Les Rencontres Internationales — Jeudi 4 décembre — La Gaîté lyrique — Screening — Slash Paris

Past: Thursday, December 4, 2014 at 2:15 PM

Replay — 14h15 — Auditorium

Thomas Kneubühler : Forward Looking Statements 

Documentaire exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:03:47 — Canada, Canada — 2014 


A conference call by investors of a planned iron mine provides the soundtrack for a ride over the land which the company wants to exploit. The land in question is a traditional hunting ground for the Inuit community of Aupaluk, located in Canada`s far North. The village has already been relocated in the 1980 and is now again under threat. The term “forward looking statements” is used in the world of investors to describe future events which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties.

Ana Vaz : Occidente 

Documentaire exp. — 16mm — couleur — 00:15:20 — Brésil — 2014 


Antiques become reproducible dinner sets, exotic birds become luxury currency, exploration becomes extreme-sport-tourism, monuments become geodata. A film-poem of an ecology of signs tracing a colonial history repeating itself: celebration and power relations, objects and fetishes, roots and branches, power and class relations in a struggle to find ones` place, ones` sitting around a table.

Carlos Motta : Nefandus

Vidéo — hdv — couleur — 00:13:04 — Colombie — 2013 


In Nefandus two men travel by canoe down the Don Diego river in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the Colombian Caribbean, a landscape of “wild” beauty. The men, an indigenous man and a Spanish speaking man, tell stories about pecados nefandos [unspeakable sins, abominable crimes]; acts of sodomy that took place in the Americas during the conquest. It has been documented that Spanish conquistadores used sex as a weapon of domination, but what is known about homoerotic pre-Hispanic traditions? How did Christian morality, as taught by the Catholic missions and propagated through war during the Conquest, transform the natives’ relationship to sex? Nefandus attentively looks at the landscape, its movement and its sounds for clues of stories that remain untold and have been largely ignored and stigmatized in historical accounts.

Elke Marhöfer : Prendas — Ngangas — Enquisos — Machines {each part welcomes the other without saying} 

Documentaire exp. — 16mm — couleur — 00:25:50 — Allemagne, Cuba — 2014 


A film shot in Cuba. Not an anthropological film, nor a narrative documentary or a film essay, but certainly a film concerned with foreignness and difference. Mostly shot in the hilly communes of Yateras, searching for long disappeared clandestine settlements, so-called palenque, where African slaves, Taínos and Chinese forced laborers, freed themselves from colonial violence, the film narrates a sense of place, which is real and imaginary at the same time. It questions, if it possible to communicate something of the soul of a place, steeped in histories of revolution and dissidence, without relying on didacticism or storytelling, without taking recourse on hierarchical distinctions between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the animate and the inanimate, the macro and the micro? Wondering what heritage (colonial) anthropology leaves behind, or rather, if it is possible to escape from the systems of signification that constitute foreignness, without getting detached from the palpable realities of the world? What if there was a way to approach the foreign by relying on the affects of the world that pass through us, giving way to perceptive cartographies, mapping out nameless intensities and collective sensitivities, leaving space for the non-human, including vegetables and animals that colonized the New Land? In this film, Cuba does not appear as an “outside” to a “Western” inside, but as a sensible texture without anchor or vanishing point, where humans are a part of the composition rather than the principal element.

Assila Cherfi : Replay 

Vidéo — jpeg animation — couleur — 00:01:31 — Algérie — 2014 


(French only) Les images utilisées dans cette vidéo proviennent du milieu des années 50 : une guerre relatée par des images. On y voit des images des personnes qui vivaient la guerre, de personnes qui faisaient des images pendant cette guerre, de personnes qui voient des images d’elles-mêmes pendant la guerre, qui écoutent , qui raisonnent et qui interagissent. Ce triangle évoque le mécanisme de l’image médiatique : d’où elle provient, par qui elle est faite, à qui elle est destinée. Une attention particulière est réservée à ceux qui produisaient ces contenus : les photographes, cadreurs et preneurs de son de chaque camp qui ont nourri la même histoire et utilisant les mêmes outils.

