Arctic Moving Image Club Night
Saturday 29 October, 22:00 until late at Nordic P.U.B., next to the cinema

Aune Records and others DJ. After having sat for many hours watching films, it is finally possible to dance!

The Tromsø-based feminist artist collective 'IMA READ' provide the visuals at the club.

‘IMA READʼ is an artist collective based in Northern Norway, established in 2015 through a local urgency for the visibility of intersectional, queer feminist discourses in the North.

The group, consisting of artists Georgia Munnik (SA), Calder Harben (CA) and Madelen Eliasson (SE), provides a platform for a collective education on predominantly non-western, non-white LGBTQ2I+ discourses.

Madelen has done visuals on Iceland Airwaves (2014) and Insomnia (2013).

For information in English, please scroll down

Harstad Kino
Kr 90,- / Gratis med festivalpass, men billett må hentes ut på Harstad Kino
Kortfilmprogram med påfølgende paneldiskusjon

I forbindelse med Arctic Moving Image & Film Festival har den Tromsøbaserte kuratoren Hanne Hammer Stien kuratert et todelt kunstprosjekt som består av bestillingsverket ‘du mah heures pah maj’ av Georgia Munnik og et program med filmer av Knut Åsdam, med påfølgende debatt under tittelen Arktisk urbanisme. Tema for kunstprosjektet er språk og arkitektur.

Knut Åsdam er blant annet opptatt av hvordan språk påvirker relasjonene mellom mennesker. Dette kommer til uttrykk i et filmprogram satt sammen spesielt for festivalen. Programmet består av de tre filmene Oblique (2008), Abyss (2010) og Egress (2013). Åsdam har lenge vært bosatt i London, og livet i det urbane europeiske samfunnet er et tilbakevendende tema i hans kunst. Han er opptatt av hvordan individer konstruerer og kontinuerlig forhandler sin identitet som en reaksjon på både de fysiske og de psykiske strukturene som vi omgir oss med, blant annet representert gjennom arkitektur og språk. Åsdam er bosatt i Oslo og han er professor på Nordland kunst og filmfagskole i Kabelvåg. Han holder for tiden på med en nytt filmprosjekt som finner sted i grenseområdet mellom Norge og Russland i Finnmark.

I tilknytning til visningen av Åsdams filmer arrangeres det en debatt med Knut Åsdam, samfunnsgeograf Tone Huse og filmviter Scott McKenzie. Debatten ledes av kurator Hanne Hammer Stien. Utgangspunktet for debatten er at Nord-Norge og Arktis omfatter urbane samfunn. Spørsmål som stilles er hvilken virkelighet er det som utspiller seg i de urbane samfunnene i Nord-Norge og Arktis? Hvilken betydning har språk og arkitektur i arktisk kontekst?

Filmprogrammet er listet nederst på siden.

INFORMATION IN ENGLISH

Venue: Harstad Kino
NOK 90,- / Free with festival pass, but ticket will need to be collected at the venue
Filmprogramme with following panel discussion.

As part of the Arctic Moving Image & Film Festival, Tromsø-based curator Hanne Hammer Stien has curated a two-part art project consisting of the commissioned work ‘du mah heures pah maj’ by Georgia Munnik and a programme of films by Knut Åsdam, followed by a debate entitled Arctic urbanism.

Knut Åsdam is amongst other interested in how language affects relationships between people. This is expressed in a film programme he has produced specifically for the festival.  The programme consists of three films: Oblique (2008), Abyss (2010) and Egress (2013). Åsdam lived for a long period in London, and life in the urban European society is a recurring theme in his art. He has a special interest in how individuals construct and continually negotiate their identity as a reaction to the physical and psychological structures surrounding us, represented amongst other things through architecture and language. Åsdam now lives in Oslo and he is a professor at the Nordland College of Art and Film in Kabelvåg. He is currently working on a new film project set in Finnmark County, in the border area between Norway and Russia.

The debate that will take place in conjunction with the screening of Åsdam’s films is based on the assumption that Northern Norway and the Arctic also feature urban societies. It will address the realities that unfolds in these communities. What significance do language and architecture have in an Arctic context? Human geographer Tone Huse and film scholar Scott McKenzie will participate alongside Knut Åsdam in the debate, which will be moderated by Hanne Hammer Stien.
 

