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.
Summer and Winter 2024 Award Winners’ Programs streaming on VISUALCONTAINERTV from January 15 to February 15, 2025!
THE YOUTH CLIMATE REPORT by Mark Terry | Canada, World (2024) – JURY AWARD
The Youth Climate Report is the first "Geo-Doc", a new form of documentary film. It is a multilinear, interactive database documentary film project presented on a platform of a Geographic Information System map of the world incorporating more than 1,000 climate stories told by the global community of youth.
Director Statement
The Youth Climate Report was designed with the international policymakers of the United Nations to amplify the voice of youth and give them a direct opportunity to contribute to the global environmental policy creation process.
Bio
Mark Terry is an ecocinema filmmaker who focuses his lens on documentary films about climate change in the polar regions. His polar trilogy: The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning, The Polar Explorer, and The Changing Face of Iceland were all made following expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica. Each film premiered at the United Nations annual climate summits where they were used as resources of visible evidence for the policymakers.
For this high-impact documentary work, he has been decorated by Queen Elizabeth II with her Diamond Jubilee Medal and by the Explorers Club with their Stefansson Medal. He was also recognized by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television with their seldom-presented Humanitarian Award. In 2019, He successfully defended his dissertation on a remediated form of the documentary film earning his PhD. One year later he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada, the country’s highest academy. He now teaches film at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and York University in Toronto, both in Canada. The Youth Climate Report is Dr. Terry’s experimental “Geo-Doc”, a new, multilinear form of database documentary incorporating more than 1,000 climate stories told by the global community of youth in a single digital space.
Director, writer, producer: Mark Terry
Music: open source
UNFCCC Website: http://tinyurl.com/YCR-2024
Project (Satellite View): http://tinyurl.com/YCR-GoogleEarth
PALIMPSEST by Robert A. Emmons Jr. | USA (2024) – JURY AWARD
PALIMPSEST
Due to the previous engagement with another festival, the artist cannot display the project at this time.
Palimpsest is an interactive documentary that traces childhood fear and anxiety from the Cold War to school shootings in America, while along the way connecting Archimedes, Choose Your Adventure books, Baseball, Ray Bradbury, Charles Dickens, Peter Pan, John Fahey, Turtles, and every demographic cohort from The Greatest Generation to Gen Z. Palimpsest scrapes at this messy history in an attempt to reveal causes and solutions for one of America's greatest public health epidemics.
Bio
Robert A. Emmons Jr. is a documentary filmmaker, video essayist, and Associate Teaching Professor of Filmmaking in the Department of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts at Rutgers University-Camden. From 2016-2020 he was the co-founding Associate Director of the Digital Studies Center. He recently completed a tetralogy: Palimpsest (2024), an online interactive documentary, Weird as it is (2024), Grimmness (2024), and Game of Nim (2023); all of which investigate violence and discord in America in novel formats. Emmons has collaborated on two documentaries with partner Joe Tropea: Fugazi's Barber (2021), and Sickies Making Films (2019), His other docs include, Diagram for Delinquents (2014), De Luxe: The Tale of Blue Comet (2010), and Goodwill: The Flight of Emilio Carranza (2007). His non-fiction video essays have been screened at conferences and symposia around the globe and include X9: CHØOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE (2022), ChiroMANIA (2018), Fake News (2018), 1 13 5 18 18 25 11 1: An Adaptation of Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse (2016), and Social Media Narrative (2016). He is currently in production on a new documentary film: Chambers of MUON (2025).
Director, writer, producer: Robert A. Emmons Jr.
HORANGI by Lynn Kim | USA (2024) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
HORANGI is an animated film based on a dream where I arose to find myself in a field of tigers. The film seeks to capture the feelings of fear, admiration, conflict and similarity between the tiger and myself, and envisions what kind of tenuous harmony we might find together.
Bio
I am a Korean American filmmaker and educator who uses live-action and animation techniques to create short films that explore the social conditions and realities of the human body. My films serve as inquiries about how people perceive and understand bodies (intellectually and spiritually) and are based on my personal and lived experiences of gender, race, health, and sexuality. My work exists as hybrid, chimeric fusions of animation and video, and function as ongoing searches for alchemic transformation of my own body through frame-by-frame film processes.
