Beauty, conflicts, life, and simply being a human full of projects—some urgent, some not—that are waiting to come alive… The award winning works of Pebbles Underground Summer and Winter Screenings of 2024 are starting the year ahead, pushing us gently towards having an inquisitive mind, play, and new forms in 2025.
Please enjoy the Summer Award Winners Screenings, streaming on VISUALCONTAINERTV from January 15 to 31, followed by the Winter Award Winners Screening, airing from February 1 to 15.
BERENICE by Mario Lim Brown | USA (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
A man struggles to control his mania in the face of sickness and death.
The goal with this film was to experiment with boiling the elements of horror filmmaking down to their bare essentials. From initial scripting to final export, the process took four days and served as a challenge to myself to use as little pre-production, equipment, and postproduction time as possible to evoke feelings of suspense and dread.
Bio
Mario Brown is an independent filmmaker based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Rochester, New York. As a director, he has specialized in making low-budget, genre short films.
PHYSALIA by Ian Gibbins | Australia (2024) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
"corzee mol o emarlm eszee ... tsnyora snook snay nornse ... forcanlows sekmalafair nischniss seconlyaire”
Although Physalia, the Portuguese Man O' War, with its gas-filled float and tentacles bearing venomous stings, resembles a jellyfish, "like all siphonophores, it is a colonial organism made up of smaller units called zooids." (Quoted from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalia)
"Physalia" is derived from a Latin word meaning "bubble" or "bladder". Its stings (nematocysts) create intense burning pain and its neurotoxins can cause paralysis.
The "Man O’ War" was a sailing vessel developed by the Portuguese in the 16th century as a powerful warship, heavily armed with cannons. They were widely used by other European colonialists, including the British, French, Spanish and Dutch, well into the 19th Century. The strength of the Portuguese navy was instrumental in acquiring and maintaining its colonial empire from the 15th century until the 20th century when the last remnants of the empire were decolonised.
Physalia is a highly successful organism, widespread across the world's oceans. Nevertheless, its environment is under increasing threat from pollution and climate change. Its potent armoury of highly toxic stings is no match for this type of attack. Perhaps new forms of cryptic colonial zooids may evolve to reverse the damage... If they had the words, what would they tell us?
All the spoken text and its on-screen transcription is derived from mirror images, reversals and reflections of the Wikipedia quote. The Physalia biomorphs are variously constructed from Particle Illusion (Boris FX), coralline red algae, Muntrie flowers and Eucalypt flowers.
Primary source locations include Tarndanya / Adelaide CBD and parklands, Karrawirra Pari / River Torrens, Yertabulti / Port Adelaide, Kuarka-dorla / Anglesea River, and Kaarta Gar-up / Kings Park, Perth on the unceded lands of the Kaurna, Wadawurrung and Nyoongar peoples. Many of the buildings illustrated here date back to colonial 19th century Australia.
Bio
Ian Gibbins is a widely published and exhibited poet, video artist and electronic musician living in South Australia. His video poetry and video art have been shown to acclaim at festivals, galleries, and installations around the world. His audio and video work have been commissioned for several high-visibility public art programs. He has published four books of poetry, two in collaboration with artists. Until he retired in 2014, Ian was an internationally recognized neuroscientist and Professor of Anatomy at Flinders University, South Australia. For details of Ian’s creative work, visit www.iangibbins.com.au
COLEOPTERA by Christie Lynn Blizard | USA (2023) – JURY AWARD
“This is a recreation of a dream I had of turning into a beetle and is the third video in an operatic trilogy that explores extra-terrestrials, angels, transformation, and life after death.” Christie Blizard
Bio
Christie Blizard was born in rural Indiana and lives and works in Texas. Their work moves between music, poetry, and visual art in an attempt to understand what is beyond the death dimension. Since a communication with the ghost of Daniel Johnston in 2021, they have been working on their first full length album to be released in early 2024.