FILM PROGRAMME:

Oblique, Knut Åsdam (2008)

Urban environments, and their heterotopic sites, are locations for Knut Åsdam's investigations into social design, patterns of behavior and modes of subjectivity, with a particular focus on spatial identity's disorder and pathologies. Åsdam perceives a city as a machine of desire, its geography as a system of desire and its architecture as a generator of desiring practices. Usage and perception of public urban spaces, their structures of political power and authority occupy a central place in the artist's studies of identities.

Oblique, which premiered for Manifesta 7, is a hybrid narrative of cinema and architecture which quotes public or semi-public spaces within a city, building up a labyrinthine setting within the gallery space. The film, Oblique, is an articulation of identity in transition: the artist invites to a journey through a continuous “city” built up from cities and regions of diverse political, economic, cultural and social landscapes.

The characters are traveling in a suspended generic space in-between the realities of various places. Thus Åsdam animates representational systems and orders of belonging that map cross-regional tensions where complex identity factors are negotiated, and express the struggle between a desire to find a place within the language and a necessity to adapt to social changes. Asdam narrates spaces of intense psychological charge: newly built outer areas around the cities, construction sites, institutional and office buildings, transitory places, between growth and collapse, marked by quasi-contradictory processes of economic progress and development of slums, but at the same time, he constructs an objective critical space of political urgency.

Oblique was produced by Manifesta 7, FRAC Bourgogne, Galician Contemporary Art Center (CGAC) with the support from Office for Contemporary Art Oslo, Galleri SE Bergen, Galeria Juan Prats Barcelona and the Cultural Council of Norway.

In the collection of FRAC Bourgogne, Galician Contemporary Art Center (CGAC), Kunsthalle Bern, Bergen Kunstmuseum and Tate Modern

Abyss, Knut Åsdam (2010), 43 min

Abyss was filmed in various locations in East London, at the Thames Gateway and on the outskirts of the area where the Olympic Arena is being constructed.

The film portrays an urban reality characterised by migration and change – the movement of people, the movement of money and power, and the drift of the imagination. The 43 min experimental film and installation work is set within spaces of the modern city – markets, gyms, parking lots, parks, squares, streets and stores. The main character, O, negotiates her material world but the city’s economical, political and social demands appear to have been absorbed into her movements, speech and psychology. The urban sprawl that takes in the Olympic site and the Thames Gateway features the sorts of “composite architectures” that often provide the backdrop to Åsdam’s films. In Abyss, the cityscape is the other main protagonist of the film, one that the other protagonists are subjected to. The film drifts between a material world and its psychological effects, and gives keen attention to the physical and material environment of the city without privileging a realistic dramaturgy or narrative. The characters move through the public and private spaces of the contemporary city and interact with one another as if the economic, political and social dynamics of the city had inscribed themselves within their language, movements and psychological make-up.

Abyss was made possible by the support of the UK Arts Council, The Norwegian Film Institute and Bergen Kunsthall.
In the collection of The National Museum, Oslo

Egress, Knut Åsdam (2013), Norway, 41 mins

Egress is a narrative set in a gas station in the edgelands of Oslo. The main characters work at the bottom of the oil company hierarchy and are engulfed in the everyday and the dark economic and psychological shadows of their society. Egress is the story of a young woman who deals with her every day work situation with independence and stubbornness in her work and life in the periphery of the city. The film shows relationships between control and independence, about labour, class and work, but it is also a poetic film about a socially insecure edgeland of the city—and about a psychological flipside or cost of the everyday, somewhere near the bottom of the huge economic ladder of the oil industry which secures Norway's stability. Egress' world is a world of social instability and economic insecurity as part of a society undergoing major changes. Egress is shot entirely on "location" in Oslo's Groruddalen, mainly between an apartment complex and a gas station. The film is an experimental fiction built up from documentary material which mixes the environment- and character-based to talk about contemporary society.

knutasdam.net

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.

LUMINOSITY
Galleri NordNorge

Parallell to the festival, Hilde Hauan Johnsen opens her solo show LUMINOSITY in the local gallery, just behind the cinema in Harstad. Privet View Saturday 29 October, 14:00. Free.