Sj Ramir : In This Valley, My Heart Is Buried Deep

Film exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:06:07 — Nouvelle-Zélande — 2014 


“On the morning of my death — just after sunrise, and before my spirit had departed, a mysterious figure entered the house… “ In This Valley My Heart Is Buried Deep, is an experimental narrative that uses a combination of visuals and text. Based on an actual dream, the video explores what it means to belong; connection to the land; connection to a place…

Louise Botkay : Vertières I,II,III

Film exp. — super8 — couleur — 00:09:36 — Brésil, Haïti — 2014

(French only) Vertières est le nom d’un quartier de la ville du Cap-Haïtien où, en 1803, a eu lieux la grande bataille qui a fini par expulser l`armée de Napoléon de l’île, Haïti à ce moment devient le premier pays au monde a conquérir son indépendance face aux puissances colonialistes.

Capital indécis — 16h00 — Auditorium

Jesse Sugarmann : We Build Excitement

Vidéo — hdv — couleur — 00:03:35 — USA — 2013 


We Build Excitement is a series of performances and videos examining the evolution of the American auto industry as a parallel to shifting American identity. Starting two years ago, Sugarmann opened (and plans to continue opening) unsanctioned Pontiac dealerships in former Pontiac dealership locations across the United States. He activates these dealerships as sites of celebration, honoring both the American auto worker and our fraught, intimate relationships to cars themselves. Assembling temporary modernist monuments with Pontiac cars, Sugarmann gives form to the precarious nature of the auto industry. And in video works, he documents laid-off assembly line workers and car accident victims recreating the movements of their former jobs and crashes, respectively. Their deadpan choreography forms a moving homage to the mundane and the traumatic moments in both the birth and death of the automobile.

Benjamin Dufour, Régis Feugère : Few times, few places

Documentaire exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:10:44 — France, Luxembourg — 2013 


(French only) Le paysage européen actuel tel que nous le connaissons est en grande partie le résultat de siècles d’aménagements, de décisions, visant à accompagner le développement de l’Homme sur son territoire. Nous contemplons le plus souvent un paysage manufacturé, continuellement en chantier. Ce gigantesque chantier est le fruit de choix émanant d’institutions publiques ou privées, démocratiques ou non. Diverses activités humaines, juridiques, politiques ou économiques rythment et modifient l’environnement en permanence. Few times, few places dresse un portrait des lieux dans lesquels ces activités sont concentrées. La notion de paysage évoque parfois une surface sur laquelle on pose un regard. Ici, il s’agit de remonter à la source de cette surface.

Tomas Hendriks : Decision Pending

Documentaire exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:29:55 — Belgique — 2014 


Decision Pending is an alienating observation of politicians stuck in the daily routines of decision making. During committee meetings and plenary sessions everyone seems under the spell of difficult decisions that have to be made. Decision Pending is a non-political film about politics, which unfolds itself as an audiovisual symphony.

Matthew Verdon : Water finds its own level

Vidéo — hdv — couleur — 00:10:17 — Australie — 2013

The work questions the conflation of abstractions such as economic growth and finance with organic natural processes. We hear of flows of capital and liquid assets, but can such dematerialised entities be equated with the movement of water that inherently acts under the influence of natural laws and gravity? Here nature is utilised in an attempt to give monetary concepts and mechanisms a form of naturalised comprehensibility, but perhaps both operate in fundamentally differing ways. This is highlighted in the work through featuring varying uses of running water in relation to accumulation and change over time. Ranging from a biomorphic corporate bank building surrounded by traditional water gardens, to cotton irrigation and fluctuating commodity prices, to a subversion of a Richard Serra’s 1968 film “Hand catching lead”, natural, historical and cultural references are appropriated in order to create a narrative that examines an equation that seems somewhat ubiquitous today.

Loïc Vanderstichelen : Every woman should have the tools to take control of her life

Fiction — hdv — couleur — 00:20:05 — Belgique — 2014

(French only) Son accent est la seule chose que l`on sait d`elle, sa réputation s`est faite en transformant des situations complexes en objets simples. Elle gravite dans les consortiums, hubs et autre méga-structures fluctuantes . On lui doit quelques orientations primordiales prisent par notre société ces dernières années. Un quotidien qui justement signifie que la chose doit être réglée dans la journée.


