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International Competition - Urban Ghosts: Between Foreboding and Nostalgia
Curatorial presentation by Andrei Tănăsescu
In today’s hyper-digital-and-(re)active world, we seem to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Our contemporary transient existence (post-post-modern?) leaves behind uninhabited spaces that still retain traces of our passing - be they virtual, material or metaphysical. How does one reconcile humanity’s absence of presence (or, presence of absence) in the 21st century? Under cinema’s scrupulous investigating lens of formal experimentation, these seven films exorcise the spectral traces of foreboding and nostalgia left behind by the Urban (human) Ghosts that inhabit them. In their journey, the films channel a metaphysical flâneur, recalling Baudelaire’s cinematic traveller, who looks its surroundings for the ties that bind the vestiges of humanity left behind.
Serving as an apt prologue to the thematic odyssey is Douwe Dijkstra’s DÉMONTABLE, a film that transforms our domestic space into a world reminiscent of Gulliver’s Travels, invaded by miniature projections of the outside world (as defined and constructed by the mass-media). "The level of media saturation we’re bombarded with creates an absurd distortion and distance between our daily routine and current affairs. DÉMONTABLE explores this bizarre melange of realities by throwing the two worlds together: attack helicopters shred a newspaper, while a dinner plate suffers a drone strike. They’re a series of attempts to try and understand our world better by playing with its violent protagonists." (Douwe Dijkstra). Screening possible courtesy of LIMA Amsterdam.
With the wall of reality broken down, Ulu Braun’s BIRDS provides a canted look at the human presence in urban spaces through the primordial, prehistoric perspective of the titular animals. Breaking down societal construction by hinting at a dormant danger through a mesmerizing Hitchcockian visual study in ornithology, Braun pushes cinematic pedagogy to cerebral limits. He observes Earth’s winged inhabitants from up close, looking to their ominous and omniscient presence that watches over us in quiet surveillance. Associative editing brings out the sinuous elegance of wild and domestic birds, positioning them against the glamour and refuse of urban cities shaped by human civilization. A cohabitation of prehistoric lineage estranged by an abstract soundtrack, this unlikely pairing of fowl and man becomes a premonitory reminder of the fallacy of modern civilization’s progress. The screening of this film is possible thanks to the support offered by German Films.
Continuing the tension omnipresent in mankind’s existence, EMERGENCY CALLS (nominated for the European Film Awards 2014) is an intense vision of human distress, composed to pitch-perfect tension between recordings of various people in varying states of peril and the guiding guardians of safety to whom they reach out to. Through a tense musical score, disembodied voices and visuals that underline mankind’s microscopic existence in the universe, co-directors Hannes Vartiainen and Pekka Veikkolainen construct a palpable sense of imminent danger. From its midst, the viewer escapes as a spectral witness, privy to the fragility of its own human life and the unseen guarding forces that restore order to our natural world.
Moving from the universal to the specific, in STORM IS COMING the plight of mankind is contoured in an indirect fashion by the absent presence of interviewed Romanian immigrants as the transcript of their words are overlain against a grey, rainy French countryside, retaining its idyllic beauty. Through fixed long takes and muted field recordings, visual artist Daniel Djamo engages us to read and thus embody voices that recount the varied experiences earning a living on the streets of Paris. In this process of identification, the practical when and how of the titular tempest give way to the metaphysical where and why, allowing Djamo to bring to life the spectres of migrants' experiences within the viewer. Reconciled and contradictory, heart wrenching and deeply poignant, these are the collective voices of our contemporary, human condition.
Arash Nassiri’s TEHRAN-GELES shifts spatial monitoring to a Los Angeles-ian Tehran, where “recorded phone calls relate memories of events that took place in Tehran. These stories refer us to the city’s past. In the 70s and 80s the reality of American life was projected onto Tehran’s social and urban fabric. The music, clothes, cars, boulevards and motorways of Iran echoed that way of life. The revolution brought this period to an end. Like science fiction cinema, in which the present of a city is projected into the future, this video projects the past of Tehran into the present, taking Los Angeles as a setting.” (Le Fresnoy)
Migratory ghosts return to assert their existence in Artur Boruzs’s NEW YEAR’S EVE 2014. On the 1st of January, 2014, UK visa restrictions for Romanian workers were lifted, prompting fears of an impending invasion. Avoiding the news coverage of British reaction, New Year's Eve 2014 looks, rather, at the hypothetical results in Romania. Local TV news fragments ferment the hysteria while the streets blink their neon lights in a deserted city. Utopia turns to dystopia, where an abandoned Romania is left to ponder its future. Deliberate and foreboding, Boruzs’ satire turns to science-fiction, offering a timely alternative to the underlying issue of global overpopulation.