Director, animator, writer: Lynn Kim
Music: Lynn Kim, Anna Kerber
INCARNATIONS by Mathieu Samaille | Canada, France (2024) – JURY AWARD
INCARNATIONS is a sensory video-poem about the confusion between the desire for the other and the desire to be the other. With grace and fluidity, it transports us into an identity discomfort which leads to the rejection of one's own body, opened to solar others by desire for fusion, at the risk of suffering from abuse.
Thanks to a poetic interweaving of images, text and sound, the work develops the theme in two temporalities: we hear the voice of the interior discourse at the moment of the facts and we see the pictorial account of these facts, with a hindsight on their consequences.
Incarnations is a sensitive video-poem on the foundation of a personality, all in trauma and gentleness
Bio
Mathieu Samaille majored in literature and studied drama and digital arts. He is a Canadian and French Citizen. In 2018, his experience in interdisciplinary arts, including writing, directing and editing, led to an interest in Video-Poetry, an immersive and ontological art form that explores the sensorial bonds between text, sound and image, transposing literary processes in media arts.
Director, writer, producer, composer: Mathieu Samaille
Distribution: Heure Exquise !
FRAGILE by Allison Roberts | USA (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
FRAGILE documents a fictitious natural environment while reflecting on our reality- the climate crisis, extreme weather and melting events, and irreversible changes to glaciers, sea ice, and landforms. This experimental film includes landforms constructed of burnt paper ash and repetitive human actions within ephemeral structures. These recurring movements blur the line between causing harm and struggling against impending loss.
Bio
Allison Roberts, a lens-based artist and experimental filmmaker, layers still and moving images and explores fleeting intersections of image and surface through projections, performative interactions, and alternative methods of image construction. Roberts’s work has been selected for numerous international film festivals and exhibited in Chinese Gan Jue, South China Museum; Glimpses of a Drowned World, Aggregate Space Gallery (CA); Traces of the Future, Momentum Gallery (Poland); ROMBAK, Multimedia University (Malaysia); Movements, Moments, Target Gallery (VA); and Contemporary Landscape, CICA Museum (South Korea). Born and raised in Oklahoma (U.S.), Roberts holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Director: Allison Roberts
Editor: Allison Roberts
https://www.allisonaroberts.com
Interview published in WomenCinemakers 2024 [Vol. 1]
“WomenCinemakers- Art & Independent Cinema- Meets Allison Roberts”
NOMADISM, TEMPORAL CONNECTION AND NEW FEMININE LONGINGS. / NOMADISMO, CONEXIÓN TEMPORAL Y NUEVOS ANHELOS FEMENINOS. by Maria Bilbao Herrera | Venezuela (2023) – AUDIENCE AWARD
-In other places and in another way
Nomadism, temporal connection and new feminine longings.
Of this alternative “world” that seems to open up when dancing:
It is about its temporary nature. The “other place”.
This “world” that is known to be temporary, in which relationships with others seem to
become more intense and important precisely because of its temporary nature. An
instantaneous and ephemeral community:
It is there and it is then. That’s it.
Bio
Caraqueña & nomad by nature, Maria has lived and worked in 9 cities in the last 20 years. Artist & organizer she merges creative expression, critical thought and self ♫ proposing participatory, collaborative/experimental experiences that incorporate performance video/sound. Currently based in Caracas Venezuela.
Director: Maria Bilbao·Herrera
Sound design: Maria Bilbao·Herrera
Sound creation source: ritual music of African women, and indigenous women
Visuals: Found footage
INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK (SIN TITULO) / 의도된 공백 by Joonhee Myung | Chile, South Korea (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
J disappears one day and is found in Chile. She misses making films and decides to use her iphone mini and free app for editing. One year of Kino Izvestiyas show her life, the internal landscape of a woman falling apart in an even more tumultuous social surrounding. Poetry and found footage reveal another side of the story.