They were a participant of Skowhegan in 2018 and attended MacDowell and Artpace. Shows include those at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, School of Visual Arts, Black Mountain College, Good Morning America, the Roswell UFO Convention, and the Today show. They have been featured in Hyperallergic, ArtNews, Art in America, and NY Arts Magazine. Recent and upcoming performances include those at Cloaca Projects in San Francisco, Interference Fest in Austin, TX, Ballroom Marfa, Skowhegan headquarters in NYC, and an opera in Fort Worth, TX at the Cowtown Coliseum. They were recently selected by Christopher Lew for the Horizon Art Foundation in Los Angeles.
Director, camera, sound, editor, writer, choreographer, music: Christie Blizard
Vocal arrangements: Bronwyn White
Actors:
Bronwyn White as the Singing Angel
Anahita Younesi as the Birth Angel
Hannah Prince as the person who becomes a Beetle
F R A G M E N T E D by Ioulia Lymperopoulou | Greece (2023) – AUDIENCE AWARD
"I was inspired by my novel “The smudge” (Taxideftis-2021), seizing the opportunity to recreate on my story and characters and thus experimenting to enrich and deepen the already given material, in order to expand it to different levels. In a nutshell, the elements Ι played with were the fragments of thoughts, feelings and body, lost in the chaos of the human condition, trying to find their way out οf the labyrinth, in purpose of equilibration and restabilization. The body is used as an allegory, the house of psyche, where words, consciousness, unconsciousness, memory, experience are scattered and rediscovered in their wholeness. In this process, the connotated symbolism of death is conceived as restart and metamorphosis. Technically, fragmented images and phrases are clockwise seminated in the illustration, around the center and point of reference, as if trying to find their existential meaning by following the rhythm of life while struggling to become a complete entity." - Ioulia Lymperopoulou
Bio
Ioulia Lymperopoulou is a Greek Italian writer born in Athens, in 1978. She graduated from the Historical-Archaeological Faculty, Majoring in History, and attended a 2 year postgraduate study, in "Modern and Modern Greek and European History", with a thesis on German-language interwar literature, at the University of Ioannina. She worked on research projects, historical archives, and was involved in theatre, television and short film productions.
Directed, produced, illustrated, edited by Ioulia Lymperopoulou
Performers: Ioulia Lymperopoulou
Photographer: Katerina Cheiladaki
https://ioulia.gr/
TAMSARA by Michel Pavlou | France, Greece (2010) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
Rush hour in the corridors of the Paris metro. A wind-up doll, one of those cheap toys sold by peddlers on the fly, dances between the steps of hurried passers-by, their legs acting as a mechanical shutter bringing the object to life and highlighting the mechanization of the human movement. (“Tamzara” is a Turkish / Armenian folk tune / dance)
Bio
Michel Pavlou is a Greek visual artist and independent filmmaker who lives and works in Oslo and Brussels. His works have been shown and awarded since 1990 in numerous exhibitions and festivals in Rotterdam, Ann Arbor, Hamburg, São Paulo, Seoul, Berlin, Paris, Lisbon, Athens and Tehran among many others. Besides his focus on a moving image, he has worked in the areas of painting, photography, curatorship, theater scenography, poetry and music. He gained several grants, supports and fellowships for his visual researches, by international institutions, including the Norwegian State’s Guaranty Income for Artists (since 2012).
His raw filmic material consists mainly of scenes from everyday life, which he distorts to highlight the reversible relationships between present and past, between fiction and reality.