Orchestrated audio-textile installation is a good descriptor of Hauan Johnsen's work with fiber optics. Theatrical elements are an integral component where the effect of light is predominant. Light in general is a recurring theme in textiles that are inspired by the landscape. While most artists draw attention to light, Hauan Johnsen uses artificial light to create works that are light emitting.

For more than a decade Hauan Johnsen invites viewers to enter a realm of luminosity and transparency. She creates installations comprised of intricate bundles of thin fiber optic cables, i.e., plastic fibers conducting light along their length. An artificial light source is placed at either end of the cable. The light then travels along the cables, a process called total internal reflection. Tiny points of light appear along the entire length of an intricate bundle of thin cables.

The site-specific installations occupy large, dimly lit spaces and incorporate sound. End radiating fiber optic cables only emit light at either end, therefore the cables must be “damaged” by applying sandpaper to the surface, thus allowing light to escape. Recently the artist incorporated side radiating fiber optic cables, eliminating the need for modification.

This exhibition shows 3 different approaches to luminosity: The fiberoptics installation, the RE:MAKE Mogstad paintings and Behind the curtain: the curtains changing color by the influence of sunlight.

For information in English, please scroll down

Harstad Kino
Kr 90,- / Gratis med festivalpass, men billett må hentes ut på Harstad Kino
Engelsk teksting

Med utgangspunkt i ideen om "hjem" som et urolig konsept, bringer dette programmet sammen fem internasjonale korte fiksjon- og eksperimentellfilmer. Disse moderne kortfilmene utforsker de fysiske og psykiske sammensetningene av det hjemlige, tilhørighet og hva det betyr å føle seg "hjemme".
Innledningen til programmet vil plassere temaet "hjem" i feministisk litteratur, diskusjon og aktivisme.

Christina Demetriou, kurator av programmet, vil besøke Harstad og introdusere programmet. Hun er en uavhengig filmprogrammerer basert i Berlin. Hun har en mastergrad i Gender and kulturstudier fra Goldsmiths , London. Hun startet og driver LUNAR, et prosjekt forpliktet til feministisk politikk og praksis, og søker å utforske nye måter å kuratere.

Se filmprogrammet nederst på siden.

INFORMATION IN ENGLISH

Venue: Harstad Kino
NOK 90,- / Free with festival pass, but ticket will have to be collected at the venue
English subtitles and introduction in English

Beginning with the idea of ‘home’ as an uneasy concept, this programme brings together five international short fiction and experimental film works. These contemporary short films explore the physical and psychological assemblages of the domestic, belonging and what it means to feel ‘at home’.

The programme introduction will situate the theme of ‘home’ in feminist writing, discussion and activism.

Christina Demetriou, the curator of the programme, will visit Harstad and introduce the programme. She is an independent film programmer based in Berlin. She holds an MA in Gender and Culture Studies from Goldsmiths, London. She initiated and runs LUNAR, a project committed to feminist politics and practices, and seeks to explore new ways of curating.

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Safety Curtain
dir. Theo Adams Company
2016 / UK / 3’

The story of a group of women trapped behind a safety curtain made of past traumas. Playing a dangerous game, they face, over and over, the damage done to them- damage caused by love, fame, infertility, loss and the male.

A Fire in My Brain That Separates Us
dir. Benjamin Ramírez Pérez
2015 / Germany / 17’

In an initially deserted room objects slowly begin to move; they are manipulated from off-screen, pulled and dragged by strings, cables or the carpet. A “ghostly” choreography emerges, with the objects taking on a life of their own, vanishing and reappearing.

Valeria
dir. Erin Vassilopoulos
2016 / USA / 20’

Discharged from the hospital after a partial face transplant, Eva is struck by an insatiable curiosity about her donor, with whom she feels increasingly connected.

Woman In Deep
dir. Janicza Bravo
2016 / USA / 15’

A woman calls a suicide prevention hotline and is put on hold.

Aïssa
dir. Clément Tréhin-Lalanne
2014 / France / 8’

Aïssa is Congolese. To determine if she can be deported, a doctor is going to examine her anatomy.

For information in English, please scroll down

Feminist Video Art
Harstad Kino
Kr 90,- / Gratis m/festivalpass, men billett må hentes ut på Harstad Kino
Engelsk språk, ingen teksting

Dette kortfilmprogrammet viser et bredt spekter av feministisk eksperimentell film av noen av de mest anerkjente videokunstnerne i verden i dag. Filmene er laget av unge og eldre internasjonale kunstnere, og programmet inneholder både ny og eldre film. Filmene tar opp et bredt spekter av problematikk relatert til kjønn, sex, makt, etnisitet, kropp, økologi og språk – alt fra kvinners synspunkt.

