Video Screenings
Mexico City artists
July 1st
Berlin artists
July 2nd
Los Angeles artists
July 3rd
Mexico City Program
Klingelhöferstraße 3, 10785 Berlin • Tiergarten (Mitte)
Miguel Calderón, Disritmia Cerebral, 1990, 3:28 min, S 8mm
I Forgot About the Sky
Monday, July 1, 6 pm
41:30 min
Miguel Calderón, Omar Guzmán, Daniela Paasch, Fiona Tommasi.
Selected by Andrea Paasch.
All selected films were shot on film, reinforcing the idea of decaying material and emphasizing the impermanent nature of physical reality.
I Forgot About the Sky is a reflective journey into the human quest to transcend physicality, time, and existence. Featuring stories of a creature exploring an unfamiliar world, a man traversing the boundaries between humanity and animality, and individuals and objects undergoing transmutation, shedding the superficial layers of the material world to reveal their essence within. The question arises: How close can we get to participating in the eternal order of the cosmos?
Fiona Tommasi
A Body Leaves an Impression, 2024
S8mm transferred to video
(5 min)
After a solar storm, a sea creature washes ashore. Its journey unfolds as a reflection on birth and loss amidst the desolate landscape. The creature wanders the empty expanse, seeking understanding in the silence of its surroundings. In a final act, she makes herself disappear, merging with the earth, a subtle reminder of life’s fleeting nature and the mysteries of existence.
Miguel Calderón
Un Nahual Veracru, 1992
16mm transferred to video
(10:56 min)
In the film, viewers witness the metamorphosis of a young man subjected to a shamanic ritual who wakes up as a dog. The camera, now positioned from the animal’s perspective, takes viewers on a tour of Mexico City, exploring its avenues, corners, markets, and cemeteries. The dog walks, avoiding the legs and feet of people, exchanging glances with and sniffing other dogs, and wandering without a fixed direction. Through the dog’s eyes and movements, viewers experience the character’s confusion while entrapped in his new body. The title Un Nahual Veracrú pays homage to the film Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog), directed in 1929 by the renowned Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel in collaboration with the artist Salvador Dalí.
Daniela Paasch
The House of Sleeping Beauties, 2003
16mm transferred to video
(11 min)
We enter a nursing home for elderly women in Mexico City and follow four women in their daily routines. They talk about their lives. Present, past, imagination, reality, and fantasy blend into one continuous narrative, allowing us to see how the plane of consciousness detaches from the physical body at the end of our lives.
Miguel Calderón
Disritmia Cerebral, 1990
S 8mm
(3:28 min)
Early experimental film in which Miguel Calderon visually portrays the physical and emotional reactions, as well as the sensations produced by the loss of consciousness. This piece is based on a series of episodes that the artist suffered during his adolescence, in which he would lose consciousness momentarily. It is also a personal reflection on what it means to exist for an instant without being present and the way in which reality is apprehended once again as consciousness is regained.
Omar Guzmán
benjamín, 2004
16mm transferred to video
(9:08 min)
While the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic opens its doors to tourists to appreciate the decorative motifs of the chapel made from 50,000 bones of human remains by woodcarver František Rint in 1870, a spirit narrates what it remembers as the moment of its murder and death, also sharing the torment in which it remains trapped.
Fiona Tommasi
I Hear You Praying in Your Sleep Sometimes, 2023
S 8mm transferred to video
(2:2 min)
I Hear You Praying in Your Sleep Sometimes delves into the intimate moments of a sleeping companion. The narrator keenly observes the whispered incantations that escape their partner's lips during slumber, delving into dreams that oscillate between the divine and the earthly. The purity of the sleeper is highlighted, especially in the vulnerable state of sleep, where themes of sex and death intertwine in the realm of dreams.
Berlin Program
Kottbusser Damm 22, 10967 Berlin · Kreuzberg
Ale Bachlechner, Feel What You're Feeling, 2022, 18 min, video still
It's the end of the world (for real)
Tuesday, July 2, 7 pm
85 min
Neozoon, Alisi Telengut, Elisa Jule Braun, Ilyn Wong, Sebastian Acker, Dagmar Schürrer, Nicolás Rupcich, Ale Bachlechner.
Presented by Berlin project spaces: Scotty, Rosalux, SAP Space, SOMA & HilbertRaum.
Selected by Clemens Wilhelm.
Das Projekt wurde von VATMH e.V. aus Mitteln der Bundesbeauftragten für Kultur und Medien gefördert.
Are we creating our own hell on this planet? Have we lost touch with our traditions? Are we creating depressed robots? Are all creatures equally lonely? Are we turning all of nature into products? Should we merge our consciousness with technology? Do we have too many images of the planet to still see it? Should we mine ourselves more effectively for data to succeed?
Neozoon
Lake of Fire, 2022
(11.02 min)
neozoon.org
@neozoon.org
@neozoon_collective
Project Space: Scotty
The documentary film collage LAKE OF FIRE addresses the fear of death and hell and how a dualistic way of seeing and living fuels the climate change-related „hell on earth“.
Alisi Telengut
The Fourfold, 2020
(7:14 min)
alisitelengut.com
@alisitelengut
Project Space: Rosalux
Based on the ancient animistic beliefs and shamanic rituals in Mongolia and Siberia, an exploration of the indigenous worldview and wisdom. Against the backdrop of the modern existential crisis and the human-induced rapid environmental change, there is a necessity to reclaim the ideas of animism for planetary health and non-human materialities.