Year of production 2010
Shooting location : Paris
Production / residence country : Norway
Country of origin : Greece
Camera / editing / sound : Michel Pavlou
European premiere : Videoformes 2010, Clermont Ferrand
https://vimeo.com/user13497567
ASIDE by Marie Béland | Canada (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
In my choreographic work, I invite the public to perceive art and dance as systems that respond to the same rules as those governing our society, in particular those harmonizing relations between people. My works are sometimes radical and they discipline the undisciplined with precision and finesse. Their apparent carefree spirit reveals a thoughtful reflection on human nature and social issues: I address dance, spectacle and dance performances to reveal their undersides, their mechanisms and even their failings. I question the parameters of dance: its favoured codes, the way it invests the body and the stage, its clichés and its conventions, as metaphors of the codes and habits of our social fabric. What brings us together, what do we like, how do we react and why? Questioning the art of dance becomes a pretext to construct a portrait of the human being, its beauties, its desires, its failures. How dance, by its mechanisms and its trends, reflects the beings that we are and our individual, group and societal choices. My choreographic signature combines dynamic physicality, absurd humour, popular culture and public engagement in a construction of meaning that can both unsettle and delight. My movement aesthetic preoccupations are focused more and more on gestures that go beyond form to become a conveyor of the piece’s meaning, its proposition, its conceptual expression. The performers use the human body in all of its senses to become the incarnation of an idea and its expression. They do actions rather than execute shapes.The body is not the ends but the means. It is important that the meaning of the work emerges from the movement. I prioritize a “hybrid language”, a diversified vocabulary where movement, words and sounds overlap. My primary tool remains body movement but to go further in the transmission of my reflections to the public, I do not hesitate to mix different elements of artistic expression that are not necessarily those of dance. In my propositions, the eventual spectators’ experience is at the heart of the choreographic choices. I like to assume confidence in the intelligence of the spectator and to leave them the choice –the right –to their own experience with an artwork. My relationship with the public is frank and coloured with humour. For several years now, I have shared with viewers my preoccupations about performance by using them as creative motors, either by asking about dance appreciation through a reflection on its failings (Dieu ne t’a pas créé juste pour danser, 2008), or by x-raying a show to reveal its mechanisms, its backstage actions as well as its artifices (RAYON X: a true decoy story, 2010), or by giving the spectator the liberty to reconstruct the show from visual clues with only glimpses of the body (BEHIND: une danse dont vous êtes le héros, 2010), or by questioning the influence of images and words on the mediatized. body (BLEU –VERT –ROUGE, 2013) or, finally, by questioning the performers’ quest for authenticity in learning another’s role (Révélations, 2014). For each of these creations, I worked to propose a dance that was at once accessible and intelligible, one that relies as much on the entertaining aspect of performance as on its role as a mirror/critic of society.
Filmed within an installation that exposes participants to an incessant flow of radio news, ASIDE reveals the dysfunctions experienced by both adolescents and elderly as they navigate the differing frequencies of reality, at times overlapping, at times colliding. Each person thus becomes the blurred reflection of a pervasive desire to address others. While the original installation, RADIOMATON, explores ambient noise, ASIDE shifts this exploration to the silent noise within us.
Bio
For the past 20 years, Marie Béland has distinguished herself through works aimed at both general and young audiences, presented in theaters, festivals, and private and public spaces in Quebec, Canada, Europe, and Africa. Drawing from our various uses of the body and the gestures that make up our daily lives, Marie organizes ordinary movement to make it danceable and complex. The stage acts as a revealer of the troubled zones of fiction, interchanging truth, falsehood, and plausibility. Her creations approach live performance as a social and aesthetic phenomenon, an opportunity to study the transformations that our ordinary bodies undergo in contact with the stage. In 2019, Marie published her master’s thesis entitled "Cartographie de la scène: les forces en jeu dans le spectacle vivant," which seeks to question the object of performance and understand its workings. Recently, she has been exploring the medium of video with ASIDE.
Director: Marie Béland
Co Producers: Montréal Danse, MARIBÉ - SORS DE CE CORPS
Dramaturge: Kathy Casey
Editing: Mathilde Geromin
Music: Alexandre St-Onge
Director accomplice: Mathilde Geromin
With participation of: Julia Boyer, Thomas Chevalier, Magali Darche, Justine Demers, Daniel Doré, Daniel Doyon, Evelyne Fleury, Colette Fortur-Vachon, Angèle Gagnon, Colette Gingras, Danyka Joseph, Mélyna Larivée-Bélanger, Benoit Morin, Manuela Nino Bustos, Florence Nobert, Maeva Ross, Esther Judy Saint-Natus, Céline Tremblay
MARIBÉ - SORS DE CE CORPS (co-producer)
https://maribe.ca/
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Montréal danse (co-producer)
https://montrealdanse.com/
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I SEE RED by Silvestre Correia | UK, Portugal (2023) – JURY AWARD
In a secret place, there exists Wendy. Restless and with no grand objective, she dances in fear. The colour red haunts her, obfuscating her reality in a sad shade of pink. A macabre perception of femininity composed by the troubled imagination of its director, who has moulded his transgender experience into a semi-autobiographical absurdist horror, which dissects his experience of gender - both physically and mentally.
