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Cinema Elvire Popesco -
Saturday, December 13, 2014 - 17:30
Written by:
Yael Bartana
Cinematography:
Itai Neeman, Mick van Rossum
Editing:
Yael Bartana
Sound:
Daniel Meir
Producer:
Naama Pyritz
Production:
My-i Productions
Romanian premiere
In Yael Bartana’s INFERNO, religion and its symbolism’s (mis)appropriations take front stage, in a film of epic proportions. In present-day São Paulo, Brazil, the inauguration of The Third Temple of Solomon turns from jubilant celebration to horrific apocalypse. Bartana opts to tell this story without dialogue, relying on a glossy, Hollywood style to transport this Biblical event in the present. As much as it is a high-budget disaster film, Inferno ultimately becomes a multi-layered commentary on religion, history and the politics of their conflation by today’s seemingly amnesiac collective memory. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)
Director:
YAEL BARTANA’s films, installations and photographs explore the imagery of identity and the politics of memory. Her starting point is the national consciousness propagated by her native country Israel. Central to the work are meanings implied by terms like homeland, return and belonging. Bartana investigates these through the ceremonies, public rituals and social diversions that are intended to reaffirm the collective identity of the nation state. In her Israeli projects, Bartana dealt with the impact of war, military rituals and a sense of threat on every-day life. Her filmography includes: ASSASSINATION, WALL AND TOWER, THE RECORDER PLAYER FROM SHEIKH JARRAH, or NIGHTMARES.
Website:
Contact:
studio[at]my-i[dot]com
Festivals, awards:
- Rotterdam International Film Festival 2014
- Berlin International Film Festival 2014
- Sydney Biennale 2014
- São Paulo Art Biennial
- Pérez Art Museum Miami 2013
Director's statement:
The starting point of INFERNO is the current construction of the third Temple of Solomon (Templo de Salmão) in São Paulo by a Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal Church. Built to biblical specifications, this new temple will be a replica of the first temple in Jerusalem, the violent destruction of which signalled the diaspora of the Jewish people in the 6th century BCE. Inferno confronts this conflation of place, history, and belief, providing insight into the complex realities of Latin America that have given rise to the temple project. Shot and edited with stylistic references to Hollywood action epics, the film employs what I refer to as «historical pre enactment», a methodology that commingles fact and fiction, prophecy and history. This work addresses the grandiose temple project through a vision of its future: does its construction necessarily foreshadow its destruction? Using a powerful cinematic language, Inferno collapses histories of antiquity in the Middle East with a surreal present unfolding halfway around the world. (Yael Bartana)
The starting point of INFERNO is the current construction of the third Temple of Solomon (Templo de Salmão) in São Paulo by a Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal Church. Built to biblical specifications, this new temple will be a replica of the first temple in Jerusalem, the violent destruction of which signalled the diaspora of the Jewish people in the 6th century BCE. Inferno confronts this conflation of place, history, and belief, providing insight into the complex realities of Latin America that have given rise to the temple project. Shot and edited with stylistic references to Hollywood action epics, the film employs what I refer to as «historical pre enactment», a methodology that commingles fact and fiction, prophecy and history. This work addresses the grandiose temple project through a vision of its future: does its construction necessarily foreshadow its destruction? Using a powerful cinematic language, Inferno collapses histories of antiquity in the Middle East with a surreal present unfolding halfway around the world. (Yael Bartana)