Director statement
How far can an artist go to complete a film? For me it was a decade of arduous concentration, dedication and questioning to find my language as a baby auteur, traveling through the complexities of life outside of my reach left me with just a dying Korean iphone mini and Chilean Samsung Galaxy phone to hang on to, which was all I had in completing this film and what I had in mind. This is the story and memory of that journey re-edited years later.
Bio
Junos (b.1982) is a multi-disciplinary artist working primarily in the medium of film, photography, illustration and writing (She also loves to devote her time to composing some tunes for her videos). Having lived a nomadic life since three, wandering from the Americas to Europe, Africa and Asia, she is interested in issues of identity, boundaries and belonging. Artistically she tries to experiment and expand the possibilities of visual language and metaphorically document lives and minds of the socially unknown.
Director, producer, writer, cinematography, editing: Joonhee Myung
Sound Effects and Main Title Music: Arirang Electronic Remix “Durumi” by JUNOS (Sound editing support by Oppblast)
BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! by Dina Yanni | Austria (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
Digital video collage
13:37 minutes, color & bw, sound.
Elvis dreams of an alternate reality in which previously strict gender norms are mocked and his queer desires are eventually fulfilled – a détournement of the white playboy stereotype in the Elvis movies.
Director Statement
„The remix of an existing work contradicts the idea that the meaning of this work is fixed forever and can only exist in one context. Instead, remix films circulate alternative narratives of popular works, all the while being suspicious of conventions and authorities.“
„Experimental filmmaking is the excitement of possibilities: the experiment in it, however, is not the true objective, it is rather the means to disconfirm your ideas and to radically alter your perspective."
Bio
Dina Yanni is an Austrian video artist and researcher with Egyptian roots whose work is heavily influenced by popular culture, digital image manipulation, and critical theory. Through compilation and analysis of existing footage, experimental editing and data corruption, Yanni strives to reveal, reevaluate and reframe power structures discovered in the original materials. Dina Yanni holds a PhD in Political Science and an MA in Film Production. Her work has been exhibited at experimental film and video art festivals internationally.
Video and Music footage references: Love Me Tender (1956); Loving You (1956); Jailhouse Rock (1957); King Creole (1958); G.I. Blues (1960); Flaming Star (1960); Wild In The Country (1961); Blue Hawaii (1961); Follow That Dream (1962); Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962); It Happened at The World’s Fair (1963); Fun In Acapulco (1963); Viva Las Vegas (1964); Roustabout (1964); Girl Happy (1965); Tickle Me (1965); Frankie and Johnny (1966); Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966); Spinout (1966); Easy Come, Easy Go (1967); Double Trouble (1967); Clambake (1967); Stay Away, Joe (1968); Live A Little, Love A Little (1968); Charro! (1969); The Trouble With Girls (1969); Change Of Habit (1969).
Director, writer: Dina Yanni
INTERNAL(*)MIND / INTERNA(*)MENTE by Vinz Beschi | Italy (2023) – JURY AWARD
A strange mind, subjected to a continuous work of connection with the inside and the outside.
A desire to estrange, to detach from the body to observe the different behaviors of our brain. A mind that is sometimes foreign to our body, which travels on its own without the possibility of being controlled.
They are video paintings in which I try, through a game of cross-references between images and sounds, to materialize thoughts, night dreams and more, which often pass through my mind. Through an interaction with my body and my face, I expose the not always easy relationship between body and mind, between thought and action.
Video editing becomes the tool with which, like a surgeon, I operate on the body by opening it and scrutinizing its internal parts that sometimes take flight chasing each other in search of a breath, a deep breath. A full head trying to lighten up. But above all there is the game. A game that I enjoy a lot and that technology allows me to play.
Bio
Vinz Beschi is a professor of Didactics of Multimedia and Cultural Heritage in the specialist two-year period of the II° level diploma course Department of Communication and Didactics of Art at the Accademia Santa Giulia in Brescia.
Director, writer, producer: Vinz Beschi
PASSAGGIO / PASSAGE by Matteo Canuti | Italy (2019) – AUDIENCE AWARD
The substitution of a proper term with a figurative one following a symbolic transposition of images.
Director statement: I like absurd things, what leaves you astonished, the nonsense. I believe that reality is paradoxical; you just need to grasp its humor.
