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CinemaPRO -
Friday, December 12, 2014 - 20:30
Cinematography:
Krisztina Kerekes
Editing:
Alexei Dmitriev
Sound:
Alexei Dmitriev
Romanian premiere
THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE looks at the hidden pleasures that lurk behind and in-between the artefacts of VHS adult films. An invisible protagonist starts a video cassette. The enigmatic smile of a young girl fills the screen, in slow motion, making us imagine an unrequited love story between her and the unseen character. Yet, as the source-material begins to censor itself via its unstable image calibration, the film gets fast-forwarded by the typical impatient viewer and the supposed “love story” takes an unexpected turn. Alexei Dmitriev plays freely with the viewer’s expectations, while exploring the possibility of reshaping the semantics of the images by manipulating their sound and taking them out of context. (Andrei Tănăsescu & Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF)
Director:
ALEXEI DMITRIEV was born in Russia in 1986. He used to teach English and literature, and now he works as a visual artist, curator and programmer. His filmography includes the short films HERMENEUTICS (2012), ABSTRACT? (2009) and DUBUS (2005).
Contact:
alexei.v.dmitriev[at]gmail[dot]com
Festivals, awards:
- Best Experimental Film - Kratkofil Plus Bosnia Herzegovina 2014
- Edinburgh International Film Festival 2014
- Milano Film Fesival 2014
- DokumentART European Film Festival for Documentaries, Neubrandenburg 2014
Director's statement:
I was watching a porn film for recreational purposes in which I saw a laughing girl whose partners were clearly uncomfortable with the fact that she was having fun. So I’ve decided to make a film that explores the female beauty in a pornographic environment. (Alexei Dmitriev)
Curator's comment:
A blue screen. The smile of a young woman. Her lo-fi image is little more than an out-of-focus shadow on the screen, her ambiguous serenity suspended and amplified by slow motion and the notes of a piano: "The shadow of your smile… when you are gone // A teardrop kissed your lips and so did I", go the lyrics to this hit written in 1964 by Paul Francis Webster and Johnny Mandel, made famous by dozens of renditions. Alexei Dmitriev returns, after Hermeneutics, to work on the status of images and their possible re-semantization through the manipulation of sound: an old VHS, the unfading trace of images it holds, a declaration of love that is both affectionate and ironic at the same time. (Alessandro Uccelli, Milano Film Festival)
I was watching a porn film for recreational purposes in which I saw a laughing girl whose partners were clearly uncomfortable with the fact that she was having fun. So I’ve decided to make a film that explores the female beauty in a pornographic environment. (Alexei Dmitriev)
Curator's comment:
A blue screen. The smile of a young woman. Her lo-fi image is little more than an out-of-focus shadow on the screen, her ambiguous serenity suspended and amplified by slow motion and the notes of a piano: "The shadow of your smile… when you are gone // A teardrop kissed your lips and so did I", go the lyrics to this hit written in 1964 by Paul Francis Webster and Johnny Mandel, made famous by dozens of renditions. Alexei Dmitriev returns, after Hermeneutics, to work on the status of images and their possible re-semantization through the manipulation of sound: an old VHS, the unfading trace of images it holds, a declaration of love that is both affectionate and ironic at the same time. (Alessandro Uccelli, Milano Film Festival)