Bio
Originally from Coimbra, Portugal, and based in Sheffield, UK, Silvestre Correia is a performer, theatre and film director whose work comes from thoughts that are united into something that goes beyond definition. It’s about exposing something disturbing yet playful, that cannot be fully explained.
Directed by Silvestre Correia
Written by George Murphy
Original Score by José Valente
Cast: Carolina Dominguez; Bárbara Bruno; Anabela Ribeiro; George Murphy and Silvestre Correia
WORRY-FEAR-UNEASE. THE TRIPTYCH by Agrippina Meshcheryakova | UK (2023) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
Struggling with anxiety and disassociation, a young girl’s life is disrupted by a chilling biblical nightmare. As she struggles through a day of intrusive thoughts and relentless anxiety, her desperate calls for support go unanswered, intensifying her fears of losing loved ones. When her boyfriend finally responds, their connection feels distant, overshadowed by Tonya’s overwhelming worries and exhaustion. As she drifts into sleep, she cannot help but wonder if she ever finds peace or will always remain trapped in the haunting grip of her anxiety?
Director’s Statement
‘Worry-Fear-Unease: The Triptych’ is a three-screen experimental installation film that delves into the depths of anxiety and dissociation. Drawing from my own struggles with mental health, this project was born out of a desire to depict the raw emotions that countless others, like myself, experience on a daily basis. Going beyond passive observation, the film actively involves the audience, enabling them to immerse themselves in the main character’s journey. Through the dynamic visuals across multiple screens and an immersive sound design, viewers are transported into the character’s inner world, experiencing their fears and uncertainties. Guided by a production design and cinematography inspired by the timeless beauty of Biblical and Renaissance art, this film became a moving painting and a testament to the human experience. It boldly embraces the struggles and pain, while also revealing the hidden beauty that can arise from our darkest moments.
Bio
Agrippina Meshcheryakova is a graduate directing student at the Northern Film School. She is passionate about every aspect of filmmaking and loves to experiment with her work. Agrippina is inspired by different types of art, as she was brought up in a family of fine artists. She hopes to be making various films in the future that will all be united by tributes to artists and challenge of the film form. ‘The Triptych’ was a big step in her career, finally working with a crew and challenging herself to tell a story through three screens and no dialogue. Previously, she directed a video art short film about Renaissance art, a documentary, as well as produced and assisted various dramas.
Agrippina Meshcheryakova - Writer, Director, Producer
Cameron Haggie - Producer, Camera Operator
Calum Auckland - DoP
Christina Worrall - Sound designer/recordist
Gyte Zygelyte - Editor
Paul Woodrow Mias - Production Designer
KABEÇA by Joyce Souza, Aoaní Salvaterra | Portugal (2023) – JURY AWARD AND AUDIENCE AWARD
In Yoruba, “Orí” means head. More than a physiologically structured part, the Orí is an
orixá, a god, a personal and non-transferable divinity. It is Orí who will accompany
the individual before his birth until after his death. Orí was a choice made by each
person before being born, and a choice that is continually made, or not.
In the West we are taught that the head is a part of the body. A part that houses the
brain, which has a structure made up of bones, muscles and nerve endings. A part
that houses the nervous system. The notion of part, of dismemberment proposed by
colonial logic is mirrored in the body - city. The lapse as an institution, the
strategically fragmented memory, the violent burial is the stage for this cistema
Brancae - Lisbon.
