EACH DISCOVER WHAT THEY’RE REALLY MADE OF…
THE COLOUR GREEN ANIMATOR: HOLLY KEATING In this animated short film, Mark Boyle is an Irish nomad. Having given up technology for a life in rural Galway, meditates upon his daily rituals; of writing by hand and the ease to which sleep finds him.
April 27th 17:05 - 18:30 Featured in Shorts Programme 2 Running Time: 5 min Writer: Robert Coleman Director: Hugh O’ Conor Producers: Irish National Opera Main Cast: Mark Boyle & David Hawes Animator: Holly Keating
CTRL + ALT+ Z
ANIMATOR: HOLLY KEATING Holly Keating is a professional animator and illustrator currently based in Berlin, Germany. Holly studied animation at Ballyfermot College of Further Education in Dublin. Holly is an award winning director, achieving the 2020 RTS UK Student Award for Best Craft in an Animated Film, the 2020 RTS Ireland Student Award for Best Animated Film, as well as receiving the Emerging Director Award 2020 in the Animation category for her grad film ‘CTRL + ALT + Z’. Holly previously worked in JAM Animation Studios before becoming a full time freelance animator and illustrator. Her work focuses on human, emotion based narratives, and she likes to create visually rich stories using contrasting light, composition and colour.
A GIRL ACCIDENTALLY DELETES HER THESIS THE NIGHT BEFORE IT’S DUE, PROCEEDING TO GO THROUGH 4STAGES OF STRESS: DENIAL, ANGER, DEPRESSION AND ACCEPTANCE.
April 27th 17:05 - 18:30 Featured in Shorts Programme 2 Running Time: 5min Writer and Director: Holly Keating Main Cast: Naomi Grossman, Kate Duffy, Rachel E.Crane
ARRACHT
WRITER/DIRECTOR: TOM SULLIVAN Tom Sullivan was born in Dublin and studied Earth Science at University College Galway. After graduating and much to his parents delight he started acting and has worked in film and television since. In 2010 Tom began writing and directing. His first film Asal (2011), premiered at the Galway Film Festival and won the Tiernan McBride award for Best Short Drama, as did his second short Mechanic two years later. In the interim he directed Eoinín, a film for television. In 2014 he co-wrote and directed Sínte, a 30min film that won Best Short Drama at the Celtic Media Awards Personal Development, Tom’s next film had it’s North American premier at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in 2015 and subsequently was invited to screen on all International Airline flights as part of the Tribeca Presents programme. It has received multiple nominations and awards internationally.
Tom then directed Fir Bolg, a six part comedy drama that won an IFTA, (Irish Film and Television award), for best Irish production in 2017. He has also been nominated for a Zebbie award by the Irish Writers Guild for his work in film. Arracht is Tom’s first feature
IRELAND 1845, AS FAMINE PROGRESSES, A FISHERMAN UNABLE TO PROTECT HIS FAMILY IS SUBSUMED BY DARKNESS UNTIL A HELPLESS LITTLE GIRL SAVES HIM FROM DESPAIR April 26th 19:00 - 21:00 Runnig Time: 86 Min Writer: Tom Sullivan Director: Tom Sullivan Producer: Cúán Mac Conghail Main Cast: Dónall Ó Héalaí, Saise Ní Chuinn, Dara Devaney
EXPERIMENTAL FILM SOCIETY WORKSHOP Rouzbeh Rashidi will present a screening and workshop that gives an overview of the work of Experimental Film Society (EFS), one of the most radical, influential and distinctive forces in contemporary alternative cinema. EFS was founded in Tehran in 2000 by filmmaker Rashidi who remains its director and guiding force. It moved to Ireland with him in 2004. It has produced several dozen feature films and over five hundred shorts while consecutively forging underground film cultures in both Iran and Ireland that would have been unthinkable before it came along. EFS films reject mainstream conventions and adopt an exploratory, expeEXPERIMENTAL FILM SOCIETY riential approach that foregrounds mood,