Magnus Bärtås : Miraklet i Tensta (Theoria)

Documentaire exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:16:36 — Suède — 2014

Theoria is the Greek word for talking about something witnessed. If, during ancient times, someone during a travel experienced an extraordinary event a theoria was performed when the witness returned home. Philosophers talked in terms of “ritualized visuality” that received a political significance where the person lived, and the important part of a theoria was the social situation when the witness shared his experiences. The theoria that is dealt with in the film is based on the events that took place in a suburb of Stockholm, Tensta, in August 2012. A young girl borrowed her mother’s smartphone and took a photograph of a peculiar cloud in the sky. The image, that started to circulate on social media, was interpreted as an apparition of the Virgin Mary by many residents of Tensta. Thousands of people gathered in the local Syrian Orthodox church and again the miracle was witnessed, both in the condensation in the windows and in the trees outside the church. The story of the miracle in Tensta disappeared very quickly from mainstream media, but lived on different online discussion sites. In the film seven local residents perform a whispering reading of a manuscript written from these online discussions. The reading is combined with documentary footages from the church. The textual quality is emphasized and contrasted to the ecstatic situation and the documentary images where viewer has to ask her self what she is really seeing.

Tempête au dessus de Londres — 18h00 — Auditorium

Rajee Samarasinghe : Untitled (Horse)

A symbiotic collaboration in movie motion. After Muybridge.

Rajee Samarasinghe is a relatively young imagemaker, once upon a time Sri Lankan. He makes fake narratives and destructive formal experiments. He aspires to make videos of a respectable length and standard. Rajee attended the University of California, San Diego and is currently an MFA candidate at the California Institute of the Arts.

Documentaire exp. — hdv — noir et blanc — 00:04:23 — Sri Lanka, USA — 2014 


Julius Ziz, Louis Benassi : Storm over London

Fiction exp. — hdv — noir et blanc — 00:36:00 — USA — 2014

Storm over London is a film that seemingly uses the tropes of narrative however the film hesitates to make a conclusion instead it take us into a journey of speculation.There is a storm brewing in London, there are riots in the streets. Who is that person laying on the bed? And what`s all this about a fly. Storm over London is an enigmatic,surrealist detective story with a touch of Kafka.

Inversion des rôles — 19h00 — Auditorium

Eelyn Lee : An Ealing Trilogy

Vidéo — hdv — couleur — 00:07:46 — Royaume-Uni — 2014 


An Ealing Trilogy is a response to selected portraits from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. Commissioned by the gallery, the film re-invents the lives of inspirational people who have links to Ealing, West London including Dusty Springfield, Charlie Chaplin and Freddie Mercury. Tableaux imagery is combined with an abstract soundscape to create a captivating slow motion film portrait of people and places from a west London borough.

Piotr Blajerski : Uncertainty

Fiction exp. — hdv — noir et blanc — 00:08:00 — Pologne — 2014 


The short film UNCERTAINTY is like Ouroboros, has no beginning and no end. The important aspect of the plot is constant change of the perspective between the observer and the observed person. This endless inversion and slow close-ups create the atmosphere of uncanny epidemic. Uncertainty is the effect of being infected by a microbe which forced a victim to intense observation of the surrounding world. The final aim is to not get concentrated on any specific element or quality but to exceed the cognitive habits. The suspended certainty of the existence forces all observers to look through the images of so-called reality. Their behavior may look absurdly, although it’s based on the promise given by our culture: there must be something beyond the visible world.

lla Raidel : Play Life Series

Documentaire exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:11:00 — Autriche, Chine — 2011 


Ella Raidel’s video Play Life Serie exposes its own methods right from the start. We see film shoots and film sites where Chinese soap operas are produced. As the camera pans to film teams and cameramen, the fictional content of the rehearsed scenes is interrupted and revealed as the process of making-of. At the same time, through editing, Raidel replays particular movements, handholds, and gestures of the characters, thus intensifying their serial level. The repetitions make clear the extent to which sword fights, wine, love, and revolt are part of a medially represented repertoire of gestures. Ella Raidel’s work deals ironically with the Chinese soap opera as fake-factory of collective desires, which in the interplay of fiction and making-of, forces its way through reality, scrutinizing it—as site of image making and image controlling.

Willoh S. Weiland : Finale

Vidéo — hdv — couleur — 00:15:22 — Australie — 2013

Finale is a short film that follows one man`s journey to the silver screen, inspired by and starring un-sung local hero Evan Knoble alongside senior marching ladies, motorcycle clubs, community orchestras and primary school students. Finale merges the essence of a musical with contributions from a diverse range of local community groups located in the Mornington Peninsular of Victoria, Australia. The nostalgia associated with Drive In Cinemas unfolds alongside the local wild natural landscapes to create a journey of longing and commitment. Finale merges the surreal with wild natural landscapes to create a dark portrait of our longing for that one moment of fame. Finale was created by Aphids with its key artists collaboratively writing, creating and producing the work.