Programmet er kuratert av festivaldirektør, Helene Hokland, og filmene vil innledes av henne. Filmskaper Lucy Clout fra London besøker festivalen, og vil delta på en Q&A med Helene som en del av programmet.

Se filmprogrammet listet under.
 

INFORMATION IN ENGLISH

Feminist Video Art
Venue: Harstad Kino
NOK 90,- / Free w/ festvial pass, but ticket needs to be collected at the venue
English language, no subtitles

This short film programme shows a wide range of feminist experimental film by some of the most important video artists in the world today. The films are made by young and older international artists, and the programme includes both new and older films. The films investigate a wide range of issues related to gender, sex, power, ethnicity, body, ecology and language - all from women's point of view.

The program is curated by festival director, Helene Hokland, and she will introduce the films. Filmmaker Lucy Clout from London visitis the festival and will participate in a Q&A with Helene as part of the program.

“Notes on Gesture” Martine Syms, 2015, USA. Språk: Engelsk. 10'30
Distributor: Video Data Bank
Inspired by a riff on a popular joke “Everybody wanna be a black woman but nobody wanna be a black woman,” Notes on Gesture is a video comparing authentic and dramatic gestures. The piece uses the 17th century text Chirologia: Or the Natural Language of the Hand as a guide to create an inventory of gestures for performance. The piece alternates between title cards proposing hypothetical situations and short, looping clips that respond. The actor uses her body to quote famous, infamous, and unknown women. She repeats and interprets each movement several times, switching from a physical vernacular to acting techniques likes blocking and cheating.

“SHE WHOSE BLOOD IS CLOTTING IN MY UNDERWEAR” Vika Kirchenbauer, 2016, Tyskland. 3'29
This is a video made by the artist Vika Kirchenbauer for her music/performance project COOL FOR YOU. Following her research on enhanced vision via infrared technology in modern warfare, here she utilises these technological means to discuss intimacy, the body, physical relations between bodies as well as the privileged gaze of the spectator.  The idea of transparency has found ways to diffuse into nearly all realms of life. Knowledge about the other is the currency that economies of love and war operate on. Given that an image/reality split has already become our every day’s natural task, she is interested in working with technologies that register more than what the human eye can capture as a form of enhanced voyeurism.

"From our own correspondent" Lucy Clout, 2015, UK. 9'57
Distributor: Lux London
From Our Own Correspondent' bear's the name of an archaic BBC Radio program in which BBC foreign correspondents tell stories about their embedded local lives. Featuring interviews with news journalists, bloggers and feature writers, Lucy Clout's video interrogates the interview relationship/process itself. Particular attention is paid to the blankness and self-assertion the interviewers regards as necessary to their jobs. Set within an aggregate of hotel rooms and corridors -transposable private and professional settings- 'From Our Own Correspondent' uses the potential for pleasure, horror and utter nothingness that is abundant in those spaces. The work examines the spoken, bodily and written construction of the professional encounter and the way in which the performance of various work and personal roles/desires blend into each other both online and psychically.

"Pulling Up Roots" Cecelia Condit, 2015, USA. 7'36
“This is the emotional journey of a woman who is navigating the tenuous strain between the past and the future. Filmed in an abandoned housing project in Western Ireland, she uproots exotic plants and flowers, as one might collect stories and memories one can’t understand. Condit’s operatic songs and childlike rhymes give a sense of naiveté and strength that comes from her solitude. From a playful skip around the yard, to a moment where profound sadness gives way to unexpected laughter, she explores an entire lifetime of emotions in mere minutes.”
Distributor: Video Data Bank

"Subatlantic" Ursula Biemann, 2015, USA. 11'24
“Appealing concurrently in this video essay to various meanings of the term “Subatlantic”—a climatic phase beginning 2500 years ago, as well as the submerged regions of the Atlantic—Biemann immerses her camera deep in oceanic waters to ponder upon the entanglements of geological time with that of human history.”
Distributor: Video Data Bank

“Birthday Suit - with scars and defects” Lisa Steele, Canada, 1974, Språk: Engelsk. 13’23
Distributor: V tape
"On the occasion of my 27th birthday I decided to do a tape that chronicled my passage through time. I have always been clumsy, tripping, dropping, falling with alarming regularity. This tape accepts the extent of the consequences." L.S.
An historically important work, who is, as quoted by film historian Catherine Russell a “counter-image to the emergent critique of the female body in narrative cinema”.