atmosphere, visual rhythms, and the sensory interplay of sound and image. Often uncanny and unsettling, EFS work is deeply engaged with film history while constantly investigating the visionary potential of every manner of moving image device. EFS conjures an alien, outsider vision of the world capable of both alienating and renewing perception. And its conception of ‘cinema’ is restlessly multidisciplinary, encompassing installation, performance and sound projects as well as theoretical writing. It is an attitude as well as an aesthetic, and a stubbornly independent way of operating in complete freedom at the margins of film culture and at the outer limits of cinematic creativity
THE SUN IS NOT TO BE BELIEVED FILMMAKERS: RÓISÍN BERG & JULIET CARPENTER ‘The Sun Is Not To Be Believed’ is an algorithmically driven hypnotic meditation that follows a shrouded protagonist as they undertake various tasks in a schrebergarten. Using the extrapolated logic of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Quad’, Berg and Carpenter construct an algorithm that modulates the framerate of the film across its duration. The cycle repeats four times. With each permutation the machine looks forwards and backwards into its own timeline, cutting in fragments from both directions to produce a work of mutant temporal fissure. Juliet Carpenter is an filmmaker from New Zealand currently living and working in Frankfurt Am Main. Since 2018 Juliet has been a student in the film
April 28th 14:00 - 14:40 Running time: 16min Writers, Directors, Producers: Juliet Carpenter and Róisín Berg Main Cast: Erdmuthe Pumin Funded by the Embassy of Ireland, Berlin and the Consulate General of Frankfurt am Main as part of the Creative Pathways programme 2021
class at Städelschule Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste currently led by Gerard Byrne. Her practise often foregrounds sexual and emotional experiences and amplifies qualities of these narratives that are considered hysterical or disturbed. Her work is interested in the ways that individuals produce themselves as characters, especially through contemporary image technology Róisín Berg is a new-media artist from Ireland and a graduate of the MA in Art and Technology from the University of Limerick. They work with coding algorithms, audio, video, light and kinetics to create installation artworks that stage philosophical engagements between viewers and a fragmented representation of reality.
TENSION STRUCTURES
WRITER/DIRECTOR: ADRIAN DUNCAN/FEARGAL WARD Feargal Ward’s award-winning work has been screened, exhibited and broadcast worldwide. He collaborates with other filmmakers and artists on projects of shared interest. His 2017 feature-length doc The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid was screened at IDFA Amsterdam, HotDocs, Toronto; Sheffield Docfest; Zagrebdox; Documenta Madrid and the Moscow International Film Festival. It won a 2020 IFTA for best feature documentary. It was also broadcast on German, Finnish and Irish television. Adrian Duncan is an artist, filmmaker and award-winning writer based in Ireland and Berlin. His debut novel Love Notes from a German Building Site won the 2019 John McGahern Book Prize. His third novel, The Geometer Lobachevsky, will appear in April 2022 with The Lilliput Press (IRL) and Tuskar Rock Press (UK). His latest short film Lost Colony was screened at Docs Ireland 2021.
HOW DO YOU BUILD STRUCTURES SO THEY DON’T COLLAPSE, EVEN UNDER THE WORST IMAGINABLE CONDITIONS? A FORMER ENGINEER RECONSIDERS THIS QUESTION. HE JOURNEYS TO THE QUIET BAVARIAN TOWN OF HASSFURT, WHERE HE SEARCHES IN VAIN FOR A REMARKABLE BRIDGE BUILT THERE DURING THE 1860S.
April 28th 14:40 - 16:05 Running Time: 58 mins Writer: Adrian Duncan Director: Feargal ward and Adrian Duncan Producers: Feargal Ward for FSE Films
MADE GROUND
CREATED BY: FRANK SWEENEY & EVA RICHARDSON MCRAE Made Ground is a collaboration between artists Eva Richardson McCrea, Frank Sweeney and the Dublin Dockworkers Preservation Society (DDWPS). The two channel video work considers the movement from manual to knowledge based forms of labour in the Docklands, the changing architecture of the area and the impact of these changes on the surrounding communities. April 28th 16:25 - 17:10 Running Time: 20 min Writers and Directors: Eva Richardson McCrea, Frank Sweeney Producers: Eva Richardson McCrea, Frank Sweeney and the Dublin Dockworkers Preservation Society (DDWPS).