Katarzyna Pacura, Jan Szewczyk : Ocean

Vidéo — hdv — couleur — 00:04:09 — Pologne — 2014

The piece “Ocean” was originally a conceptually designed, visual statement for a song by dutch musician, Olivier Heim. Looking for a connection between lyrics and aesthetics, we found main inspiration in the masterpiece by Alain Resnains “Last year in Marienbad”. As we didn`t want to copy and repeat exactly the same sequences of shots, we were just searching for an universal code, which made that kind of poetics legendary and original. The most important became, how to transfer contemporary sound and looks (meaning ; cinematography, style) into something classic and the other way round. What makes the classics attractive? We consider elegance in filmmaking as our motto and something that should be popular again.


Jeannette Castioni : Everywhere´s local

Vidéo — hdv — couleur — 00:06:00 — Islande — 2014

Public and private spaces make people develop political and social questions reaching beyond localities, widening questions about their role in the formation of political subjectivity. “Everyweher´s local “ intend to examine how conventions about mobility as counter resistance affects identities of individuals and small communities as well as in working places and private locations; how these conventions speaks about subjectivity ; their way of quest political and social visibility, and whether actions of reciprocity might be the source of mutual support allowing civilians to activate endurance in the development of social structures. The piece investigate the role of the aesthetic vision within the process of objectification, juxtaposing documents of daily practices where individual actions becomes the apparatus that institutions uses to master control and by doing so reducing civilians as objects. Spaces creates distinctive features for subjectivity to be activated where meanings of defiance alongside civil resistance are deepened inside description of subjectivity within differentiation of forms. Where actions are endorsed by connotation and not by their visible value. Interpretation of actions are investigated as potential fields, where their manifestations compared coloured smokes, aim to empower people visibility and at the same times longing to dismiss a system.


Konstantina Kotzamani : Washingtonia

Fiction exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:24:00 — Grèce — 2014

Washingtonia starts when the giraffes heart can no longer be heard. Washingtonia is an alternative name for Athens, a place where people, like animals, fall into summertime sadness because of the heat. Washingtonia is the only palm tree that its heart is not devoured by the red beetle. Because it`s heart is small and dry and no one likes small and dry hearts.

Temps d’arrêt — 21h00 — Auditorium


Dan Perez, Benjamin Klintoe : Cantine

Fiction exp. — hdv — couleur — 00:32:16 — France — 2013 


(French only) Ismaël est venu en France dans l`espoir de trouver le pardon. Ex-prisonnier, il a quitté les Etats Unis pour Paris, où il pense trouver calme et paix. Il atterrit finalement dans une zone sinistrée de la banlieue parisienne. Il déambule à la bordure du périphérique et, parfois, il tente d’oublier ses démons dans un sommeil trouble et agité. Des souvenirs de son enfance viennent le hanter alors que la vie en France semble être de plus en plus difficile, entre contrition et abandon.


Michael Hanna : Three short films about learning

Vidéo — hdv — couleur et n&b — 00:08:57 — Irlande — 2014

The Belfast Exposed photography archive contains over half a million images produced by community groups, amateur and professional photographers over the past 30 years. It represents a valuable historical document recording political, cultural and social change in Northern Ireland over these 3 decades. Since 2001 Belfast Exposed have been commissioning artists to produce work using this archive as raw material, previous artists include Duncan Campbell and Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin. Three Short Films about Learning is a latest project to be commissioned in this series. The work juxtaposes a selection of images taken from the archive with excerpts from a lecture series outlining theories of social and environmental psychology. The lecture series is Introduction to Psychology by Paul Bloom, made available by Yale University through the free online learning platform Academic Earth. The archive imagery includes marches, masked gunmen at funerals, and paramilitary punishments. The rhythm of the speech varies throughout from carefully measured statements to free flowing thoughts, and the images are timed to mirror this rhythm.



Teboho Joscha Edkins : Gangster Backstage

Documentaire — hdv — couleur — 00:37:30 — Afrique du Sud — 2013

Gangster Backstage is a documentary film with gangsters in Cape Town, South Africa. As the film moves between a casting interview and scenes in an empty theatre, the sense of confinement within the space increases and becomes a feeling of being trapped, a square, boundaries, a sort of purgatory, the tempo of cigarettes, not knowing where the soul goes, fear, caught in one`s thoughts, wanting to break free but can`t… a cell.