For information in English, please scroll down

Videokunstarkivet
Harstad Kino
Kr 90,- / Gratis med festivalpass, men billett må hentes ut på Harstad Kino

Videokunstarkivet var et treårig pilotprosjekt (2012-2015), initiert og støttet av Norsk kulturråd. Formålet var å lage en modell for et arkiv og kompetansesenter for norsk videokunst. Piloten er i disse dager i siste fase av en grundig statlig evaluering, som sannsynligvis vil føre til permanent drift fra 2017.

Per Platou var leder for Videokunstarkivet i prosjektperioden, og vil presentere ideene bak og dilemmaer knyttet til prosjektet samt vise noen utvalgte norske videoverk fra 1970- og 80-tallet.

Ett av disse verkene ble laget av kunstneren Ann-Elise Hyndøy Pettersen som døde brått i 2013, 65 år gammel. Hun var en original, en outsider i livet og i kunsten - en skoltesamisk feminist som laget frigjorte, radikale og provoserende uttrykk, bl.a. innenfor video, foto og performance. Ann-Elise etterlot seg et kråkeslott fullt av ferdige og uferdige kunstobjekter, videokassetter, fotografier, brev og annet som kan defineres som “jutegnask”.

Undersøkelsen av Hyndøy Pettersens arv sett fra et arkiveringsperspektiv tar opp dilemmaer som oppstår når man skal lage et mest mulig utfyllende og spennende bilde av en kunstner og et menneske som skapte svært forskjelligartede uttrykk gjennom livet. Hvordan velger man arbeider, anekdoter, kontekster, biografisk og kunstnerisk materiale? Hva inkluderes og hva må utelates?

Titler til visning:

Marianne Heske: “A video point of view”, U-matic 1977 (3 min)
Terje Munthe: “Video Audio Ago”, U-matic 1983 (3 min)
Kjell Bjørgeengen: “Video Distinctions”, U-matic 1985 (4 min)
Ann-Elise Hyndøy Pettersen & Anne Berit Nedland: “Katteperformance/Skulpturer på by’n”, U-matic 1985 (11 min)
Morten Børresen: Toilet Mirror”, VHS 1983 (5 min)

Stillbilde fra “Katteperformance/Skulpturer på by’n”, Ann-Elise Hyndøy Pettersen, 1985

INFORMATION IN ENGLISH

Videokunstarkivet, Norway
Harstad Kino
NOK 90,- / Free with festival pass, but ticket needs to be collected at the venue

Videokunstarkivet (Video Art Archive Norway) was initiated by the Norwegian Arts Council in 2012 with the ambitious aim of finding all Norwegian video art produced since the mid-1960s, digitising old cassettes and tapes and developing an open source DAM tool to systematise information, digital files, copyrights and more.

Today, more than 2,000 works by over 500 artists are registered in the database. The principle of „open entry“ has been crucial and has resulted in many newly discovered works that weren’t recognised in their own time and change the view of existing video art „canons“.

The presentation at AMIFF will talk about the process of setting up an archive from scratch, and show some examples of unseen treasures. The presentation is held by Per Platou. is an artist and curator based in Oslo. He has worked with electronic media, sound art, radio, film and theatre. He has been curating a number of exhibitions, symposiums and screenings in Norway and internationally. Platou has been directing the Videokunstarkivet pilot project since 2011.

Programme:

Marianne Heske: “A video point of view”, U-matic 1977 (3 min)
Terje Munthe: “Video Audio Ago”, U-matic 1983 (3 min)
Kjell Bjørgeengen: “Video Distinctions”, U-matic 1985 (4 min)
Ann-Elise Hyndøy Pettersen & Anne Berit Nedland: “Katteperformance/Skulpturer på by’n”, U-matic 1985 (11 min)
Morten Børresen: Toilet Mirror”, VHS 1983 (5 min)

Still photo from“Katteperformance/Skulpturer på by’n”, Ann-Elise Hyndøy Pettersen, 1985

For information in English, please scroll down.

