Selected Films 2023
Screenings saturday 28th, from 9pm
The Unanswered Question
director Adam Larsen
choreographic direction Sue Schroeder performer Erik Thurmond composer Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question, with a score of the same name written by Charles Ives in 1908, explores through opposites the ways in which we as humans attempt to find ourselves. Similar to the two distinct energies in the music, beautifully seductive strings and discordant “questioning” horns, the film contrasts raw, explosive, self-absorbed movement with outward, tender, stillness; a white nebulous manufactured space with a lush natural environment; extreme closeups with wide shots. By cutting between these differing qualities, places, and framings, The Unanswered Question narrows in on the moment when one exhausts oneself and finally wakes to the world around.
Bronx magic
director Marta Renzi dancers Arthur Aviles, Aislinn MacMaster cinematography Cari Ann Shim Sham
The everyday magic of dance is everywhere in a Bronx neighborhood. Near the ice cream truck, under the elevated train, and at the subway station, everybody becomes part of the daily dance.
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Asab
director, producer, dramaturgy, concept Ariane Mondo
performance, choreography, dramaturgy Willy Helm, Mainá Santana location scout Diana Campos assistant direction and set production Tereza Duarte cinematography, cameramen, editing, post production, still Pedro Medeiros camera assistant Karla Raquel costumes Sarina Sena sound mixing Ricardo Felix original music Walter Nazário graphic design Caio Vitoriano catering Magia Vegana
This film was shot during the pandemic and portrays feelings and experiences of the isolation where the bodies are protagonists.
Light Rising
director and dancer Andrea Hackl music Antoine Viard, Zachary Paul
Is a poetic meditation,
an ode to the uplifting forces carrying and supporting life.
It’s a murmur, it’s a song.
Inspired by natural cycles, elements and their interplay,
diving into a space of liquid time,
flowing onwards,
falling and rising, a continuous becoming.
The film was produced during a residency at Bohemia Farmstudios, Czech Republic and financially supported but the Austrian Cultural Forum Prague.
Nothingness swallows one thing after another
director, writer, producer Daro Ceballos
writer, producer, dancer Gabriela Bondone
original soundtrack Cecilia Beatriz Quiroga
color correction Ezequiel Matcovich
A woman is swallowed by nothingness, a nothingness that advances, leaving all spaces empty, uninhabited. She is chased, she fights to stay, she sneaks into every room, but stubbornly she is found. It is not known if the emotions he experiences are his own or belong to the collective psychosis, to the uncertainty in which the pandemic has placed the world. How does a locked body understand the mutation of time? Late chronicles of a parenthesis in life.
Extremely in the middle
director, choreographer, composer Yu He Lin
cinematographer David Willem Verbeek gaffer Jove Wong
The concept of extremely in the middle relates me to the ancient philosophy of Tai-Chi and of the golden mean by Confucianism.
Tai-Chi refers to the very beginning of the universe, and the essential rule/truth of everything and every relationship. From the symbol, it may look binary, but actually it reconciles the two energy Ying and Yang, and they represent the intergraded balance of all matters.
The golden mean by Confucius has somehow been a struggle for me. As I observe and realize from my life experience, this very principle of being moderate doesn’t get anyone any where but to make people become very easy to train or even to manipulate. It is easy to be judged if someone stands out or acts “too much” under standard of being moderate, and it causes lots of anxiety and stress when people are not allowed to expand and extent who they really are.
In this dance video, I want to portrait it as a horror film, addressing all sorts of shady status of being in the void of middle. I discuss what it means to be “extremely in the middle” with my dancers/co-creators. According to their perspectives, I can see how deep the ancient philosophy and the religion are affecting us. We are programmed semi human beings by the moderate norm of this society.
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Sinoptica
director Isa Machado producer Maria Clara Laet dancer Samara Roana assistant director Gabriel Teixeira audio capture Lucas Stuvok sound mixing Pedro Laet music Florence and The Machine choreography Samara Roana
SINOPTICA puts under a microscope the transparency of the mind that seeks to know itself, reflecting thoughts whether they are quietly pleasant, loudly hostile, crucial or frivolous, non-stop…or close to. Briefly but constantly, in melodic and external introspection, thinking turns into movement translating into creation, freeing it from the discouraging and dehumanizing repetition.
Vacuum
director and producer Edya Stern dancers Alma Livne, Bertwin Ravi D’souza, Cecilia Bartolino, Dora Schembri, Edya Stern, Eleni Papaioannou, Hayato Yamaguchi, Hoyoung Im, Karen Fantasia, Koral Peleg, Kyra Jean Green, Lia Ujčič, Nadja Häussler, Olivia Bouis, Sanusi Deji, Shay Saver, Spencer Everett editor Assaf Kafri music BOOGZBROWN sound directors Edya Stern, Assaf Kafri
When performance art dropped to the bottom of government and national priorities, and even entirely shut down, I decided to ask dance artists from around the world how it all affected their self image and self worth. I was overwhelmed and moved by the hundreds of dancers who asked to participate in the project. 17 of them received detailed instructions for improvisation and filming. Myself and Assaf started out with compiling a multilayered soundtrack, through proofing and gathering all of the materials together, creating a complete harmonious piece. One that was aimed to be a metaphor of the dangers to society without art.