It is from earth that Orí is made. Hitting your head on the earth, on the ground, is (in
traditions of African origin, given new meaning in the diaspora) the gesture, the action, of maximum respect and reverence. The first act before the spin, the party,
the movement, the fightback.
In this video performance we bow heads with those who came before, we ask for permission. We place our Orí and heart on the buried stories, as a ceremony for those who have lost their minds. We interrupt the logic of what they call “time”, we connect. We seek to disturb oblivion like those who did not lower their heads. We revere those who resisted and resist here, in the desire for a sudden release of energy that causes movements on this surface.
The video performance consists of the action of “banging your head” in ten places of black resistance in the city of Lisbon, as a way of evoking the memory erased by the city, suppressed by the system, suffocated by colonialism. With creation and performance by Aoaní Salvaterra and Joyce Souza, the project is directed by Photography by Huba Artes, Indira Mateta and Pedro Henrique Sousa, support for dramaturgy by Monalisa Silva, music by Xullaji, sound by Sara Marita, lighting by Ariene Godoy, Editing by Victor dos Santos and produced by Ngleva Produções.
Bio
Aoaní Salvaterra is an actress, performer, playwright, producer and journalist. Born in São
Tomé and Príncipe, she lives in Lisbon. She completed secondary education in Portugal and
graduated in Social Communication, with a specialization in Journalism, at Faculdade Norte
e Nordeste do Brasil-FANOR, Fortaleza -CE / Brazil (2009). She has a Master's degree in
Theater – Performing Arts, from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (IPL), in Lisbon
(2022).
She lived for almost a decade in Angola, where she worked in the field of social
communications. She worked as a journalist at Rede Angola and Economia Mercado. She
was an editor at Novo Jornal and Carga Magazine. She was public relations at Back
Communications and Executive and was a communications consultant for HC3, a project
implemented in Angola by Johns Hoppkins University. In 2012 she published a collection of
chronicles entitled Miopia Crónica by the publisher Chá de Caxinde, Luanda: 2012.
In 2017, she moved to the United States of America (Toledo, Ohio / Hillside, New Jersey)
where she attended theater and chamber acting classes at Owens Community College and
Starbound Talent Studio, both in Toledo, Ohio.
She has worked as an actress in theater, cinema and audiovisual, with names such as Zia
Soares, Xie Xiaodong and Jeremy Meier, with works shown in Portugal, Germany, Italy, the
United States of America and China.
She is one of the creators of the video-performance Kabeça, which results from the artistic
residency carried out in the Kilombo program, curated by Aurora Negra for the Alkantara
Festival 2023 and the Kabeça Orí project approved in the 4th edition of the O Espaço
Creation Grants do Tempo with support from Banco BPI and “la Caixa” Foundation. She is
co-creator of the staged reading Língua Materna, present at the first FeLiCidade festival,
presented in May 2024, at the Centro Cultural de Belém, in Lisbon.
Joyce Souza is an actress, playwright and educator. Born in Guarujá- SP-Brazil. In Brazil,
she began her academic training in theater direction at the Federal University of Ouro Preto.
She has a degree in interpretation from EAD-ECA-University of São Paulo and a degree in
artistic education from Faculdade Paulista de Artes. At the Theater she was in several shows
directed by Luiz Fernando Marques- Lubi; Wanderley Piras; Beth Dorgam; Dagoberto Feliz;Claudia Schapira; Iacov Hillel; Isabel Setti; Angelo Brandini, among others. She was an artist educator and educational coordinator at art exhibitions and museums. Highlighting “Mayas, the revelation of an endless time” and “Terra Comunal – Marina Abramovic +MAI”, being part of the educational team that applied the method developed by Abramovic. She was a guest teacher in the subjects: "Interpretation" and "Performance", in the Technical Theater Course at Senac-National Commercial Learning Service. In Portugal she created and developed "Jogatina de Histórias" and "Histórias de Bolso", storytelling and improvisation projects.