ELEMENT
Harstad Kino
Kr 90,- / Gratis med festivalpass, men billett må hentes ut på Harstad Kino

Et kunstverk i form av en "magisk realistisk dokumentar" om identitet i tilknytning til landskap, outsider-kultur, fremmedgjøring, natur og fantasi, basert på kunstnernes egne opplevelser av å vokse opp i det landlige Sør-Norge. ELEMENT tar deg med på en reise til steder hvor linjene mellom fiksjon og virkelighet blir visket ut. Med ELEMENT spør kunstnerne seg, hvordan har erfaringer fra oppvekst i desentraliserte områder dominert av natur, skog, jorder, innsjøer, blandet med eksos fra mopeder og rånere, å si for hvem vi er i dag? Hvordan skapes personlige mytologier og hvordan kommer de til uttrykk i ens identitet? Og kanskje mer generelt; hva definerer natur og kultur, fiksjon og virkelighet, og hva holder dem fra hverandre?

Kunstnerene bak verket er Anne Ødegård og Simon Daniel Tegnander Wenzel. De kaller seg Tokyo Twins, begge bor i Tromsø og har nylig fullført utdanningene sine ved Kunstakademiet i Tromsø.

Norge (2016), 45 min. 11 års aldersgrense.

Information in English:

ELEMENT
Venue: Harstad Kino
NOK 90,- / Free with festival pass, but ticket needs to be collected at the venue

An artwork in the form of a "magic realistic documentary" about identity and landscape, outsider culture, alienation, nature and fantasy, based on the artists own experiences of growing up in rural southern Norway.

ELEMENT takes you on a journey to places where the lines between fiction and reality are blurred, where the events of the past and future overlap. The audience is introduced to various characters that live and act in different environments. They evolve, change their appearance as they move through various activities and landscapes, from gnome-like, slow creatures, investigating and foraging, to eerie birdlike people, to underwater nymphs and rebellious youth in dreamy scenarios.

ELEMENT is highlighting how experiences from growing up in decentralized areas dominated by nature, forests, fields, lakes blended with the exhaust from mopeds and "Raggars" have had an effect on the artists and what it can mean for their identity today. Through personal mythologies and experiences, ELEMENT questions something much more general and human, what is defining nature and culture, fiction and reality, and what keeps them apart?

Artists Anne Ødegård and Simon Daniel Tegnander Wenzel, behind the collaboration Tokyo Twins, both live in Tromsø, Northern Norway, and recently graduated at Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art.

Norway (2016), 45 min. 15 years age limit.

NOTES ON BLINDNESS – INTO DARKNESS
Virtual Reality verk
I fojaen i Harstad Kino

Dette er et interaktivt Virtual Reality-verk basert på lyddagbøker av forfatter og akademiker John Hull, som etter tiår med jevn forverring - ble helt blind i 1983. Verket tilbyr en sensorisk og psykologisk reise inn i "en verden bortenfor synet". Du blir presentert et magisk landskap i 3D, med 360 grader omsyn, og du hører stemmen til John Hull selv som forteller.  
Verket vant pris for beste regi i år, på en av verdens viktigste filmfestivaler, Tribeca Film Festival.

Produksjon: Ex Nihilo, Archer Mark, Audiogaming, Arte Frankrike. 2016, Frankrike / Storbritannia. Genre: Virtual Reality – dokumentar. År: Format: application Spilletid: mellom 20 og 25 minutter Språk: Engelsk, fransk, tysk, spansk. Ingen aldersgrense.

INFORMATION IN ENGLISH

NOTES ON BLINDNESS – INTO DARKNESS
Virtual Reality
In the foyer of Harstad Kino

NOTES ON BLINDNESS – INTO DARKNESS is an interactive virtual reality project based on the audio diaries of writer and academic John Hull, who- after decades of steady deterioration - became totally blind in 1983. It offers a sensory and psychological journey into “a world beyond sight”.

Festival and awards : Sundance 2016 - New Frontier selection / Kaleidoscope World Tour VR Festival - Best Experimental experience / Tribeca Film Festival 2016 - Storyscape Award / Sheffield 2016 Doc/Fest VR Award

Production: Ex Nihilo, Archer Mark, Audiogaming, Arte France. 2016, France / UK. Genre: Virtual Reality – documentary. Format: application Playtime: between 20 and 25 minuttes Language: English, French, German, Spanish. No age limit.

