maltabiennale.art – Film Screenings
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maltabiennale.art – Film Screenings
One event on 3 April 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 20 March 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 27 March 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 3 April 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 10 April 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 24 April 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 17 April 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 8 May 2024 at 7:30 pm
One event on 22 May 2024 at 7:00 pm
One event on 15 May 2024 at 7:30 pm
Independent and innovative filmmakers from around the world have been selected to show weekly for the duration of maltabiennale.art, which runs from 13 March until 31 May, giving voice to diverse, daring, original works that straddle creative documentary, personal essay, animation and experimental.
The films have been selected to further delve into the themes and concerns of the biennale’s Main Exhibition: The Matriarchive proposes a radical reshuffling of the archiving process with a ‘feminine’ slant; Can you Sea? touches on displacement and the migration of peoples; Polyphony is Us contributes to the decolonising debate; The Counterpower of Piracy brings to the fore alternative, radical modes of identity and ways of being.
This programme brings together artists and filmmakers as diverse as Cemile Sahin, Luke Fowler, Jon Rafman, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Soda Jerk, Pia Borg, Yaloo, Franziska von Stenglin, Paul B. Preciado and Christiana Perschon.
Duration:1 hour 20 mins
Language: Arabic (with English subtitles)
maltabiennale.art X Ritmu Roots Festival
For this edition of Ritmu Roots Festival, Ritmu presents two ethnographic films tracing two performance traditions: għana and the ritual of stambeli. For this special screening, join us as we look into the ins and outs of these two traditions. The screening will be followed by a discussion on these two films with the films’ directors.
Il-Budaj – Bejn is-Sema u l-Art a film by Adrian Camilleri (2024)
Date and time: Wednesday, 22nd May, 2024, 7.00pm
Duration: 30mins
Language: Maltese (with English subtitles)
In this short ethnographic film, anthropologist and artist, Adrian Camilleri, pays tribute to the late Frans Baldacchino, fondly known as ‘Il Budaj’. The film delves into the tripartite life of this renowned għannej poet and artist, exploring the diverse facets that made him a central figure in Malta’s cultural landscape. Camilleri captures the essence of Budaj’s legacy by following the poet’s friends, family, and collaborators. Through their voices and stories, the audience embarks on a poignant journey, honoring the contributions of Frans Baldacchino, which left an indelible mark on għana and cultural heritage.
This film includes archival content from the Frans Baldacchino ‘Il-Budaj’ Collection, courtesy of the Magna Żmien Foundation.
Language: French, Arabic
Точка . Зору (Point of View) + Hello Dankness
Date and time: Wednesday, May 8, 2024, 7.30pm
Точка . Зору (Point of View)
A a documentary co-creation project in which smartphones travel from France to Ukraine and back, passing from person to person as a relay stick and collecting their video testimonies. Directed by Vadim Dumbest Duration: 55mins
Duration: 55mins
Hello Dankness
By Soda Jerk is comprised entirely of hundreds of film samples, Hello Dankness is a political fable that bears witness to the psychotropic spectacle of American politics from 2016 to 2021, and the mythologies and lore that took root around it.
Duration: 1hr 10mins
Takiwā Hou: Imagining New Space (short films)
Dates and time:
Wednesday, 13th March, 2024, 7.30pm
Wednesday, 3rd April, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 1hr 35mins
Takiwā Hou: Imagining New Spaces is a programme of Māori moving image works by some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most exciting contemporary artists.
Featuring over 20 individual works by 11 artists, this expansive selection reflects the notion of envisaging Indigenous spaces, moments and possibilities that are yet to come into being. Curated by Karl Chitham, Director Dowse Art Museum for Te Tuhi, this programme of works is a snapshot of the unique perspectives Indigenous artists bring to the global stage. Te Tuhi is a leading platform for contemporary art in Aotearoa New Zealand, with a programme consciously and continually shaped towards rigorous, adventurous and socially engaged artistic experimentation.
List of films:
Te Ahua, Te Wa, Te Atea (8min) 2022 | Russ Flatt
Uninvited Visitor (2 min 43 sec) 2020 | Layne Waerea
An unsuccessful attempt at chasing fog (3 min 44 sec) 2012 | Layne Waerea
Instructional Video: How to Catch Free Air (1 min 21 sec) 2012 | Layne Waerea
(Waiting for) Free Rain (20 sec) 2014 | Layne Waerea
Clouds for sale: Buy one, get one free (De-install) Aug 22, 2013 (53 sec) 2013 | Layne Waerea
Oho Ake (10min 9 sec) 2016 | Rangituhia Hollis
He Tangi Aroha—Mama Don’t Cry (15min 57 sec) 2019 | Kahurangiariki Smith
Manu does Matariki (2mins 26sec) 2022 | Suzanne Tamaki
Taonga Talkback TV – Episode One: Statue bro (gov grey) (1min 24sec) 2020 | Suzanne Tamaki
Taonga Talkback TV – Episode Three: Statue bro (gov ham) (1min 16sec) 2020 | Suzanne Tamaki
Taonga Talkback TV – Episode Two: Miss Tiki (24sec) 2020 | Suzanne Tamaki
Taonga Talkback TV – Episode Four: Good Golly (1min 48sec) 2020 | Suzanne Tamaki
Taonga Talkback TV – Episode Five: Plastic Māori (1min 32sec) 2020 | Suzanne Tamaki
Ziarah (10 min) 2019 | Bridget Reweti
Irihanga (3 min) 2017-18 | Bridget Reweti
Hiwa i te Rangi (16min 17 sec) 2020 | Jamie Berry
Wai whakaika (2 min 23 sec) 2022 | Jamie Berry
Te Pito (9 min 24 sec) 2023 | Keri-Mei Zagrobelna
Takuahiroa (3min 15sec) 2019 | Kaaterina Kerekere
what was or could be today (again) (11min 38sec) 2013-14 | Shannon Te Ao
Te Maiea (4min 30sec) 2020 | Reuben Paterson
Orlando, ma biographie politique (Orlando, my political biography)
Date and time: Wednesday, 20th March, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 1hr 38mins
Language: French (with English subtitles)
A century after the publication of “Orlando: a biography” by Virginia Woolf, Paul B. Preciado, philosopher and trans activist, addresses a letter to tell her that her character has come true: the world is becoming Orlandesque.
