February 2009
42 posts
Of the Moment
It occurred to me as I sat watching highlights from the 2009 Directors Lounge, that what experimental film can do better than any other form is capture moments. Feature length narrative films work tirelessly to make their leading actors and leading actresses convincing as genuine characters. But once an actor or an actress reaches a certain height of celebrity, is it ever possible to separate them...
Remixing the Monster
In Jewish Folklore, a golem is an animate being created entirely from inanimate matter. In modern Hebrew the word golem literally means “cocoon”, but can also mean “fool”, “silly”, or even “stupid”. The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means “raw material”. The story of the golem in Jewish text may first have...
How the French Dream of Love in Russia
Valerie Pavia looks the way I would imagine Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina would. She is the kind of woman who is beautiful in a very refined way. She has good posture and comes off polite and serious. Her eyes are sad and she looks like she is thinking about something bittersweet while she talks to you. Given her star appeal, one would think Pavia would make herself the subject of her films....
Audience Endurance Film
Endurance is a popular concept in the art world these days. Chris Burden pioneered this art-form in the 70’s when he crucified himself to a Volkswagen Beetle. Vito Acconci staged pieces that tested both the artist’s threshold for pain and the audience’s understanding of art. It’s practically impossible to get an MFA these days without having at least one endurance art piece...
Financially Strapped: The Poetry of Poverty
Katrin Bowen is a genius. There I said it! Her entry for the Zebra Poetry Film Festival, entitled Financially Strapped, is a spoken word music video detailing the conflict between Katrin and a cheap boyfriend who wouldn’t pay 5.95$ for discount sushi on Valentine’s Day. The video cycles through vignettes about what the truly poor suffer versus the cheap. The truly poor, as Bowen...
Seeing Red
Every color is a richly symbolic entity. Different cultures assign various symbolic meanings to a given color and it is fascinating to compare the symbolic use of color across culture, religion and time. Red is perhaps the most powerful color symbolically because of its association with blood, sex, the heart, as well as its connection to danger and violence. Think about the contradictory...
Sophisticated Voyeur
On Saturday night, for the second time at Directors Lounge, George Drivas’ Case Study (2007-08) screened. This time, three musicians provided a live score of whining cello, distorted electronic voices and a steady heart-pounding bass. The live score was—in and of itself—very beautiful and powerful, but the problem with mixing live components with Drivas’ work is that it...
Revelations
February 6th—Second Evening of Screenings
Sarah Pucill’s Taking My Skin
The two films I want to talk about dealt profoundly with family relationships, memory and the past. The first film, Sarah Pucill’s Taking My Skin (2006), focused on a mother and daughter film experiment. The film opened with a black and white close-up of an old woman’s face while her daughter’s...
“In den Goldenen 20ern war die Friedrichstraße bekanntlich die Vergnügungsmeile...”
– merkur: “5th Berlin International Directors Lounge”
“Im Scala Club in Mitte eröffnete zeitgleich die Directors Lounge. Eine rauchige...”
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from left to right Noel Lawrence, curator of the JX Wiliams Archive , Daniel and curator, director Klaus W. Eisenlohr
Berlinale Geheim
Samplings from the Opening Night: 2009
Roberto Santaguida CA Miraslava
The scene at Directors Lounge on February 5th was inspired and chaotic. In fact, during intermissions, the huge screen looped an Italian short film called Chaosmosis, which depicted gelatinous substances breaking off and forming new shapes, as if to drive the point home. While the screen conducted its miniature science experiment, the room filled with artists,...
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