The idea behind Passage was to create a sort of void, an amputation, a lack of essential elements, in order to leave the viewer bewildered and helpless. However, the video alone seemed a bit too cryptic. Perhaps poetic, but definitely not accessible.
Therefore, I thought it was a good idea to lighten the mood by having the unsuspecting paddler “speak”, thus eliciting a smile from the audience. Then there is enough time to reflect on it.
Bio
I've always been passionate about cinema, as a kid I also wanted to be a director. Then I did something else. Now I'm delighting to participate in some festivals with my nonsenses. Favorite genre: absurdism.
Director, writer: Matteo Canuti
Producer, editor: Simone Murgia
Cast: Iuri Melis
Awards: Absurd Film Festival Aug/Sept 2024 Cinisello Balsamo, MI, Italy: Best Original Idea
Nominee: AltFF Alternative Film Festival - Fall 2024 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
SHITTY THERAPY / UNA TERAPIA DE MIERDA by Javier Polo | Spain (2023) – JURY AWARD
In 2012, two biology students created fecomagnetism, a parody of pseudotherapies that claimed to cure all kinds of diseases by mixing poop with magnets. All they wanted was a funny review, but shit gets out of hand. How long would it take for people to realize that it was all fake?
Bio
Javier Polo is a Valencian filmmaker that shares his passion for documentaries and fiction productions with the world of advertising. He made his first documentary film: «Europe in 8 Bits»(2013), broadcasted in more than twenty countries and world premiered at IDFA and «The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo» (2020) world premiered at South By Southwest, recognized with three Berlanga’s and nominated for best documentary at the Gaudí’s. Now he is working in his first fictional film Pequeños Calvarios.
Production Company: Cosabona Films, Los Hermanos Polo, Wise Blue Studios, INAUDITA
Director: Javier Polo
Cast: Fernando Cervera, Mariano Collantes
Script: Juanjo Moscardó Rius, Ana Ramón
Producer: Juanjo Moscardó Rius, Javier Polo, Nathalie Martinez, Maxi Valero, Jorge Acosta Sánchez
Cinematography: Celia Riera
Art: Maitica Gilabert
Editing: Yago Muñiz
Sound: Carre Moreno
Music: Daniel Espinet, Kquimi Saigi, Daniel Bonnin, Guillerm Ibañez
OBJECT(S) OF DESIRE by Liberty Antonia Sadler | UK (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD, JURY SPECIAL MENTION
“The worship of fat pleasures…
You are the embodiment of lust & gluttony combined”
An intimate colour-drenched celebration of queer fat sensuality, ‘Object(s) of Desire’ is a three performer portrait & poem film featuring Smashlyn Monroe, Jade Williams & the film’s director Liberty Antonia Sadler.
Playfully decadent & emotionally candid, ‘Object(s) of Desire’ invites you to join a Bacchian revelry of XXL homoerotica; with each performer embracing their body & sexuality on their own terms, with pride, liberation & mutual devotion. The film’s text explores the complex journey to self-affirmation & acceptance in relation to size & sexuality, reclaiming the fetishization often placed on fat bodies from an external societal gaze.
‘Object(s) of Desire’ aims to be a moment of softness & kinship for fat queers, an invitation to enjoy our sexy selves, and see each other as works of art to be embraced. This short film is a slow & sweet invocation that combines queer joy, fat pleasures & friendship; all while provocatively questioning a fatphobic culture: “do you object?...or indulge?”
Bio
Liberty Antonia Sadler is an artist & filmmaker based in London, working with mediums of drawing, text and moving image to explore issues of body politics, with a focus on the experience of living in a large queer body. Working within a personal-political context, she uses characters, radical softness & raw playfulness to discuss themes of size, vulnerability, queerness, femininity, food & sexuality. Their research explores the power of subjectivity within art practice and representation of fat bodies in arts & media.
Liberty Antonia’s work aims to open discussion about fat queer identity, imperfection and inequality; her multidisciplinary practice includes both first person performance and body political drawing & writing, with artworks exploring, at times, controversial issues such as fatphobia, eating disorders, fetish & body dysmorphia.
