LONDON ON AND ON III: A PLACE TO BE
Sunday 1 June 2008, at 6pm
Zurich Videoex Festival Cinema Z3

SAINTS
Dalia Neis, Saints, 2005, 16mm, b/w, silent, 5 min
A reflection on cinema and its relationship to devotional belief. Saints presents itself as a fragment from an abandoned folk archive; a document of portraits of North African, Jewish and Islamic saints. It is believed that through meeting the gaze of a saint, their wisdom and courage are transmitted to the onlooker. (DN)

YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU
Miranda Pennell, 2005, video, colour, sound, 4 min
A group of teenage performers are filmed as a sea of faces, filling the frame, locked onto and following the single take, studio set, stop-start journey of the camera like a shoal of attentive fish. The piece’s minimalist movement vocabulary of walking, stopping, turning and swaying is suggested mainly by the sound of moving feet and sudden silences as the striving to maintain an unbroken relationship of performer gaze to camera/viewer becomes the central focus of the work. (Chirstinn Whyte)

L’ÉDUCATION SENTIMENTALE
Jimmy Robert, 2005, 35mm, b/w & colour, silent, 5 min
Bas Jan Ader disappeared at sea over 30 years ago. My new film acts as an intervention on his filmed performances. In five minutes I attempt to locate myself within his vocabulary, re-enacting gestures that I identify with, whether these gestures come from record covers, such as David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ or ‘The Idiot’ by Iggy Pop or appropriations and transformations of Bas Jan Ader’s own work. (JR)

THIS IS MY LAND
Ben Rivers, 2006, 16mm, b/w, sound, 14 min
A portrait of Jake Williams, who lives alone within miles of forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jake always has many jobs on at any one time, rarely throws anything away, is an expert mandolin player, and has compost heaps going back many years. It struck me straight away that there were parallels between our ways of working – I have tried to be as self-reliant as possible and be apart from the idea of industry – Jake’s life and garden are much the same – he can sustain himself from what he grows and so needs little from others. (BR)

EATING GRASS
Alia Syed, 2003, 16mm, colour, sound, 23 min
Shot in London, Karachi and Lahore and encompassing five stories relating to the times of day for Muslim prayer, this visually stunning work explores overlaps between time, memory and location through Syed’s use of allegory and complex editing. By building tonal rhythmical cadences – similar musical structures to those found in jazz or Indian classical music – meaning is not only conveyed by what is said, but also by repeated rhythms built up as the textures of individual voices slip from one language to another. Meanwhile the shadows cast by the sun become emotional triggers for a young woman whose present is continually enmeshed with the past. (inIVA)

BEN
Emily Wardill, 2007, 16mm, colour, sound, 10 min
Shot in colour on a set that was built in black and white, Ben re-inhabits a famous case study involving hypnosis. The authority of the case study, the rickety construction of the set, and the faltering voice over hold the film together in a precarious balance. (EW)

LOVE IS ALL
Oliver Harrison, 1999, 35mm, sound, colour, 4 min
Winter bound, a snow queen dreams of love and the blooming of spring. Through frosted rococo cartouches she sings about the virtues of true love accompanied by miniature animated sequences. Originally recorded by Deanna Durbin in 1940, the lyrics are reinterpreted to portray universal ideas of love: good overcoming evil, warmth melting the snow, spring following winter. (OH)

Back to top