Preciado calls a cast: “Who are the contemporary Orlandos?” 25 different people, all trans and non-binary, from 8 years old to 70 who come to play Woolf’s fictional character while also narrating their own lives; and a series of mid twentieth century trans archives that evoke the real historical Orlandos in their struggle for recognition and visibility.
N’Importe Quoi (for Brunhild) followed by Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait
Date and time: Wednesday, 27th March, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 9mins
Language: English
N’IMPORTE QUOI (FOR BRUNHILD) in many ways stands in the tradition of Fowler’s impressionist portraits of persons who have made an impact on his personal and artistic life. Quite often, the person being portrayed remains unseen, with Fowler concentrating instead on their voice and traces of their presence in the form of personal ephemera or the atmosphere of their room.
Yet, in this new film, the performativity of his subject – Brunhild Meyer-Ferrari is self-evident. Composer Brunhild Ferrari, born 1937 in Frankfurt a.M., Germany moved to Paris in 1959 where she would meet and marry the composer Luc Ferrari. Brunhild Meyer, who produced a number of works of radio art in the 70’s and 80’s for SWF, slowly began to emerge as a composer in the last decade (adopting her husband’s surname) only after his death. Luc Ferrari, was a pioneer of ‘Musique concrete’ and a founding member of Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) with Pierre Schaeffer in Paris. Fowler’s film provides peripheral glimpses into their collaborative life and work but resists a traditional biographic narrative.
Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait
Duration: 1hr 15mins
Language: English
‘The contradictory or paradoxical thing is that in documentary the real things depicted are liable to lose their reality by being photographed and presented in that “documentary” way, and there’s no poetry in that. In poetry, something else happens. Hard to say what it is. Presence, let’s say, soul or spirit, an empathy with whatever it is that’s dwelt upon, feeling for it – to the point of identification.’ – Margaret Tait
Drawing on a wealth of unseen archival material, including sound recordings, film rushes, offcuts and unpublished notebooks, Luke Fowler’s new feature film focuses on Margaret Tait, one of Scotland’s most enigmatic filmmakers. The film takes one of Tait’s unrealised scripts for Channel 4, entitled Heartlandscape: Visions of Ephemerality and Permanence, as its starting point and considers Tait’s life and work grounded within the landscape of Orkney. Tait was not interested in filming the scenery but instead looked at the precise details that constitute a place, the small things that are often overlooked. Exploring the process of filmmaking itself from the perspective of a fellow artist sensitive to Tait’s understanding of film as a poetic medium, Being in a Place pays tribute to the strengths in her method, the importance of fragmented bodies of work, and the intrinsic value in failure.
What about China?
Date and time: Wednesday, 10th April, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 2hrs 15mins
Cert: 15
Language: Various with English subtitles
Demonic + She is the Other Gaze
Demonic
Date and time: Wednesday, April 17, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 28mins
Cert: 18
Language: English
She is the Other Gaze
Date and time: Wednesday, April 17, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 90mins
Cert: 15
Language: German with English Subtitles
“The machismo here was vehement.” Any of the artists could have made this statement: Renate Bertlmann, Linda Christanell, Lore Heuermann, Karin Mack, or Margot Pilz.
What unites the women, who were all part of the Viennese art scene in the 1970s, is the memory of an era of humiliating paternalism. In She is the other gaze, filmmaker Christiana Perschon lets these women, born between 1936 and 1943, tell their stories of male ignorance and the invisibility associated with that, of denial of their creativity, of a situation in which their only possibility to learn was from men.
When the artists talk about sexual assault, about helplessness in the face of patriarchal structures in society and the family, about being defined by their role as mothers, and a lack of autonomy, the old rage still flashes through at times. Nonetheless, what defines the documentary is its protagonists´ passion and positivity. Their resistance ultimately found a prolific echo in the Austrian women´s movement — in initiatives such as the Aktion unabhängiger Frauen (AUF) and the feminist artists´ network Intakt. Encouraged by the Frankfurter Schule slogan “the private is the political,” and reinforced by a collective of likeminded women, these forerunners found the courage to transform what was pressing on their minds into artistic works. Perschon provides this act of self-empowerment a creative form in She is the other gaze: the white primed canvases by the artist Iris Dostal serve as a symbolic platform in the film, as a stage for narration and work. A respectful free space emerges in which the artists are invited to collaborate with the director in presenting and staging their works.
Pickled City + A Dream Journal
Pickled City
Date and time: Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 4mins
Cert: 15
Language: English
A Dream Journal
Date and time: Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 7.30pm
Duration: 32mins
Cert: 15
Language: English
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