Performers: Smashlyn Monroe, Liberty Antonia Sadler, Jade Williams
Writer & Director: Liberty Antonia Sadler
Make-up & Hair: Helena Jopling
Music & Audio Production: Orlando Avalon
Spoken Word Performers: Liberty Antonia Sadler, Gabrielle Ornate
Director of Photography: Jhenelle White
Gimbal Photography: Orlando Avalon
Lighting: Robbie Ewing
Set Assistant: Gabrielle Ornate
www.libertyantoniasadler.com/objectsofdesire // Liberty Antonia Sadler: @libertyantoniasadler
Smashlyn Monroe: @smashlynmonroe // Jade Williams: @jadwuh // Helena Jopling: @helenajopling.makeup // Jhenelle White: @jh.wh // Orlando Avalon: @orlando_avalon // Robbie Ewing: @robbie_ewing // Gabrielle Ornate: @gabrielleornate
THE GREATEST OF ALL SECRETS / SALAISUUKSISTA SUURIN by Sampsa Pirtola | Finland (2020) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
This is a story of magic and lies that surround us. Quote from the movie: "The magician understood that words create reality. That words are the means of true magic. He realized that he was a liar like the leaders in his magic tricks. If he continued to perform entertaining illusions, he would not reveal the secrets that make people submit to false power. The magician now had to expose his own wound and let the truth flow."
Bio
Sampsa Pirtola is a Finnish video and multimedia artist. He received his MFA from Uniarts Helsinki: The Academy of Fine Arts. He works with fictive documentary, video collage and abstract video art. His films have been displayed at festivals such as the Tampere Film Festival, Kettupäivät film festival, RE-FEST, and more. His artwork has been in group and solo shows in Europe, North America, and Asia.
Director, producer: Sampsa Pirtola
Story, video, and narration: Sampsa Pirtola
Music production, recording and mastering: Antti Peltomaa
Music: Harmony of the Spheres (Aino Peltomaa, Jorma Kalevi Louhivuori, and Antti Peltomaa)
Video audio recording, and mastering: Mikael Hakkarainen
THE IMPERFECT EGG / L'UOVO IMPERFETTO by Massimo Schiavoni | Italy (2023) – JURY AWARD
The egg, a symbol of fecundity, the succession of life, the continuation of the species, in one word, a symbol of TOMORROW.
A tomorrow that, however, should be built slowly, without rushing and without oppression, a tomorrow that must be shaped with one's own hands in the present, LAYER ON LAYER, in the moment HERE and NOW, with care and patience without the rushes and routines of a hectic daily life.
A tomorrow that, to be better, must move away from the frenzy of competitions, wars, minute and calculating schedules, and records.
A tomorrow without races to trade and bargain, without constant challenges, without anxieties about performance, production and records, without frivolous examples of models and Stars, social and web, without so much useless talk...
A tomorrow possibly without wars, without dictators, without pandemics and without crazy climates.
This takes calm, presence, contact and slowness. So let us stop and change the verbs from the near future to the present.
And here then, the contemporary egg, can only be IMPERFECT, built slowly with the "barbarities," superficiality and ephemerality of today, shaped with the values and symbols of a world in disarray. An egg that is born of man and, rebelling, absurdly fights against the one who originated it, in a struggle without winners or losers, future uncertain never as in this era.
Unconsciously, however, the imperfect egg represents all of us, the consequences we originate,with our flaws and far from the perfection we would like to achieve.
Bio
Massimo Schiavoni is a lecturer and visual artist. His academic studies range from sculpture and photography to digital and theatrical audiovisual disciplines (Accademia di Belle Arti Macerata, Università Cà Foscari di Venezia, Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Centro Sperimentale di Fotografia ADAMS and Accademia Cromatica di Roma).
His video works have been screened at major international experimental festivals: Festival La File de Cortometrajes in Valladolid, ULFF in North Carolina, Filmets in Badalona, EUROSHORT in Warsaw, International Panorama of Independent Filmmakers of Film and Video in Thessaloniki. Lucania Film Festival, Fano International Film Festival.