OCD
directors and writers Máté Bartha, Emese Nagy
producer Laura Manz dancers Zsófia Safranka-Peti, Sándor Petrovics, Emese Nagy music Márk Bartha Set Design Zsófia Tasnádi costumes Silvia Somerriello D.O.P. Mátyás Gyuricza
Get ready for “OCD” (Ordinary Catastrophic Day), the chaotic journey of an order-obsessed person. Choreographed by Emese Nagy and directed by Máté Bartha, the dance film is a German-Hungarian co-production with the support of the cultural organisations Joint Adventures and NPN Stepping OUT. Our jinxed protagonist is torn from the comfort of his home and thrust into the harsh outside world, where he and his newfound friend prepare for a hellish encounter with their nemesis, bureaucracy. Leaving their ordinary lives behind, they inspire us to embrace the chaos within and unleash our own revolution.
Alcateia
director Arilton Assunção
Among ruins there are some broken columns which represent strength, resistance, foundations and the walls of this abandoned plant also represent what remains of strength, resistance, what still exists, is there. The enveloping soundtrack of Ravel’s Bolero is adapted by Lucas Romualdo who added the song Howls of Lobos, bringing that air of mystery that space also brings us. This track also brings this whole question of repetition, the instruments go for a single note, crescent, that grows as if it were an avalanche. The balloon represents this earth connection and a space of elevation, of contact with what is above. A single female dancer, accompanied by 16 boys, gives this energy to this great human mandala where this atmosphere grows more and more and brings to the scene of this dance video the idea of strength, of resistance.
Looking for Loïe
director, producer, editor Tuulia Soininen dancer Emma Heinonen Director of Photography Aino Mättö foley artist Julia Huopainen gaffer Eeva Laulumaa
Looking For Loïe is a feminist dance film in which a woman comes face to face with inequality in the work place. It is inspired by the life and works of Loïe Fuller. It is created by all woman and non-binary makers.
By the Sea
director, choreographer, producer, dancer Edd Arnold
dancer Tia May Hockey director of photography Ben Williams music Anna Phoebe music featuring Jacob Kingsbury Downs, Transvoices UK costume design Allison Ozeray research & development Sharol Mackenzie co-producers Balletboyz dance supporters Swindon co-director Sean Flanangan
By the Sea explores the relationship between humans and the ocean through dance – an ode to the majesty of our waters, and our responsibility to protect them. Set to violinist Anna Phoebe’s hymn to the sea, featuring the ethereal Trans Voices choir, two dancers intertwine at the water’s edge, tumbling across the sand towards the waves. Turning and weaving through one another and the water, the dancers are transformed to become a part of the swell.
Shot over two days on the south coast of England the crew battled the waves to capture the supreme power of the water under an imposing storm. By the Sea offers a poignant statement of a fragile future that’s ours to secure.
Koori
directors Juliette Tellier, Rafaël Michaud
writer Juliette Michaud producers Rafaël Michaud, Juliette Tellier dancer Juliette Tellier
A woman alone, on a deserted beach, walks, dances and merges with this new world.
In an austere environment, where no trace of human activity perceptible, the field of all possibilities opens up. This land of ice becomes her rebirth.
Screenings sunday 29th, from 9pm
The Anniversary
director, writer, choreography Stephen Agisilaou
A dance film dedicated to the city of Palm Springs (California). An odyssey in dance and imagination, The Anniversary explores the human experience of disappointment, hope and reflection. The film is a huge passion project made possible by a vast number of artists, industry friends and supporters.
Produced by the Palm Springs Dance Project USA and from the mind of acclaimed Australian/Greek dance director Stephen Agisilaou, The Anniversary has no words and reveals its story through the universal language of dance.
Childhood/Adulthood
director, writer, editing, costumes Jagoda Turlik
Producer JaTu Film Jagoda Turlik dancers Julia Domagalska Szymon Pacholec DOP Piotr Werewka choreography Szymon Pacholec, Jagoda Turlik, Julia Domagalska music Mieczysław Karłowicz “Serenade for strings” op. 2 part. 1 – Erdódy Chamber Orchestra.
Jean Sibelius “The Spruce from The Trees” op. 75 – piano Marek Mizera, postproduction & color correction Piotr Werewka
Bathed in colors, cheerful and carefree “Childhood”, despite having fun, has its end. We “get out” of it in different ways. Its turning point is “Adulthood” which brings its inevitable change. Regardless of the “scenery” in which we live and the “costume” we wear as adults, “Childhood” is part of us and we can always refer to this land of joy. Together.
