OPEN CALL PROGRAMME
Venue: Harstad Kino
Kr 90,- / Gratis med festivalpass, men billett må hentes ut på Harstad Kino
NOK 90,- / Free with festival pass, but ticket will have to be collected at the venue
Engelsk, ingen teksting / English language, no subtitles

På denne aller første utgaven av AMIFF fikk vi hele 125 innsendte filmer, det aller meste kunstvideoer, fra rundt om i hele verden. Festivaldirektør Helene Hokland, sammen med festivalkunstner Georgia Munnik, har gjort et utvalg, som dekker et bredt spekter av geografi, alder, og form for uttrykk - og som holder et godt kunstnerisk nivå. Georgia’s interesse for språk, og Helene’s sans for det sanselige, kommer til uttrykk i utvalget

On this very first edition of AMIFF we received 125 submitted films, most were art videos from around the world. Festival Director Helene Hokland, along with festival artist Georgia Munnik, have made a choice, which covers a wide range of geography, age and form of expression - and hold a good artistic level. Georgia's interest in language, and Helene's interest in the sensous, are expressed in the sample.

Cinema programme (see full text further down the page):

Ursa Major, Daniel Paida Larsen, Norway, 2014, 3’46
From Light and Shadows, Alexander Nevill, UK, 2016, 3’10
Unspeakable things, Tatiana Istomina, Russia/US, 2015, 11’18
Inverted Views, Eili Bråstad Johannessen, Norway, 4’35
Other than what I am, Calder Harben, Canada/Norway, 6’
Sone we kept, some we threw back, Minna Rainio & Mark Roberts, Finnland/US, 7’15
Death Diaries: Graceful Degradation, Mariana Rocha and Marcelo Kraiser, Brazil 10’
Speech Memory, Caroline Key, Korea/US, 23’
Stretch Çağıl Harmandar, Turkey/US, 2’16
Auroville Dream (Tales From the City), Sandra Crisp, UK, 5’22
Geneva. Chapter one, Valentina Besegher Germany, 6’53

Disse vil vise ute i bybildet og muligens i butikker i sentrum:

Arkivet 1982-2013 (The Archive 1982-2013), Beate Persdotter Løken, Sverige/Norge, 09:21 min
Spinning, Madelen Eliasson, Sverige/Norge 15 sek loop
Unveil, Wendimagegn Belete Masresha, Etiopia/Norge 20 min loop

LONG TEXT:

Programme for the cinema screening:

Rivers Run (Ursa Major), Daniel Paida Larsen, Norway, 2014, 3’46
Ursa Major is an experimental documentary series that over ten short episodes included various people who live in Arctic and that examines how they interact and relate to the Arctic and the changes now taking place there. In recent years, the Arctic has seen growing interest from the international community. The climate changes, ice melts and access to natural resources have become easier. The change has created interest among all of Nations political and military bodies of multinational firms and research field. How does this affect the life, values and interests of people who live there? How do I change the landscape and nature? Ursa Major will through a poetic and experiment approach show the Arctic in a new way. This film, Rivers Run, is the first filme mae in the series. It was filmed at the major cultre project SALT, while it was in Nordland County. The film includes an interview with the American artist and musician Lonnie Holly, while visiting SALT.

About the artist:
Daniel Paid Larsen is active as a filmmaker and artist, based Tin, Oslo and Milan. He has in recent years been behind directing, camera and production on a number of documentaries, music videos and art films. As an artist, Daniel has exhibited and performed his works in numerous galleries nationally and internationally. He has a master's degree in visual arts with emphasis on film and photography from the university of art in Berlin and Kunsthochschule Bremen.
film.billionsofmillions.com/

From Light and Shadows, Alexander Nevill, UK, 2016, 3’10
Light pours through a window mimicking the progression of sunlight throughout a day. Ambient cityscape sounds rise and fall with the passage of illumination. French and English narration collides during this reflection on the symbolic power of light and shadow.

About the artist:
Alex Nevill is a Dublin based cinematographer and moving image artist. Alex received first class honors for his undergraduate degree at the University of Gloucestershire in 2011 and then completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Scotland Screen Academy in 2014. He is currently studying towards a practice based PhD in the Centre for Moving Image Research, UWE for which he received an AHRC studentship. His work has been exhibited at the BFI London Film Festival and awarded at Edinburgh International Film Festival, European Independent Film Festival and Aesthetica Short Film Festival among others. Alex previously held positions at Southampton Solent University, the University of Gloucestershire and currently teaches at Ravensbourne alongside his practice.
www.alexnevill.co.uk

Unspeakable things, Tatiana Istomina, Russia/US, 2015, 11’18
“Unspeakable things” is a story told by a woman of South Asian descent living in Canada, who points out things that may not be named or discussed in different cultures. The video is part of Scary Stories – an experimental video project, which develops in the intersection of art, social practice, oral history and digital media. The project’s participants are invited to tell a a “scary” story and discuss anything that concerns them in their own lives or the life of the society; their stories are accompanied by digital drawings created by other participants. Recorded at different locations, the films create a collective narrative of contemporary world, with its diverse cultural landscape and ongoing social, racial and economic tensions.

