Competition 3

A dysfunctional society controlled by a toxic leader results in the reality of illiberalism and the sole autocratic EU member state is leading the way. Recently, an angular black hole appeared in the centre of this nation’s main square, which proved invisible to Hungarians. The analysis of this dark object offers a short glimpse at tyranny from the angle of anxiety.

Unsettling Dust, a collaborative short film project, explores the lived, bodily experience of radiation by focusing on the relationship between post-nuclear landscapes, radioactive dust and breathing. It draws attention to Fort de Vaujours, a former nuclear weapon testing site on the outskirts of Paris and asks what it means to be living with the threat of contagion, with doubt cast upon your every single breath.

Sober and short kept notebook entries, piled up within a period of 40 years, are the starting point for a fragmented cinematic approach to an attitude to life. It brews, it nearly boils over, but the lid is solid on the pot. States of anxiety and trepidation are fought against with pills. War memories try to creep via dreams on the surface. A swallow flies inside through a window and Jürgen disappears in an earth hole.

This work is focused on the theme of grief and the leftover vestiges following destruction. A polaroid series altered with rum, lemon, oven and hot water is brought together with digital photographs and video that document the same space over different days. The sound design is created from field recordings and analogue tape manipulation.
Both the digital space –photographs, video and field recordings- as the analogue space –polaroids and analogue tape- are subjected to destructive processes. Image and sound are manipulated in an exploration of daily space as a space charged with subjective sense.

A dreamlike portrait of Barcelona, shot in double exposure on reversible 8mm film, is interwoven with an intimate “I remember” voice, creating a collage of memories à la Brainard and Pérec.

The director’s personal micro-memories, as a woman, filmmaker and immigrant, evoque the spirit of a time that may never return, constructing a communal heritage.

The act of making this film, involving the hazardous double exposure and the fragility of the physical film itself, becomes a metaphor for the perpetual tension between memory and oblivion.

Through text, sound and images from public surveillance cameras, we see how a recently retired AI virtual assistant spends its time.

A site which once served as a slaughterhouse has become an environment to preserve the life of Brazilian cinema. Until the first fire arrived. And then another, and another. Hundreds of negatives lost due to a policy that negates preservation actions. The distant relationship between the Cinematheque of São Paulo, public neglect, and the fire are rescued in a film whose very function is to preserve the memory of this Cinematheque. (Carol Almeida)