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Cinema Elvire Popesco -
Sunday, December 14, 2014 - 16:30
Cinematography:
Maria Kourkouta
Editing:
Maria Kourkouta
Sound:
Maria Kourkouta
Music:
Manos Hadjidakis
Producer:
Maria Kourkouta
Romanian premiere
A lyrical portrait of Greek identity, Maria Kourkouta’s RETURN TO AEOLUS STREET (ARTE Award - Oberhausen 2014) navigates the wandering ghosts of history that long for life’s vitality. Black and white fragments of popular Greek films are looped, superimposed and slowed down in a balletic chiaroscuro while poetic passages are narrated over melancholy piano pieces. The result is an engrossing audio-visual poem whose hypnotic gaze into a collective consciousness resuscitates its memory and reinvigorates its dormant desires. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)
Director:
MARIA KOURKOUTA was born in Greece and studied History of Balkans there. She attended post-graduate cinematography studies in Paris and has been member of French artist-run film laboratories, such as L’Etna, L’Abominable. Her filmography includes: FAREWELL TO THE WEST (2014), PRELUDE 10 (ANALYSA) (2012), THE LAST MEN (2012) and PRELUDES 02, 03, 06, 07 (2008-2011).
Contact:
entr.acte95[at]gmail[dot]com
Festivals, awards:
- ARTE Prize for European Short Film - Oberhausen International Short Film Festival 2014
- Jury Prize - Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux - Paris 2013
- Festival international du cinéma méditerranéen - Montpellier 2013
- Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains - Lille 2014
- New Horizons Film Festival - Wroclaw 2014
- São Paulo Short Film Festival 2014
- Festcurtas Belo Horizonte Film Festival 2014
- Message to Man Film Festival - St. Petersburg 2014
Director's statement:
I believe that experimental cinema always has the possibility to keep or reveal the secrets of time. In my film, RETURN TO AEOLUS STREET, I worked with materials of old Greek movies of '50s and '60s. I wanted to disclose the fragments of the concentrated time closed inside them. Inevitably, I talked about the historical time of Greece, as recorded - without realizing it - in our consciousness. In the heart of cinema, politics and poetry, there is something that escapes from the form and the narration. With this found footage movie, I tried to feel and fumble what escapes from them and even from our gaze. (Maria Kourkouta)
Curator's comment:
A filmmaker performs cultural memory in her effort to reclaim a sense of belonging. With passionate use of appropriated filmic materials, poetry, text and music, Return to Aeolus Street is a multi-layered and evocative work of film art. (Oberhausen Jury Statement)
I believe that experimental cinema always has the possibility to keep or reveal the secrets of time. In my film, RETURN TO AEOLUS STREET, I worked with materials of old Greek movies of '50s and '60s. I wanted to disclose the fragments of the concentrated time closed inside them. Inevitably, I talked about the historical time of Greece, as recorded - without realizing it - in our consciousness. In the heart of cinema, politics and poetry, there is something that escapes from the form and the narration. With this found footage movie, I tried to feel and fumble what escapes from them and even from our gaze. (Maria Kourkouta)
Curator's comment:
A filmmaker performs cultural memory in her effort to reclaim a sense of belonging. With passionate use of appropriated filmic materials, poetry, text and music, Return to Aeolus Street is a multi-layered and evocative work of film art. (Oberhausen Jury Statement)