Director, writer, producer: Massimo Schiavoni
Cast: Massimo Schiavoni
IN BETWEEN / NEL MEZZO by Massimiliano Marianni | Italy (2022) – JURY AWARD AND AUDIENCE AWARD
Visual investigation based on a real audio interview.
On the basis of an audio testimony on the disease of schizophrenia, I brought to life the visions stimulated by the animated drawing by reporting fragments of the original dialogue.
In a double environment (bathroom, doctor’s office) the fantasies of a girl suffering from schizophrenic syndrome unfold. This path of self-analysis will lead her to confuse the real plane (experienced) with the imagi- ned one (fantasy) up to a capitulation in which the WHERE is destroyed and becomes another space. Starting from a certain interest in what concerns the altered perception of reality, I came across a video available on YouTube of an authentic testimony on the issue.
What I found is the personal testimony of real life, of a girl suffering from schizophrenia. The part that I thought was interesting was the potential of our brain to create alternative worlds, the highly subjective point of view that goes beyond the objectivity of things. After examining it I extracted parts of the dialogue and, stimulated by these, I built the visual part. Doing further research I discovered the existence of an “artist” named Eric Duvivier who has used this topic for scientific purposes to create videos that I consider to be at the crossroads between avant-garde and psychic documentation.
These were a great starting point to enter the visual dimension which I then proposed again. As a subject I used my daughter who, as a model for some videos, lent her presence to reconstruct the main character.
Bio
Audio/visual artist, independent and self-taught. Since 2014 his graphic work has been based on a media research that leads him to the first short videos analog animated animations inserted in installations with use, in some cases, of videomapping.
Director, writer: Massimiliano Marianni
DOORS OF TIME / LAS PUERTAS DEL TIEMPO by Rosa P.Almeida | Spain (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
Family memories intertwine with a historical event–the murders in March 1937 in Arucas, Canary Islands. This is the second piece of a trilogy about representation of memory, death and body. In 2024, a woman dialogues with her grandma through a film she made in 1997. They explore political tensions and their expression in private life. There is a heritage of silence that weighs on the island.
Bio
Rosa P.Almeida (1974), Canary Islands. She graduated in Communication and Sociology at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid and the Université Paris 8. She made experimental video and documentary (Galápagos in Canchalagüeras) during the 2000s.
Rosa P.Almeida reflects on memory, fiction, body and death, through video, cinema, sound art and performance. During the last years, her most outstanding pieces were La señora del carrito, Aperitivos Sonoros, Sumatoria igual a cero, Martes de Carnaval and Prohibido Escuchar. She has been featured at Ambiences 2020, CAAM Sonora 2022, Festival de Cine de Las Palmas de GC 2022, Alcances Cádiz 2022 and at Cuerpo a Cuerpo 2022, Centro de Arte La Regenta, LPGC.
Director, producer, writer: Rosa P.Almeida
https://linktr.ee/documentalrosapalmeida
Distribution: Muak Distribución
A CONVERSATION ABOUT FACES / ROZMOWA O TWARZY by Helena Jabłonowska | Poland (2024) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
The film presents an animated discussion on the concept of the face. It explores the theory of Professor Semir Zeki, a pioneer in the field of neuroaesthetics. The second part analyzes how viewers interpret the deformed faces portrayed in the works of British painter Francis Bacon, within the framework of the previously mentioned theory. The animation boldly combines a variety of techniques, from stop-motion animation (employing crayon, plasticine, monotype, and collage) to 3D methods.
Bio
I am an animator, the creator of 3 visual essays, illustrator, and also interested in experimental motion design. I am a master of new media art in animation, which I studied at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw.
Director, writer: Helena Jabłonowska
Producer: Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology
Cast: prof. Semir Zeki, Witold Woźniak, Jan Wołowski, Urszula Chankowska, Katarzyna Trzewik, Zuzanna Gocławska
Voiceover: Ai Descript.com
Music: Moby (on courtesy of mobygratis.com), and freesound sounds.
Photographs of Francis Bacon's paintings taken during exhibition Man and Beast, Royal Academy of Arts in London 2022 by Jakub Sławiński
CONCURRENT REALITIES by Marina Landia | UK, Germany (2024) – AUDIENCE AWARD
Concurrent realities is a futuristic art video about synergy between quantum computing and AI.
