Date: 20 October 2012 | Season: London Film Festival 2012 | Tags: London Film Festival
RITES OF PASSAGE
Saturday 20 October 2012, at 9pm
London BFI Southbank NFT 3
Steve Reinke, Great Blood Sacrifice, USA, 2010, 4 min
‘Whatever is going on on top, there’s a precise machine at work below, and this machine is digging little grooves, and these grooves slowly join together and become the conduits by which all meaning is drained from the world.’ (SR)
Hayoun Kwon, Manque de preuves, South Korea-France, 2011, 10 min
To cleanse his village of demons, the chief of a Nigerian tribe plans to sacrifice his twin sons. One escapes and flees to Europe, where his application for asylum is dismissed through lack of material proof. Using his testimony as the basis, Kwon proposes an animated depiction of his account.
Gabriel Abrantes, Birds, Portugal-Haiti, 2012, 17 min
Pagan folk myth is juxtaposed with ancient Greek comedy as three Haitian girls witness disparate forms of storytelling. An old man tells the tale of his wife’s transformation into a goat. In a local village, an elaborately costumed theatre group performs Aristophanes’ Birds in the original Attic language.
Ben Russell & Jim Drain, Ponce de León, USA, 2012, 26 min
‘Our Ponce de León is an immortal for whom time poses the greatest dilemma – it is a constant, a given, and his personal battle lies in trying to either arrest time entirely or to make the hands on his clock move ever faster. For Ponce de León, time is a problem of body, and only by escaping his container can he escape time itself.’ (BR)
Ben Russell, River Rites, USA-Suriname, 2011, 12 min
‘Trance dance and water implosion.’ A constantly moving camera passes through a complex choreography of bodies engaged in rituals of work and play along the Upper Suriname River.
PROGRAMME NOTES
RITES OF PASSAGE
Saturday 20 October 2012, at 9pm
London BFI Southbank NFT 3
GREAT BLOOD SACRIFICE
Steve Reinke, USA, 2010, video, colour, sound, 4 min
A walk with shaky hand held camera through the landscape of the high desert of New Mexico, down the cliffs to a water reservoir accompanied by Reinke’s voice over. (Argos Arts)
www.myrectumisnotagrave.com
MANQUE DE PREUVES (LACK OF EVIDENCE)
Hayoun Kwon, South Korea-France, 2011, video, colour, sound, 10 min
In Nigeria, to be a twin can be a blessing or a curse. The father of O is the village chief, a witch doctor who believes in the curse of twins. One day, this witch doctor tried to kill his two sons during a ritual ceremony: O managed to escape but saw his brother being murdered. Having fled across his country, he succeeded, by chance, in leaving Nigeria and going into exile in France. In this context, he applied for asylum but his application was refused because he could not produce any proof. (Hayoun Kwon)
BIRDS
Gabriel Abrantes, Portugal-Haiti, 2012, video, colour, sound, 17 min
Three Haitian girls wander through the ripe vegetation and colonial ruins of tropical Jakmel. After listening to an old man’s perverse folk tales they make their way to the town square and see a local staging of a comic masterpiece from ancient Greece; Aristophanes’ Birds. The film’s mysterious intertwining of disparate cultural forms serves as an ode to the potentials of cultural creolization. (Gabriel Abrantes)
mutualrespectproductions.blogspot.co.uk
PONCE DE LEÓN
Ben Russell & Jim Drain, USA, 2012, video, colour, sound, 26 min
‘I could do wonders if I didn’t have a body. But the body grabs me, it slows me, it enslaves me.’
Our Ponce de León discovered the fountain of youth and drank of immortality in the waning moments of his life. In an instant, he became old forever – an 80-year old Spaniard who would continue to walk the earth for century after century after century, watching as coral foundations gave way to mangrove swamps, as swamps were drained and buildings were erected, as buildings decayed and swamps returned. Our Ponce de León is an immortal for whom time poses the greatest dilemma – it is a constant, a given, and his personal battle lies in trying to either arrest time entirely or to make the hands on his clock move ever faster. For Ponce de León, time is a problem of body, and only by escaping his container can he escape time itself. (Ben Russell)
www.dimeshow.com
RIVER RITES
Ben Russell, USA-Suriname, 2011, video, colour, sound, 12 min
A trance dance and water implosion, a kino-line drawn between secular possession and religious phenomena. Filmed in one shot at a sacred site on the Upper Suriname River, the minor secrets of a Saramaccan animist everyday are revealed as time itself is undone. Rites are the new trypps; embodiment is our eternal everything. (Ben Russell)
www.dimeshow.com
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