Moving beyond the physical realm, Daniel Moshel’s METUBE consolidates the ephemeral presence of our internet identities. Famous opera tenor August Schram plays the balding, meek protagonist whose self-recorded performance of Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen is interrupted by his doting mother. From there, Metube’s one-man show unleashes a flurry of genre-and-gender benders, reflecting the internet kaleidoscopic personalities. As the film tango(e)s on, the mirroring effect celebrates both the artistic spirit of YouTubers, as well as our aspiring, inner diva. This screening is made possible with the support of Sixpackfilm and the Austrian Cultural Forum.
Serving as an apt prologue to the thematic odyssey is Douwe Dijkstra’s DÉMONTABLE, a film that transforms our domestic space into a world reminiscent of Gulliver’s Travels, invaded by miniature projections of the outside world (as defined and constructed by the mass-media). "The level of media saturation we’re bombarded with creates an absurd distortion and distance between our daily routine and current affairs. DÉMONTABLE explores this bizarre melange of realities by throwing the two worlds together: attack helicopters shred a newspaper, while a dinner plate suffers a drone strike. They’re a series of attempts to try and understand our world better by playing with its violent protagonists." (Douwe Dijkstra). Screening possible courtesy of LIMA Amsterdam.
With the wall of reality broken down, Ulu Braun’s BIRDS provides a canted look at the human presence in urban spaces through the primordial, prehistoric perspective of the titular animals. Breaking down societal construction by hinting at a dormant danger through a mesmerizing Hitchcockian visual study in ornithology, Braun pushes cinematic pedagogy to cerebral limits. He observes Earth’s winged inhabitants from up close, looking to their ominous and omniscient presence that watches over us in quiet surveillance. Associative editing brings out the sinuous elegance of wild and domestic birds, positioning them against the glamour and refuse of urban cities shaped by human civilization. A cohabitation of prehistoric lineage estranged by an abstract soundtrack, this unlikely pairing of fowl and man becomes a premonitory reminder of the fallacy of modern civilization’s progress. The screening of this film is possible thanks to the support offered by German Films.
Continuing the tension omnipresent in mankind’s existence, EMERGENCY CALLS (nominated for the European Film Awards 2014) is an intense vision of human distress, composed to pitch-perfect tension between recordings of various people in varying states of peril and the guiding guardians of safety to whom they reach out to. Through a tense musical score, disembodied voices and visuals that underline mankind’s microscopic existence in the universe, co-directors Hannes Vartiainen and Pekka Veikkolainen construct a palpable sense of imminent danger. From its midst, the viewer escapes as a spectral witness, privy to the fragility of its own human life and the unseen guarding forces that restore order to our natural world.
Moving from the universal to the specific, in STORM IS COMING the plight of mankind is contoured in an indirect fashion by the absent presence of interviewed Romanian immigrants as the transcript of their words are overlain against a grey, rainy French countryside, retaining its idyllic beauty. Through fixed long takes and muted field recordings, visual artist Daniel Djamo engages us to read and thus embody voices that recount the varied experiences earning a living on the streets of Paris. In this process of identification, the practical when and how of the titular tempest give way to the metaphysical where and why, allowing Djamo to bring to life the spectres of migrants' experiences within the viewer. Reconciled and contradictory, heart wrenching and deeply poignant, these are the collective voices of our contemporary, human condition.
Arash Nassiri’s TEHRAN-GELES shifts spatial monitoring to a Los Angeles-ian Tehran, where “recorded phone calls relate memories of events that took place in Tehran. These stories refer us to the city’s past. In the 70s and 80s the reality of American life was projected onto Tehran’s social and urban fabric. The music, clothes, cars, boulevards and motorways of Iran echoed that way of life. The revolution brought this period to an end. Like science fiction cinema, in which the present of a city is projected into the future, this video projects the past of Tehran into the present, taking Los Angeles as a setting.” (Le Fresnoy)
Migratory ghosts return to assert their existence in Artur Boruzs’s NEW YEAR’S EVE 2014. On the 1st of January, 2014, UK visa restrictions for Romanian workers were lifted, prompting fears of an impending invasion. Avoiding the news coverage of British reaction, New Year's Eve 2014 looks, rather, at the hypothetical results in Romania. Local TV news fragments ferment the hysteria while the streets blink their neon lights in a deserted city. Utopia turns to dystopia, where an abandoned Romania is left to ponder its future. Deliberate and foreboding, Boruzs’ satire turns to science-fiction, offering a timely alternative to the underlying issue of global overpopulation.
Moving beyond the physical realm, Daniel Moshel’s METUBE consolidates the ephemeral presence of our internet identities. Famous opera tenor August Schram plays the balding, meek protagonist whose self-recorded performance of Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen is interrupted by his doting mother. From there, Metube’s one-man show unleashes a flurry of genre-and-gender benders, reflecting the internet kaleidoscopic personalities. As the film tango(e)s on, the mirroring effect celebrates both the artistic spirit of YouTubers, as well as our aspiring, inner diva. This screening is made possible with the support of Sixpackfilm and the Austrian Cultural Forum.