About the artist:
Tatiana Istomina is a Russian-born multi-media artist and writer living in New York. Her projects have been featured in exhibitions and screenings across the US and abroad; venues include Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, the Drawing Center, the Bronx Museum, Gaîté Lyrique, and Haus der Kulturen der Wel. Istomina is a recipient of several awards including the AAF Prize for Fine Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, the Chenven foundation grant, and the Spillways Fellowship. She holds a PhD in geophysics from Yale University (2010) and MFA from Parsons New School (2011).

Inverted Views, Eili Bråstad Johannessen, Norway, 4’35
Reflections on memories and our inner landscape. From Reisa with love. Filmed in Nordreisa, Northern Norway.

Eili works as an artist/filmmaker and lives in Nordreisa and Berlin. She studied art photography and digital medias at Robert Meyer Kunsthøgskole/NISS (Oslo) and film in Nordland Kunst og Filmfagskole. She combines working with experimental and more traditional film. On Inverted Views she's worked with the japanese visual artist Hiroshi Aoki (Tokyo/Berlin) and french sound man Nathanel Gustin (Based in Tromsø).

Other than what I am, Calder Harben, Canada/Norway, 6’
I carry the memory of a dream, vividly impressed onto the body my waking self. In the dream, I am no longer in my current body - I am entirely salmon. Everything I know about being and sensing in my human body, is suddenly alien. This experience of otherness, of liminal embodiment, is recounted through connected memory experience of almost drowning as a child. Scenes were filmed at a fresh-water salmon farm in Kirkenes, and Havbruksstasjon in Troms. My (our) perceptions are embodied by all the senses available to me (us). I (we) see, smell, touch, taste, move- a stream of sensation, forming my (our) perception of the world. I am interested in how I (we) use these perceptions to form narratives between 'self' and 'other', how I (we) relate with everything around us - an attempt to understand embodiment. It is our embodiment that shapes our interactions in the world; political, sensorial, ecological, cultural and collective perceptions. OTHER THAN WHAT I AM focuses on experience of being embodied as other, pushing the limits of what my body is and can be.

About the artist:
Gestures of relation, under the conditions of duration and embodiment: the emotional, political, social, material ecology of individual and social bodies in time and space. The work takes the form of installations, sound, text, video and crafted objects. I am interested in the value of intimacy, intuition and, queerness as working methods to open bodies (human bodies, ecologies of bodies, more-than-human bodies). My recent work takes interest in cultural ideas of doubles and doubling, marine acoustic ecology, interconnection and communications, and the thresholds of perceptibility. In 2014 I co-initiated The Queer Ecologies Network with artists Elin M. Ø. Vister (NO) and Maja Moesgaard (DK), and, in 2015, 'IMA READ' artist collective with Georgia Munnik (SA) and Madelen Eliasson (SE), based in Tromsø, Northern Norway. I co-edited “DO YOU READ ME?” which was awarded ‘Art Publication of the Year’ by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. My work has been exhibited recently as part of the group exhibition Det Ku’ Være Politisk at Janusbygningen (DK), as well as Helsinki International Artist Project (FL), Tromsø Kunstforening (NO), Small Projects (NO), Tegnerfobundet Gallery (NO), and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (CA).
www.calderharben.com

Some we kept, some we threw back, Minna Rainio & Mark Roberts, Finnland/US, 7’15
Some we kept, some we threw back” draws a parallel between the migration of Finns to Minnesota in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the migration today. The film depicts a man in contemporary times, making preparations for a sauna in the backwoods of Northern Minnesota. As he carries out his mundane tasks — chopping wood, pumping water, lighting the sauna fire — a woman narrates a series of experiences dating from her childhood when she and her parents left Finland to start a new life in America. The woman recalls the reasons her parents left their home country: famine, unemployment, political persecution. She reveals how her family and other Finns were treated upon their arrival in the U.S: they were called “Dirty Finns” and told to go back to where they came from. Through its use of a dramatized narrative, the film illustrates that not so long ago, the countries that are today receiving refugees were once themselves subject to similar circumstances that lead people to leave their homes in a desperate attempt to find a better, safer life.

