DREAMLAND 2

DREAMLAND 2


SHORT FILM PROGRAMME
Saturday 5 April, 10am – 11.20am

We begin with an oneiric voyage into the interaction between writing and perception, the distinction between image and language as seen through a fish’s eye. The fish becomes a whale, and a site of trauma that induces a young girl toward the uncontrollable act of baring her skin. A woman stands her ground, facing us in a mirror of fleeting time, while another traverses a landscape between feminine reality and perception. Ourselves, herself, the camera gaze. There is a storm brewing on the inside, merging into darkness, pulling ever toward the blinding intensity of the ragings without.

This programme contains some nudity.

Alessandro De Francesco, Sam Firth and Robert Todd will be present for a Q&A.

Tickets: £4
MAIN AUDITORIUM, HEART OF HAWICK – TOWER MILL

All films in this programme:

This Is An Unknown Surface

Robert Cahen, Alessandro De Francesco, Matias Guerra/United Kingdom 2013/00:11:44/World premiere

The dreamland of language: “This is an Unknown Surface” is an oneiric voyage in the interaction between writing and perception, between nature and culture. Language is filmed on four interwoven surfaces: an ancient stele in a Chinese temple, the written work of a contemporary artist, a software-processed voice reading a poetically dense text and mysterious lotus leaves that preexist to writing and exist beyond writing. Entirely shot in fisheye, this film pushes to the limits of the screen the distinction between language and image.

Biography/Filmography:

Robert Cahen (1945) is a leading French video artist. Among his video works: Karine (1976), Hong Kong Song (1989), Sept visions fugitives (1995), Sanaa, passages en noir (2007). See also:
Entrevoir 2014
Robert Cahen at the Daniel Langlois Foundation
Robert Cahen and Chris Meigh Andrews interviewed by Terry Flaxton
Robert Cahen search on Vimeo or Youtube.
Robert Cahen – Films + videos 1973-2007 (DVD)

Alessandro De Francesco (1981) is an Italian poet and language artist. Among his works: Redefinition (performance and book, 2008-2011), Augmented Writing (artist book, 2013).
www.alessandrodefrancesco.net

Matias Guerra Herreros (1973) is a Chilean video artist and painter. Among his works: Surface Impact Studies (performance, 2005), Tiresia (video and book, 2008), We Are Verbs (artist book, 2013)
www.matiasguerra.org

Venue: MAIN AUDITORIUM, HEART OF HAWICK – TOWER MILL
Tickets: £4 (for the whole Dreamland 2 programme)
Screening date: Saturday 5 April
Screening time: 10am – 11.20am


Electric Oil

Jessica Sarah Rinland/United Kingdom 2013/00:06:30/Scottish Premiere

In 1868, Laura Jernegan, a 6 year old girl from Massachusetts, USA set out on a three year whaling voyage to the Pacific Ocean. During this voyage, Laura wrote a journal about her life on the whaling ship. She mainly notes banal daily events, but regularly describes the slaughter of whales in great detail. Electric Oil explores the assumption that a 6 year old, observing the slaughter of whales on a regular basis, could have huge psychological and physical trauma in her later years. Laura’s allergy to oil, which subsequently triggers the uncontrollable act of ridding her skin of all materials, represents this trauma. The text in Electric Oil, written by Laura’s physiologist, examines the stimulus for this trauma and the abstract imagery represents Laura’s formation of the memory.

Biography/Filmography:

Jessica Sarah Rinland graduated in Fine Art from Central St Martins, having also spent a semester of Film Production at Tisch, NYU. Her film Nulepsy screened and exhibited nationally and internationally including: Bloomberg New Contemporaries, New York Film Festival, London Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Anna Arbor Film Festival, broadcast by Canal+ and BAFTA long listed. She was filmmaker in residence at Virtue and Industry,at Picture This, Bristol in 2010 and has attended the Berlin Talent Campus and Locarno Filmmakers Academy. Most recently her film Electric Oil won ICA’S Best Experimental Film at London Short Film Festival 2013. Currently she is Filmmaker in Residence at Kingston University and will be a resident at the MacDowell Colony, US in April 2014.

http://jessicarinland.com

Venue: MAIN AUDITORIUM, HEART OF HAWICK – TOWER MILL
Tickets: £4 (for the whole Dreamland 2 programme)
Screening date: Saturday 5 April
Screening time: 10am – 11.20am


Stay the Same

Sam Firth/United Kingdom 2013/00:14:00/

Stay the Same is an experimental documentary about our relationship with time and nature. Recorded every day for a year at exactly the same time, in the same place, this film-poem documents the desire to clutch and hold each moment in time. The film is an attempt to capture a years experience in one sitting. It is about our own mortality and the flow of existence; and conveys a sense of being overwhelmed by individual moments that are impossible to contain.

There are no words, and the shot does not change, but the film goes through darkness and into light, shows a years seasons and a years emotions. The only constant is perpetual change. It pushes the boundaries of film form to create a piece of cinematic poetry, showing the beauty and the pain in the every day.

Biography/Filmography:

Sam Firth is a filmmaker and visual artist based in the Highlands. Her work explores the boundaries between documentary, fiction, science and art, personal experience and wider context, ourselves and the natural environment. Her first film ID won awards internationally including The Human Condition prize at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2011 and the DepicT Award at Encounters Film Festival 2010. The Worm Inside was selected by Sight & Sound in its eight highlights of the London Short Film Festival.

http://www.staythesamefilm.com

Venue: MAIN AUDITORIUM, HEART OF HAWICK – TOWER MILL
Tickets: £4 (for the whole Dreamland 2 programme)
Screening date: Saturday 5 April
Screening time: 10am – 11.20am


Inversion

Linda Fenstermaker/United States 2013/00:12:00/European premiere

Inversion creates an open space to expand female consciousness, in an attempt to discover the female self, where this self can feel her body and break away from the external gazes of both camera and viewer. Through the intricacies of the film medium, in creating dialogs between filmmaker, camera and female subject, Inversion explores landscapes between reality and perceived selves.

Biography/Filmography:

Linda Fenstermaker is an experimental filmmaker who bases her work around the female form and addresses issues of contemporary representation. She studied 16mm film production and critical theory at Hampshire College. Linda lives in Seattle and continues to make 16mm and Super 8mm films.

https://vimeo.com/lfenstermaker

Venue: MAIN AUDITORIUM, HEART OF HAWICK – TOWER MILL
Tickets: £4 (for the whole Dreamland 2 programme)
Screening date: Saturday 5 April
Screening time: 10am – 11.20am


Threshold

Robert Todd/United States 2013/00:19:30/European premiere

The storm as lived from the inside, merging into darkness, yet pulled ever toward the blinding intensity of the ragings without.

Biography/Filmography:

A lyrical filmmaker as well as a sound and visual artist, Robert Todd continually produces short works that resist categorization. His visually stunning body of work, which comes from a deeply personal place, takes a variety of poetic approaches to looking at the personal, political, and social ways in which we choose to live. His large body of short-to-medium format films have been exhibited internationally at a wide variety of venues and festivals.

Note: Robert Todd will be speaking at the Artists’ Filmmaking Symposium on Thursday 3 April.

http://roberttoddfilms.com

Venue: MAIN AUDITORIUM, HEART OF HAWICK – TOWER MILL
Tickets: £4 (for the whole Dreamland 2 programme)
Screening date: Saturday 5 April
Screening time: 10am – 11.20am



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