Eva George Richardson McCrea Lives and works in Frankfurt and Dublin. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include The German School, Goethe Institute, Dublin (2022), Table Games, Marina Market, Cork (2022) and FONDA, Leipzig (2021) with Nina Nadig; Riddles of the Stones, CCA, Glasgow, UK (2020). Recent screenings include Agitation Coop Film Screenings, Temple Bar Galleries and Studios, Dublin, Ireland (2021); Irish Film Institute, Visual Carlow, 65th Cork International Film Festival, as part of AEMI Signals and Circuits (2020, 2021). She is currently a student at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste - Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main.
Frank Sweeney is an artist with a research-based practice, using found material to approach questions of collective memory, experience and identity through film and sound. Recent work includes ‘People enjoy my company’ (2021), currently installed at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and screening at Transmediale Berlin, London Short Film Festival and Cork International Film Festival. Recent awards include the Arts Council’s Next Generation Award for 2022. The Dublin Dockworkers Preservation Society is dedicated to preserving the history of the Dublin Docks. To date they have collected over 6,000 photographs, alongside other donated documents which are currently being archived by Dublin City Council and will be available soon to the general public.
PROTOTYPE I: QUANTUM LEAPS IN TRANS SEMIOTICS THROUGH PSYCHO-ANALYTIC SNAIL SERUM FILMMAKER: DOIREANN O’MALLEY Doireann O’Malley (Ireland 1981) holds an MFA from University of Ulster in Belfast, UK. Their multidisciplinary, research-led practice encompasses video installation, virtual reality and performance. Through the staging of an immersive, world-building, they critically capture emergent modes of subjectivity that have moved beyond the narrow gender binaries inherited from a western-centric scientific and philosophical tradition. The history and emergence of 20th and 21st century techno-bodies and their representation in their speculative worlds critically rehearses multiple readings of art history, theory, psychoanalysis, physics, computational science and science fiction, and the seemingly endless ways in which these different fields and histories merge and interact in the creation of new subjects.
PROTOTYPES IS A MULTI-SCREEN FILM INSTALLATION, A SERIES OF DREAMSCAPES INTERROGATING TRANS* SEMIOTICS THROUGH PSYCHOANALYTIC PRACTICES, SPECULATIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND LIVE ACTION ROLE-PLAYING. O’MALLEY’S WORK REFERENCES SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE HUMAN PSYCHE THAT ADDRESS WIDER PHILOSOPHICAL CONCERNS RELATING TO BIOLOGY, GENDER EMBODIMENT, SEXUALITY, UTOPIANISM AND BIOMOLECULAR ADVANCEMENT IN HUMAN EVOLUTION. April 28th 17:10 - 18:10 Running Time: 36 mins Writer, director, and producer: Doireann O’ Malley Co - Producer: Bastian Hopfgarten Production: Nossa Schafer Main Cast: Pol Merchan, Nika Pecarina, Elena Schmidt, Ashley Hans Schreil Funded by Berlin Senat, Edith-Russ Haus for Media Art, Stiftung Kunstfonds.
SATURN AND BEYOND FILMMAKER: DECLAN CLARKE Declan Clarke is an artist and filmmaker. His films have shown internationally and been screened at film festivals such as FID Marseille, Tromsø International Film Festival, and the New York Underground Film Festival and have been distributed in the UK by Curzon. He has exhibited internationally as an artist in institutions such as PS1 MoMA, New York; Tate Britain, London, HKW Berlin, Beijing Art Museum of Imperial City; the 2nd Moscow Biennial; and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos. In 2015 he was awarded the Jury Prize at the 31st Biennale of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana. In 2021 he was awarded the Georges de Beauregard International Award at the 32nd Festival International de Cinéma FID Marseille
SATURN AND BEYOND TRACES THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICAL COMMUNICATION, AND HOW IT EXPANDED TO TRANSCONTINENTAL COMMUNICATION, AND ULTIMATELY TO HUMANKIND’S DESIRE TO SEND SIGNALS TO THE FURTHER REGIONS OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. THIS IS CONTRASTED WITH THE RECENT EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE AND DEMENTIAS. April 28th 18:30 - 19:05 Running Time: 7 mins excerpt (Full length: 60 min) Writer, Director, and Producer: Declan Clarke Main Cast: Declan Clarke & Paddy Clarke
THE LAST BROADCAST FILMMAKER: DECLAN CLARKE The Last Broadcast is the final film in a suite of eight short films that introduce the themes and intentions of The Museum of Broadcasting and Loneliness. The film also serves as an intro to the themes of a forthcoming exhibition in the Kunstverein am Rosa Luxemburg Platz that will open in February 2022. April 28th 18:30 - 19:05 Running Time: 3 mins (part of a series of short films) Writer, Director, and Producer: Declan Clarke
April 28th 19:05 - 20:20
EXPERIMENTAL FILM SOCIETY SHORTS
Supernova Cash Out (2020) By Shelly Kamiel / Ireland-USA / 10mins An alien race from our future’s past on a mission to explore dark energy sent a technologically advanced camera into what they thought was a typical black hole to record picture and sound for their ‘black hole archives’. The images and sounds that emerged sent them into a state of infinite insanity, fraying at the edges of the absence of reality in a darkness that extends into the furthest reaches of the unknown.