She took part as a vocal performer in the performance “Em ver ler ser” at the “A Salto” Festival in Elvas 2019. In 2022 she completed her Masters in Performing Arts at ESTC-IPL whose
theoretical research was invited to be published as an e-book by ESTC edições. She was a
performer in the show “Self Portrait. And now how do we fight?” by Isabel Mões presented at
Teatro Estúdio António Assunção - Almada. In 2023 she will be part of the show “descobriquê?” by Cátia Pinheiro, Dori Nigro and José Nunes, a co-production of Estrutura and TNDM II on tour in Odisséia Nacional. In the project she works as an interpreter and as a trainer, developing workshops on decolonial and anti-racist education. Still with the Structure, she contributed to the dramaturgy of the show “Carta à Matilde”. Creator and performer alongside Aoaní Salvaterra of the video performance “Kabeça” selected in the Kilombo program curated by Aurora Negra for the Alkantara Festival 2023, presented at Teatro São Luiz.
Creation and performance: Aoaní Salvaterra and Joyce Souza
Photography Direction: Huba Artes, Indira Mateta and Pedro Henrique Sousa
Drone images: Huba Artes
Still Photography: Indira Mateta
Support for dramaturgy: Monalisa Silva
Music: Xullaji
Sound: Sara Marita
Lighting: Ariene Godoy
Editing: Victor dos Santos
Production: Ngleva Productions
SHOUT IN SILENCE فریاد در سکوت by Nima Nikakhlagh | Iran (2012) – JURY AWARD AND AUDIENCE AWARD
Performance film orchestrated by Nima Nikakhlagh.
Nima Nikakhlagh is a multidisciplinary artist, native to Iran, who arrived in the United States in 2014. Nima’s practice concerns itself with socio-political power dynamics and political resistance approached in a poetic manner. Most of his works are performance-based, and he perceives performance art as not only a form of visual art but much more, a social-political art form and a social-political art practice. His work frequently uses situation orchestration and some provocation – interruption of daily life – as mechanisms of audience internalization of his concepts – the real action takes place within the consciousness of the viewer. In his words, “the togetherness that public/street performance art establishes is something truly necessary.” Nima’s works have appeared/been performed in Iran, Europe, Canada, and the United States. He has published two literary-performative books: Bodies, Languages, Truths and This Is Not a Book. Nima is a 2023-2024 Franklin Furnace FUND for Performance Art recipient.
MANUFACTURED DEMOCRACY by Huner Emin | Mesopotamia (Modern Iraq), USA (2024) – JURY AWARD
Manufactured Democracy revolves around crimes against humanity and the aftermath of Iraq War atrocities. Huner collected the names of Iraqi individuals who lost their lives in the civil wars and wrote them in the shape of fingerprints to evoke a crime scene. Fingerprints are references to Iraqi elections where voters dip their index finger in purple Ink after voting: a process which was known as Purple Fingers Elections.
The ‘Purple Fingers’ are a metaphorical spotlight, a testimony, and the evidence of a crime, where the perpetrator left behind fingerprints. It is manufactured delinquency against humanity, and innocent Iraqis, committed by the superb Uncle Sam. It is proof of human greed and inanely cruel nature. The massive fingerprints consist of the microscopic names of civilians who lost their lives since 2003 because of the international war in Iraq. The lines represent insignificant mass and the loopholes of remorselessness of the politicians. The names are collected by a non-profit organization called Iraqi Body Count. The names in the IBC organization list are in the English alphabet, and Huner transferred them back to Arabic as a form of repatriation. Manufactured Democracy is an example of a human’s savage attitude that has never learned from history lessons and only became more pronounced as knowledge and science advances. It is an expression of frustration and pain when the collective human conscience has been murdered by a handful of selfish malevolent cancer cells.