Elisa Jule Braun
DEPRESSED ANIMALS (Antbear / Vacuum Cleaner Robot), 2018
(2.23 min)
elisajulebraun.de
Project Space: Rosalux
The movements of an antbear with stereotypical behavior are transferred to a vacuum cleaner robot to ultimately represent a depressed robot. The behavioral abnormalities are repetitive, compulsive and often occur in captivity.
Ilyn Wong
The Loneliness of Species, 2022
(14.57 min)
ilynwong.com
@ilynw
Project Space: SAP Space
The Loneliness of Species is a woven narrative that ponders the simultaneous interconnectedness and loneliness of multi-species existences. It comprises both original and found footage, some of which document the final years of the artist’s dog, and some are “nature videos” found on the internet.
Sebastian Acker
Can't see the wood for the trees, 2022
(5 min)
sebastianacker.com
@sebastianacker
Project Space: SAP Space
Recorded on route to Siberia from a window of a train travelling along the Trans-Siberian Railway, Can’t See the Wood for the Trees brings a visual reality to the unseen and often concealed transfer of materials and goods through global supply chains.
Dagmar Schürrer
Where does the rest of the world begin?, 2024
(11.50 min)
dagmarschuerrer.com
@dagschu
@dagmar.schurrer
Project Space: SOMA
In reference to the microbiologist Lynn Margulis, the animation reflects on the entanglements of human consciousness, natural environment, and technology, challenging western philosophical concepts of individuality, singular consciousness, and subjectivity.
Nicolás Rupcich
Archipelago, 2022
(15.05 min)
nicolasrupcich.com
@rupcich
Project Space: HilbertRaum
"Archipelago" is a video essay exploring the Arctic Circle landscape, blending footage with 3D models of scanned glaciers. It questions image production from remote areas, reflecting on digital objectification and its effects on our perception.
Ale Bachlechner
Feel What You're Feeling, 2022
(18 min)
alebachlechner.com
@alebachlechner
Project Space: HilbertRaum
"Feel What You’re Feeling" explores the intersections of dance practice with neoliberal concepts of self and labor, and speculates how our artistic language can change when ideas of growth, innovation, singularity, and transcending one’s limits are challenged.
Los Angeles Program
Kottbusser Damm 22, 10967 Berlin · Kreuzberg
Ulysses Jenkins, Vulnerable, 2000, 4:24, video still
It’s LA Baby
Wednesday, July 3, 7 pm
85 min
May Sun/Juri Koll, Kadri Koop, Jason Jenn, Wazeem Marzouki, Osceola Refetoff, Mike Saijo, Ulysses Jenkins, Cosimo Cavallaro, Ashton Philips, Bita Shafipour, Ulu Braun.
Selected by Juri Koll.
How do people deal with sea level rise, gun violence, loneliness, Ketchup, cultural generation, and the LA river, among other things?
May Sun/Juri Koll
Meltdown: Weapons of Mass. Construction, 2018
(9 min)
The death toll from gun violence in the U.S. per capita is catastrophic. How do guns affect our society and what is being done - how do we turn swords into plowshares?
Kadri Koop
I’m Expecting, 2024
(6:28 min)
vimeo.com
A film about a woman who is living in the anticipation of her dreams coming true.
Wazeem Marzouki
Phobia, 2022
(7 min)
Being free grants you the grace of sharp vision: to be able to capture a broken edge within a distant window from a vast space. On the other hand, the opposite could verily not, even if that edge was nipping at your nose.
Osceola Refetoff
Sea of Change, 2024
(8 min)
Sea of Change is envisioned as a perpetual work in progress. Using footage shot by Osceola Refetoff, and collected from places like NASA, it challenges us to look at sea level rise. The film will evolve with each new set of images and data. In the spirit of film director Kenneth Anger and the immortal words of Marcel Duchamp, the project will ever remain “definitively unfinished.”
Ulysses Jenkins
Vulnerable, 2000
(4:24 min)
An art film by this acclaimed “artist’s Artist” about the potential for solitude, violence, and loneliness in the City of Angels.
Cosimo Cavallaro
I am here, 2017
(4:30 min)
This is an archival film of one of Cavallaro’s earliest “Rooms”, made in Canada before he moved to New York and then LA, where he resides now.
Ashton Philips
(Im) Material Remains, 2020
(4:30 min)
An abstract take on the LA River, it’s surroundings, with it’s beauty, detritus, strength and vulnerability.
Bita Shafipour
Layers; The Art of Hadi Salehi’s Photography (25:39 mins)
veniceica.org/
artworld-collection
Using Hadi’s photographs and archival film footage, captured in dozens of countries and including thousands of subjects, this art film visualizes Hadi’s life as an Iranian immigrant in Los Angeles.
“Pacific Vein” takes us through a painterly panorama of the US West. Julian Assange stands between imperial, Roman fake buildings as a soda maker and ponders the digitalization of our world. Around him, hippies, artists and homeless people search for meaning while their messages are captured by surveillance cameras. Media and fictional scenes merge hypnotically with documentary footage. The empire is diligent (fitness, self-optimization) and nervous (military, weapons), the American Dream glitched into a ghostly autosuggestion. Where is the enemy and who has the image rights?
World Premiere at the 74.Berlinale.
Ulu Braun
Pacific Vein, 2024
(11:58 min)