Dreams Can’t Hurt You (2020) By Chris O’Neill / Ireland / 5mins Images and sounds of a vintage movie trailer are corrupted and warped into a bizarre experimental art piece of heightened intensity: the results are weird, sinister and humorous.”
Hung, Drawn and Quartered (2019) By Michael Higgins / Ireland-Switzerland / 3mins Entirely shot one frame at a time the project looks at the craft of filmmaking filtered through thematic lenses of ritual, desire and horror, themes often found in genre film. It presents and examines some of the tools and elements that are involved to create such sensational effects while remaining fundamentally a very hands-on craft.”
The Underworld (2019) By Jann Clavadetscher / Ireland / 17 mins This hallucinatory trip through the psychedelic recesses of science fiction begins in the flickering bowels of the earth. An explorer played by Cillian Roche undergoes a bizarre mutation in which cinema itself might possibly play a part. Clavadetscher’s gorgeous 16mm colours and dazzlingly intense editing are underscored by a characteristic lightness of touch.
Homo Sapiens Project (161-170) (2013) By Rouzbeh Rashidi / Ireland / 8mins Cinema can function as a sketchbook – a way of exploring some of the possible lives of an idea. This is what we encounter in Rashidi’s visceral and abrasive Homo Sapiens Project (161170) in which he takes apart and reassembles a 35mm trailer for Brain De Palma’s little-loved The Black Dahlia (2006). This interaction with a seemingly alien Hollywood film culture feels like a form of archaeology; he returns to 35mm material as artefact, and what he uncovers there is a realm of possibility, not only what the artefact is but the furthest realms of what the artefact could have been. Foregrounding discarded, depreciated or flea market-sourced media, collected and re-used without any sense of mawkishness or nostalgia, Rashidi produces a reflexivity which transcends any impassive or non-emotive qualities associated with the genre.
Antler (2018) By Atoosa Pour Hosseini / Ireland / 15mins Atoosa Pour Hosseini’s work with Super-8 conjures a mysterious territory that exists between memory, subjective perception and the objective materiality of the filmed image. Antler pushes deeper into this realm, seamlessly combining archival footage of animals and reptiles in their habitats with newly filmed material of the artist and an assistant at work in a botanical garden. Inspired by the famous Voynich Manuscript, a 15th century book written in an unknown language and featuring detailed drawings of plants that do not exist, Antler transforms a botanical garden greenhouse into a laboratory of perception and a film set. Nature sampled and presented for study in this setting is equated with natural phenomena framed and captured on film. But rather than taming or normalising nature, these study aids function as cues to oneiric immersion in a vivid but utterly elusive world. The sensuous, painterly quality …at large under the sun… (2020) By of Pour Hosseini’s visual style results Maximilian Le Cain / Ireland / 10mins in a hauntingly introspective, out-of...at large under the sun... is a new short time atmosphere that is heightened by film, a lyrical post-apocalyptic diary mov- Karen Power’s unsettling sound track. ie for 2020 imbued with an irrepressible chthonic joyfulness that erupts from broken stone and broken birds.