Bio
Huner Emin is a stateless multimedia Kurdish artist. He grew up in south Kurdistan/northern Iraq and is now based in Bloomington, Indiana. After leaving Iraq in 2013, Huner has never returned due to political and social issues. His work since has continued to comment on his lived experiences and broader concerns in the Middle East, including honor killing traditions in the art project Blood Washing in 2017; the Baath regime’s 1987-1989 genocide campaign against Kurdish communities called 180,000 Seconds made in 2016; and crimes against humanities and aftermath of Iraq War atrocities in his art project Manufactured Democracy 2021-2024.
Performing/editing/ directing - Huner Emin
Camera and filming - Ayesha Cheema
Language Editing - Micheal Semyan
Names resources: Iraqi Body Count (IBC) non-profit
HANDLE WITH GLOVES by Adnana Greșiță | Romania (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
What does it mean to objectify something? Isn't the object itself objectified?
"Handle with gloves" is a video essay that explores and speculates on possible narratives embedded within urban landscapes, examining different types of discarded items: the so-called garbage, personal objects, lost objects, or abandoned ones. Through this exploration, waste becomes a medium for understanding the complex relationships between people, objects, and the environment. The boundaries between objects and humans are blurred, and a way of living together with the objects around us is embraced.
Bio
Adnana Greșiță (b. 2000, Craiova, Romania) is an emerging artist based in Bucharest. She studied literature, then psychology and later at CESI (Center for Excellence in Image Studies) in Bucharest. Her main topics of interest are the urban space, the posthuman, animal studies, the relationship between humans, nature and the urban environment along the way she explores them all through text, research, image and video, focusing on transformation and abandonment.
Director, writer: Adnana Greșiță
Editing: Rareș Ignat
Music: Vlad Marina
Voiceover: Antonia Ene
FOR A NIGHT by Delfin Lev, Puck Van Der Werf | Netherlands (2023) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
In her long durational performance piece, Mirthe, a music and performance artist who goes by the name “Myrwood”, takes a seat in the window of a store called “Vanderwilt” in the centre of Amsterdam. Her telephone number is showcased along with her on the window. In the upcoming five days, Mirthe lives in this space engaging with a single activity: online dating.
“For a Night” is an experimental documentary that follows the artist during every step of the performance. The work investigates the connections between intimacy and performativity in the age of digital dating, and walks the thin line between being seen and being “showcased”, figuratively and in the first meaning of the word. With her performance, Mirthe challenges comfort zones on both sides of the phone screen and addresses the illusions and expectations surrounding online connections. What is the nature of the sense of entitlement that follows seeing nothing but a face and a name on a screen, and having it affirmed with a "match"?
As the final step, Myrthe invites all 45 men she has been interacting with to Sexyland in Amsterdam for a date, telling them to be prepared for a secret performance.
She will be the one performing for all of them.
Director Bio
Delfin Lev is an Amsterdam-based filmmaker and installation artist from Istanbul. Her work centers around sentimental objects, narrative soundscapes that explore fractured spaces and identities.
Directors: Delfin Lev and Puck van der Werf
DOP: Margarita Kosareva and Sara Elzinga
Performer: Myrwood
Sound: Astrid Ardagh
Edit: Maarten Valstar
I PREFER DARKNESS / PREFERISCO LE TENEBRE by Salvatore Insana, Elisa Turco Liveri | Italy (2021) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
I PREFER DARKNESS (Preferisco Le Tenebre) by Salvatore Insana, Elisa Turco Liveri
Italy (2021)
On the night side of every life, where the visible meets the enigma of invisibility, a couple explores the periphery of the day, guided by the moon and cradled by the wind. Expressionist hues and breath, artificial lights, yellow street lamps shaping slender natural stages moved by the wind and illuminated by the moon. Black backdrops behind which infinity hides. Two ghostly figures, less protagonists and more evanescent than nervous foliage moved by the breath of time.
DEHORS/AUDELA is an artistic duo formed by Elisa Turco Liveri (performer, choreographer) and Salvatore Insana (videomaker, photographer, director). Since 2010, in the constant attempt to overcome genres, places and unconventional tools, they have created video-theatrical works, dance performances, audiovisual research projects, urban and photographic installations, experimental workshops. D/A has always investigated border sites. Interstitials of the present time, not only conceived as physical places, but also as social and anthropological aspects. The indefinite and the hybrid have always been favorite areas of research of the collective.