It was inspired by the mysterious nature of quantum qubits and the very real promise of solving humanity’s problems with their help. Quantum-AI may become the most powerful technology in the future, but will humans be ready for its arrival?
The film is informed by visions and statements of leading experts in both technologies conveyed in personal conversations with the film maker. The narrative and the dialogs were developed with help of Open AI agents whereas the music was created using Amazon web service Braket and QSynth - the world’s first Quantum Synthesizer.
Director, writer, producer: Marina Landia
WORLD WORRY WEB by Nadiia Pliamko | Estonia (2024) – JURY AWARD
A member of the network generation begins his freelancing day with the “elephant” in the room, but is unable to complete tasks, ignoring another circumstance - he is connected to the outside world by material connections. And the perception of the world now occurs directly through his subconscious. Such exposure to the nervous system entails new risks of the consequences of merging with society via the Internet.
Director Statement
I bring complex ideas discussed within the walls of galleries to a wide range of viewers. It is important for me to use the charm of symbolism and aesthetic design to present uncomfortable topics, the awareness of which returns responsibility and choice to a busy person. I propose to analyze the problems of the modern world through the tools of mythology.
Bio
Born in Ukraine in 1990. Graduated from the Institute of Contemporary Art with a specialization as an artist and completed courses in animation, visual communication, and psychotherapy. In 2022, she moved to Estonia, where she acquired directing skills and won a prize with her debut film at the Kinoff Festival. In 2024, her second film took first place on ShootShorts.
Director, producer: Nadiia Pliamko
Technical artists: Nadiia Pliamko, Danylo Sherekin
MAIZ / CORN by Antonio Perumanes | Spain (2024) – JURY AWARD
Full of ancient rituals, this ancestral tradition awakens people’s awareness of their
natural environment.
MAIZ / CORN is about how physical contact with this seed, with Mother Earth, and fire, provokes an experience of transformation during this ritual, for its participants. This moment that we are witnessing is shot in a real time, 12-minute sequence.
Bio
Perumanes developed independent and relevant works, broadcasted internationally during the 90s with titles such as ‘Mortaja’, ‘Mujer Desnuda’ and ‘La Muerte de Nuevo’. However, he decided to move
away from active audiovisual work to devote himself to teaching and to a more personal inner work with his family, in the natural corner of Benharás, Cádiz.
At present, he is resuming his artistic work using the material recorded and written
during these years.
Experience and text: África Rodríguez Nieves
English Subtitles: Jackie Gilbert
Ritual: Carmen Rissoto
Audiovisual creation: Antonio Perumanes
PHANTOM REQUIEM by Zazie Kanwar-Torge (Zazie Productions) | USA (2024) – JURY SPECIAL MENTION
PHANTOM REQUIEM unfolds in the desolate expanse of an abandoned factory, where shadows and silence are the only remnants of a once-thrumming industrial heartbeat. In this spectral setting, a coterie of puppets emerges—ethereal figures, each step and gesture echoing the dissonant unraveling of a viewer ensnared in a psychotic fugue. Rendered in austere black-and-white, this stop-motion film marries the macabre grace of desolation with the intimate terror of mental dissolution, crafting a visual poem that is both stark and sublime.
Bio
Zazie Productions, Asheville's clandestine autistic polymath, seamlessly shifts between roles as a multi-instrumentalist, avant-garde composer, sound artist, graphic designer, and off-kilter short filmmaker.Zazie's singular vision is evident in every facet of his creative output, as he personally conceives and executes all elements of his projects. From direction to cinematography, production, animation, editing, sound design, and composition, each component is infused with his distinctive touch. His films venture into the uncanny valley, transforming the mundane into the grotesquely surreal and are designed to be experienced as much as viewed, extending beyond conventional sensory perception. He is a hymn to the discordant beauty that resides on the fringes of the contemporary artistic landscape.
Director, artist, producer: Zazie Kanwar-Torge (A.K.A Zazie Productions)
https://linktr.ee/zazieproductions
SUMMER 2024 AWARD WINNING WORKS – on air january 15 – 31
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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