film and video art
LAPSÚLYOS || CERTAIN SOLITUDE by Bernadett Jobbágy | Hungary (2023)
Being in a gym.
Running on a treadmill.
Letting the perception shift, in which shift you may notice the choreography of the space around.
Being inspired by the persistence of muscles, by the body-fluids, the sweat, and the skin, the film oscillates between “everyday movement” and “dance”. Contemplation and action. Contemplation in action. Sensing and feeling the space. Touching the space.
The work is part of my ongoing research on embodied filmmaking. Touch and space are playing an important role in my research: how do we touch different material qualities? How do we let ourselves be touched by the material, by the space, or by other people? How our eyes as beholders touch the screen while meeting with the images, and what the images may touch in ourselves?
Skin and metal. Warm and cold. Inside and outside. A pause. Longing. Certain Solitude.
Director Statement
The process: as a method we combined the “classical” pre-planned way of shooting with structured improvisation, inviting collective intuition and real time composition into the process. This means that the cinematographers are as well part of this improvisation and composition within the given frame. The process of editing is also the combination of pre-set ideas (wishes), mixed with intuitive choices. Besides using the images which I clearly wanted to and was able to capture, I also let the material “work on me”. This way I could choose moments that stayed with me, in my memory as images after I’ve seen the raw material a couple of times. After: rhythm. Blindness at a certain point. Leaving time to settle, revisit. Re-edit. Let go.
One point of departure before the shooting was that I don’t want to have a clear narrative line, also I don’t want to have one (or few) protagonist. This practically meant that either there was a group of dancers as one body or that in each scene (with each fitness machine or location) other performers had lead roles. Therefore the motion, the affective spacetimes, and the qualities of presence and images have to form the guiding thread.
The title: ‘Lapsúlyos’ is a Hungarian word, naming the fixed weight machines in the gym.
Bio
Budapest based choreographer, performer and multimedia artist.
Graduated as Landscape Architect on Corvinus University of Budapest. Later she studied in the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy, and then completed the audio-description program offered jointly by the University of Theatre and Film (SZFE) and FSZK (an Ltd. for supporting people with special needs).
Director: Bernadett Jobbágy
Producers: Bernadett Jobbágy, Dániel Herner
Cast: Attila Dániel, Attila Horváth, Rebeka Petra Kiss, Emese Kovács, Henrietta Sudár, Zsófi Szász
Camera: Dániel Szandtner, Zsolt Magyari
Technician: Ambrus Kertész
Original music: Rozi Mákó
Editing: Bernadett Jobbágy
Color: Viktor Borbély
Production assistant: Péter Murvai
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Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved. Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.