Concept, film, editing SALVATORE INSANA, ELISA TURCO LIVERI (DEHORS/AUDELA)
Music STARVING NIGHT by GIANLUCA CECCARINI
Performance: ELISA TURCO LIVERI
With the support of TEATRO DEL CARRO
https://www.dehorsaudela.com
https://www.salvatoreinsana.com/
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QUESTIONING THE EXISTENCE OF ALEC by Roger Horn | USA (2023) – JURY AWARD
"Questioning the Existence of Alec" is comprised of found footage utilizing stop motion and additional in camera effects recorded on the beaches of South Africa during the 1940s. In this dreamlike journey, two or three friends, one of whom may be Alec are presented from adolescence through adulthood. The surreal journey blurs the boundary between the past and present, reality and fantasy, and invites viewers to question for themselves the nature of reality, dreams, and the existence of the protagonists on both sides of the camera.
Bio
Roger Horn is a filmmaker, anthropologist, and film professor. He has over 25 years of moving image experience in Los Angeles, Nashville, Berlin, and Cape Town. He obtained his PhD at the University of Cape Town in Cultural Anthropology and holds an MA in Visual & Media Anthropology.
His films have been showcased at almost 300 film festivals and conferences worldwide. These include IFFR International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, where he was nominated for the International Competition category, the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and the 21st, 22nd, & 24th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival.
Director, Producer,Editor: Roger Horn
Final Audio Mix: Dylan Ford
YOUR BACK IS A LANDSCAPE by Freda D’Souza | UK (2023) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
'your back is a landscape' is a video poem that explores the feeling of being overwhelmed by the infinite detail in all things- from the outside world, to the revelation of healthy love, to my own personal inner world. By thinking through audiovisual composition, I can move towards an artistic and emotional expression of this. The body is both centered and abstracted, and becomes a site of exploration into the ambiguous space between tangible and intangible modes of being.
Bio
Freda D'Souza (b. 2000) is an interdisciplinary artist based in London. A trained musician and self taught filmmaker, she is currently completing an MA in Audiovisual Cultures at Goldsmiths with a full scholarship. Her area of interest is the expression of multiplicity- both of the infinite self and the vibrating world.
CHAPEL OF VERY SMALL CREATIONS by Simone Hooymans | Norway (2022) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
The animation “Chapel of very small Creations” shows a cave made of green, softly shaped rock formations where enlightened, strange creatures emerge. Ephemeral and transcendental, these beautiful creations refer to the smallest organism on the planet with their liquid bodies that
disperse, swim, fly and fall. Life is recorded as a symphonic interaction between all elements that balance between the earthly and the other worldly, arousing desire for spirituality. The soundscape was created in collaboration with students and composers from the Leeds Conservatory UK.
Bio
Simone Hooymans mainly works with drawing and animation. Inspired by natural and organic
forms, the artist draws elements that change over time and become part of a larger universe where imagination, sensuality and awareness of nature's fragility are central. With a fascination for ecology and the inexplicable life, she explores how to translate and convey the essence of her research on a visual imaginary level.
Simone Hooymans (1974) was born in the Netherlands and lives and works in Norway.
She graduated from the Art academy for visual art in Arnhem (Artez) and Breda (St.Joost) in the Netherlands. Hooymans loves to create synergies between innovative music and art with her animations and video installations. She has collaborated with several Norwegian musicians and has participated in a series of international solo and group exhibitions and film festivals.
The sound was made in collaboration with students and staff of Leeds Conservatoire in the UK.
with composers: Dave Kane, Kari Bleivik and Christopher Quick.
Animation and drawings: Simone Hooymans
Animation and special effects: Hans Pulles
Sound design: Simone Hooymans and Hans Pulles
https://www.simonehooymans.com/
Animation and Its Healing Nature: Interview with Simone Hooymans
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