About the artists:
Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts collaborate to produce research-based multi-channel moving image installations and short films that investigate the impact of social and political power on individual experience and history, and its manifestation in physical spaces. Their art has dealt with issues such as Finnish-Russian border, refugees’ experiences in Finland and the international trafficking of women. Their most recent works investigate climate change and global inequality. Rainio & Roberts have exhibited widely in Finland, Europe, United States and South America. Their films have also been shown in numerous international festivals and shown in competition in the Official Selections of Interfilm (Berlin), Punto de Vista (Spain), LISFE (Leiden), and FIFE (Paris). Rainio and Roberts both studied photography in England. Roberts has also studied Film Scriptwriting in the University of Salford, Greater Manchester. Rainio gained her doctorate in arts in 2015 from the University of Lapland. During 2009-2011 Rainio held the position of Visiting Associate Professor in Photography at the University of Minnesota.
rainioroberts.com

Death Diaries: Graceful Degradation, Mariana Rocha and Marcelo Kraiser, Brazil 10’
A tail about memory and mourning and the need to tell the story of a trauma-causing event and of one’s reactions to suffering. An orphic ritual of bereavement where the problem of death is posited as a problem of language, of solitude, of thought and is transferred into a reflection on oneself. In the infinite time of dying, all possibility becomes impossible, and the subject is left passive and impotent.

About the artist:
Mariana Rocha is a visual artist, performer and lawyer. She is a PhD candidate in Literary, Musical and Visual Thought at The European Graduate School EGS (Switzerland). She has a BA in Fine Arts from Escola Guignard (UEMG/Brazil), specialized in drawing and sculpture; has a MA in Performance Art from Faculdade Angel Vianna (RJ/Brazil) and a MFA from Plymouth University (UK) and Transart Institute (USA/DE). Her work is interdisciplinary and has been shown in Brazil and abroad. She is part of the performance duo Rocha & Polse, and researches the body and its relation to sound, movement, weight and decay. She lives and works in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Copenhagen, Denmark.
www.mariana-rocha.com

Speech Memory, Caroline Key, Korea/US, 23’
Father and daughter discuss the lives of past generations to form a posthumous portrait of the filmmaker's grandfather, Key Jin Yun. A deaf-mute Korean born in Japan during its occupation of Korea, Key Jin Yun, was raised fully integrated into Japanese society, learning only written Japanese and Japanese sign language. In 1945, with Japan's defeat and the end of the occupation, he and his family returned to Korea. Speech Memory examines the impact of immigration and cultural assimilation through the details of Key Jin Yun's life, revealing the shifting complexities of language, national identity, and memory.

About the artist:
Caroline Key is a Korean-American filmmaker and video installation artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA in Film/Video from the California Institute of the Arts, her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was a participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Her works employ a range of cinematic practices- 16mm film, alchemical film processing, documentary, animation, and digital graphics. These films and videos investigate the construction and negotiation of identities rooted in conditions of alterity. Her works have shown internationally at festivals and galleries, including Arsenal Cinema in Berlin, the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum, and the New Museum in New York.
problempictures.net

Stretch, Çağıl Harmandar, Turkey/US, 2’16
This film is about the strange morning rituals, between asleep and awake.

About the artist:
Çağıl was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1992. She was accepted into the School of Museum of Fine Arts in 2011. During a short leave of absence (2012-2013) she attended the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Academy, Istanbul. In her exchange semester in the junior year Çağıl studied with the Film Animation Video department at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Her animations have been featured in several animation festivals including: The Melbourne International Animation Festival, Melbourne, Australia, and Primanima Animation Festival in Budapest, Czech Republic.

Auroville Dream (Tales From the City), Sandra Crisp, UK, 5’22
A journey through contrasting hybrid locations using multi-layered 3d models that rapidly transform over time. Urban visuals merge with dislocated YouTube videos; disembodied voices; futuristic tree-clad architecture; Geodesic domes and a complex unpopulated landscape with an ambiguous spherical central form. All emphasize the fragmentary nature of found online material and today’s saturation of images and information.

About the artist:
Sandra Crisp (b. Wirral UK) studied art Foundation at Chester College of Art. She earned a BA (Hons) Graphic Design/ Printmaking Leeds Polytechnic (1989) and MA Fine Art Printmaking Wimbledon School of Art (1993). She has exhibited widely nationally and internationally and taught in various London-based colleges. Awards include; (2016) Sluice-Screens prize shortlist (2013) Printmaking Today (2005) Zenith Julian Trevelyan, Curwen & Printspace prizes (2004) RK Burt (1995) and Artichoke (1996). Her work has been included in the following exhibitions; (2016) EMAF European Media Arts Festival, Germany (2016) Sluice_Screens prize
www.sandracrispart.com

Geneva. Chapter one, Valentina Besegher Germany, 6’53
Initial phase of a film series, but originally conceived as an installation, Geneva / Chapter One classifies sequences of traces, practices or phenomena connected to the presence in its ex-static sense by means of an exchange of references on a two-channel video as a prelude to the loss of an interpretative code.