Pas de trois
director, writer, producer, music Guillaume Herment-Berrebi dancers Samuel Famechon, Adam Fontaine, Elsy Robert
The dancers, agglomerated at first to each other, and to the floor will gradually separate, stand up, individuate, discover themselves, learn to dance for themselves, and then together in a growing energy burst leading to a final climax full of desire. We will have started from a primitive nucleus, to end up with a desiring trio, free from conventions.
Circular
director and writer Inge Theunissen producers It moves, Introdans choreography Adriaan Luteijn dancers Giuseppe Calabrese, Mathieu Di Scala, Edwin van der Burg composer Jaap van Keulen camera operators Twan van Oosterhout, Rian van den Boom, Egbert Hotz, Joris Jans editor Inge Theunissen light designer Maarten van den Berg costume designer Ben Voorhaar production manager Miriam Bouw sound designer Egbert Hotz
In the history of the future lab technicians clone themselves. Overheating strikes when a clone emerges that deviates.
A game of mirroring, attracting and repelling is created. They discover each other (im)possibilities and powers.
The distinction is fading, even turning out to be reversible.
Who is actually the right clone?
See through view
director Rosie Trump dancers Keely Cobb, Krystn Janicek, Trisha French music Michael Brook
Like looking in a viewfinder, hand-crafted windows reveal dance vignettes as “See Through View” presents a frame within a frame. “See Through View” embraces the pairing of analog/digital, 2D/3D, and tactile/embodied.
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St.ranger
director Hyukjin Jeon producers Jisoo Kook, Seonwoo Kim performer Sukung Yoo director of photography Sumyeong Park
Moving subjects are rough, rebellious. It’s unnatural, it’s unrealistic. There is no beauty of traditional standards of beauty. A woman dancing over there. The thoughts, feelings, expressions, and expressions of the body create unfounded stimuli. Times always want fresh stimuli and crowds put images on stimuli with their own frames. She wants her existence, her non-existence, to be constantly transformed into something valuable. Like a fascinating belief in religion, the psychology of the crowd builds up an unrealistic weird tower.
And going crazy.
It appears strange but is sacredly wrapped. It’s like she lives and breathes in my body and soon becomes a part of me. Strange beauty, unrealistic reality… It soon becomes a routine. Strangely or not, we have always evolved that way.
Sembra strano ma è avvolto in modo sacro. È come se vivesse e respirasse nel mio corpo e presto diventasse parte di me. Strana bellezza, realtà irrealistica… Diventa presto una routine. Stranamente o no, ci siamo sempre evoluti in questo modo.
Black wind
dancer and producer Mateusz Pindelski
music Fernando Corona
Dance video by Mateusz Pindelski based on contemporary dance was inspired by the theme of the abandoned city, the surrounding daily grayness and indifference.
The inner feelings that the protagonist tries to convey are a comparison on the world around us and the one beyond our comfort zone.
Luce
director, choreographer, dancer Valeria Galluccio
director of photography Claude Précourt make-up artists Dominique Panneton, Myriam Boudreau sound Julia Innes music Luc Saint-Pierre other Francesca Pala
This work invites us to follow LUCE: a mysterious creature with aquatic, alien and humain traits. After landing on planet Earth, she must learn to live in a wooded area near a lake. Isolated, without any contact with other individuals of her species, she discovers this new world through all her senses. This constant dialog between her deep internal being and the fundamental elements of nature is being translated into jerky movements which evolve onto a greater fluidity, an expression of her kinestesic pleasure and her vivacious curiosity.
Everyday things
director, editor Andrea Dragov camera, colourist Nikola Gyulmezov sound Georgi Atanassov dancers Maria Asenova, Maria Valterova, Svetlin Bankin choreography Maria Asenova BTS Kiril Krastev
While a boy and a girl are waiting at the train station, another girl sits behind them. The pair performs a backward arm movement, which she misses and goes on to board a train. Left alone they engage in a waacking exchange.
Reaching a bridge in the middle of an urban lake she realises the couple’s intention and rushes back to their meeting point…
Listen to nature
director, writer, producer, dancer
Francesco Misceo
Listen To Nature, a project to reconnect people with nature at a time when our planet’s biodiversity is facing enormous threats. The artist, with this work, wants to inspire people to a deeper appreciation of nature, both for the good of the planet and for individual well-being. And to do this, Francesco, wanted to enhance this message by using new emerging digital techniques such as generative art and creative coding.
I go Iŋdeepe/andence
directors and dancers Dmytro Grynov, Daniela Komedera
Is a duet piece that raises the question of independence on a personal and global level and its impact on people. Starting from relevant political events in the cultural and social life of Poland and Ukraine, we examine phenomena of independence in these countries and how this issue affects local citizens. How much are people willing to pay for the independence of their country, for independence in decision-making and personal freedom? This performance represents a way to find harmony in boundaries and trust not only in yourself, but also in the closest people and local socio-cultural environment.
Uninvited dance
director and composer Sergio Fantoni
performer Chiara Redaelli
Just as nature will be able to reclaim abandoned urban areas after a nuclear apocalypse, dance and art can settle in inhospitable places for art itself.
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