For information in English, please scroll down

Utendørs kunstperformance:
‘du mah heures pah maj’
Møt opp på gata overfor inngangen til Harstad Kino til følgende tider:
27.10: 18.00 og 18.30
28.10: 18.00, 18.30, 19.00, 19.30
29.10: 18.00, 18.30, 19.00, 19.30

Kunstnerpresentasjon med Georgia Munnik:
Harstad Kino, søndag 30. oktober kl 11.30
Gratis

I forbindelse med Arctic Moving Image & Film Festival har den Tromsøbaserte kuratoren Hanne Hammer Stien kuratert et todelt kunstprosjekt som består av bestillingsverket ‘du mah heures pah maj’ av Georgia Munnik og et filmprogram av filmer av Knut Åsdam, med påfølgende debatt under tittelen Arktisk urbanisme. Tema for kunstprosjektet er språk og arkitektur.

Den sørafrikanske kunstneren Georgia Munnik, som er bosatt i Tromsø, har laget et nytt kunstprosjekt som skal finne sted i det offentlige uterom i Harstad under festivalen. ‘du mah heures pah maj’ er satt sammen av ulike medier og fremstår som en performance publikum kan ta del i. Tema for ‘du mah heures pah maj’ er språk, ideologi og makt, noe som Munnik også tidligere har arbeidet med. Med utgangspunkt i konkret språkhistorie knyttet til Sør-Afrika og Sápmi skaper Munnik abstrakte språksituasjoner som skal unndra seg ideologisk innhold. Video og lyd er viktige bidragsytere i totale kunstverk som ikke kan beskues på avstand, men der publikum aktivt må forholde seg til kunsten.

Georgia Munnik er utdannet kunstner fra Wits School of Arts, Johannesburg (2012) og Kunstakademiet i Tromsø (2015). Munnik har deltatt i utstillinger på Goethe Institut, Johannesburg (SA), Kurant Visningsrom (Tromsø), Tegnerforbundet (Oslo), og Tromsø Kunstforening. Munnik er også en av grunnleggerne av det intersesjonelle, feministiske kunstnerkollektivet IMA READ, som nylig avsluttet et residency ved Baltic Art Centre i Visby, Gotland. I november vil Munnik delta i Kven Connection artist residency i Vardsø.

INFORMATION IN ENGLISH

Outdoor art performance:
Que up in street opposite the cinema (Harstad Kino) at the following times:
27.10: 18.00 og 18.30
28.10: 18.00, 18.30, 19.00, 19.30
29.10: 18.00, 18.30, 19.00, 19.30

Artist presentation with Georgia Munnik:
Harstad Kino, Sunday 30 October, 11.30
Free

As part of the Arctic Moving Image & Film Festival, Tromsø-based curator Hanne Hammer Stien has curated a two-part art project consisting of the commissioned work‘du mah heures pah maj' by Georgia Munnik and a programme of films by Knut Åsdam, followed by a debate entitled Arctic urbanism.

The South African artist Geogia Munnik, who lives in Tromsø, has created a new art project that will feature in outdoor public space in Harstad during the festival, ‘du mah heures pah maj’, which is composed of different media, appears as a performance in which the audience can participate. The theme of ‘du mah heures pah maj' is language, ideology and power, which has also been a theme in her previous works. Based on the specific language history linked to South Africa and Sápmi, Munnik creates abstract language situations that evade ideological content. Video and audio are important components of total works of art that cannot be viewed from a distance, but which the audience plays an active role in.

Georgia Munnik graduated as an artist from the Wits School of Arts, Johannesburg (2012) and the Academy of Contemporary Art in Tromsø (2015). Munnik has participated in e’du mah heures pah maj’hibitions at the Goethe Institut (Johannesburg), the Kurant Visningsrom (Tromsø), The Association of Norwegian Visual Artists (Oslo) and the Gallery of Contemporary Art (Tromsø). Munnik, who is also a founding member of the intersectionist, feminist artist collective IMA READ, recently completed a residency at the Baltic Art Centre in Visby, Gotland. In November, Munnik will start the Kven Connection artist residency in Vadsø.