About the artist:
Valentina Besegher (1976, Milan - Italy) is an avant-garde filmmaker, live video performer and visual artist. She lives and works in Berlin.
www.besegher.com

Films outside in the town:
Arkivet 1982-2013 (The Archive 1982-2013), Beate Persdotter Løken, Sverige/Norge, 09:21 min
I made this movie because in whole my life I had such good memory. I have remembered everything, even my friends memories. But suddenly I started to feel like I mixed my own memories with people around me, so I stared to make a huge map of the all years I have lived and organized my memories. Finally I picked four memories that felt like they formed my life and who I am and made them into an animated film. The first scene is about me as a baby and my encounter with some badgers. The second scene is about me sleepwalking. The third scene is about being bullied and how the safe haven of your home gets intruded. The fourth scene is about me finding some peace up north and end up in a bizarre accident. I have made everything in this film myself, even the music and this was my first longer animated film. If my film gets chosen I will add english subtitles.

About the artist:
A Swedish/Norwegian artist born in Solberga, outside Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1982. Background is in the field of theatre as a lightning designer, prop and puppet maker, and set designer. Studied prop making and special effects at Nordiska Scenografiskolan/Luleå University of Technology from 2004–2006, and I went to Konstnärlig Idégestaltning at Göteborgs Konstskola from 2012–2013. In 2008, she received Anders Sandrews Scholarship for Young Adults in Theatre and Film. Currently, the spring of 2016 she graduated from the bachelor program at Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art, in Northern Norway. In her artistic practice, she likes to create a world her own; to fill this world with stories and characters, and play around with them. That the work can exist in this created world is important, be it an animated movie, an animal tassel, a unicorn discussing myths about virgins, or a name generator for imaginary-real places. I use my established tools from my theater background, and I take them with me into my practice to create narratives, small stage sets and worlds. I like to think of my studio and universe as a burrow, populated by dolls and small animals, where I can explore possibilities for different scenarios. I often work quickly and impulsively; I capture the idea when it passes my mind, and I play with it until it becomes what I want.

Spinning, Madelen Eliasson, Sverige/Norge 15 sek loop
What is there to do in a small town? This video loop shows an animated Volvo 745 making donuts on an empty parking lot. A common scene in small and /or peripheral places.

About the artist:
Madelen Eliasson Born 1986 in Älvsbyn, Sweden. Is an artist based in Tromsø, Norway. She has a Bachelor degree from Tromsø Academy of Contemporary art and are currently working at the artist-run gallery Kurant Visningsrom and at the Culture House Tvibit in Tromsø.

Unveil, Wendimagegn Belete Masresha, Etiopia/Norge 20 min loop
The background for the work is a war that happened in Ethiopia between 1935 and 1941 which had a significant impact on history, and yet it’s been mostly forgotten. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, Benito Mussolini wanted an empire and revenge for Italy’s defeat at Adowa in 1896, and decided to invade Ethiopia. Unlike all the other African countries, Ethiopia was never colonized. The Ethiopians said no to colonialism and resisted the invasion with antique rifles and traditional weapons.
During those 5 years Ethiopians were brutalized and killed in the hundreds of thousands. The sacrifices that Ethiopians made and the solidarity shown during the war is the foundation for every other African anti-colonial movement, black movement, black panthers etc. This story happened long before the speech of Martin Luther King: “I have a dream”; even before Rosa Parks refused to obey a bus driver to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger. This is a story that the Ethiopians won in the end, setting an example for the rest of the world, to those who seek freedom.
With the collected footage videos from several sources I have finally come up with this video installation. The whole body of the video installation work includes cropped videos of portraits of 3000 unanimous Ethiopian patriots, presented together in a continuous loop.

About the artist:
Wendimagegn Belete is born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His passion for the visual arts grew through high school and led him to enroll at Addis Ababa university ale school of fine arts and design. He graduated with a great distinction (Outstanding student of the year 2012) in department of painting. He is currently working in painting, video, performance, and installation. After his graduation he consequently exhibited his works at several exhibitions, in Ethiopia and internationally. Currently, he is a master’s student in Tromsø academy of contemporary art, Norway.