AVIFF2018

航空电影节

ZH

AVIFF

2018

OVERVIEW :

'Afloat' is an experimental narrative film that paints a portrait of Japanese performance artist: Ayumi Lanoire.
The film opens as a telephone call between the subject and Person X, which meanders and leads the audience through the various layers that make up her persona leading one to question whether she is in fact a myth or reality.

BIOGRAPHY :

RIFFY is an award winning film director and visual artist. She has vast experience working across the art and film world from directing short films, short docs, video art installations, performance art, commercial content and curating interactive art shows. Her work has been screened and exhibited in various festivals and platforms such as Channel 4, The Times, Arte Creative, London Film Festival, ICA, INtransit / Nour Arts Festival and the Saatchi Gallery.

RIFFY looks to tell stories of unlikely heroes we don’t always see on the big screen (particularly framed around women, BAME and diaspora identities) yet can touch and relate to audiences universally through the 3 big ‘E’s’: Enchantment, Enlightenment and Engagement.

RIFFY is the 2016/2017 Hospital Club Foundation's Emerging Creative for Film and Television.

DIRECTOR STATMENT :

As a director my voice is distinctive in that I tell stories of unlikely heroes we don’t always see on the big screen (particularly framed around women, BAME and diaspora) yet can touch and relate to audiences universally through enchantment, enlightenment and mystery.

My film 'Afloat' touches on those very things mentioned above in bringing to the forefront the story of a fascinating character/subject who lives a dichotomous life as a city worker and performing artist, living in the western world. I had originally met Ayumi in an art gallery where I saw her performing and was really intrigued in seeing such contrasting images together: a geisha poledancing.

I felt very enchanted by this juxtaposition and endeavoured to contact her to see if we could work together. Upon meeting one another, I realised this character was more fascinating then expected and was very unlikely in that she lead several lives and was layered, which was the stimulus for me to write and direct a film about it.

Coming from a diaspora background myself (being British, half Bahraini-Arabic and Bangladeshi) I have always felt a sense of wondering and questioning around the formation of my identity and its place. Thus, I look to tell stories where those questions and experiences are conveyed in transformative ways, which people can relate to in ways that they know they are not alone.

'Afloat' is a very visual and sensory film where my vision as both an artist and filmmaker creates worlds that are both tangible and unreal.

AFLOT

OVERVIEW :
This film is a self study examining the relationship between our minds and our bodies, our thoughts and our actions, and the sometimes insurmountable gaps between what we think we want to feel and what we actually experience.
In this film I pose the question “Are you holding me, or am I holding myself?” and I attempt to answer it through a movement study describing the relationship between myself as an individual-a sensitive and receptive human body, and between various external influences. I am placing the human body in extreme conditions. Sometimes existing in a more grounded or neutral reality, while at other times existing in a warmer more surreal world, I investigate what it is to create and struggle with certain boundaries that stem from self reflection/self torment over past experiences, and the means by which we think we can achieve an ideal emotional or physical state.
Does our self perception hinder us? In recognizing our patterns, good and bad, are we really just making the realization that we are our own worst enemies? The realization that I sought through this film is that we are all looking for a human connection, someone to hold us as well as someone to hold.

BIOGRAPHY :
Performer, photographer and artistic director. His work combines performance, movement, photography, film & installation in an attempt to study the limitless physical potential of the human body and its connection to the earth.
Currently residing in Tel Aviv where he works with one of the most acclaimed dance companies internationally Batsheva Dance Company- The Young Ensemble, where he has performed works by Ohad Naharin and Sharon Eyal.
Brodermann has belonged to different companies on his trajectory, such as 'Gallim Dance' in New York, with which he was able to perform at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, In addition to belonging to different companies, Brodermann has taken his knowledge to countries of America such as: Costa Rica, Mexico and the United States at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the School of Creative and Performing Arts in New York and DOMO in Mexico City.
As a photographer he has presented his work in different magazines in Europe and the United States, with the collaboration of more international artists, in King Kong Magazine, Risk Magazine, Out Magazine and Mode in Motion, exploring different perspectives of contemporary art, within the LGBTQ + scene.
Brodermann's art installations have been presented at the Health Gallery, Center for Performance Research and Brooklyn Night Bazaar in New York.
As director, his first short film entitled 'Are you holding me, or am I holding myself?' Made in 2017, was presented and winner of several national and international awards in countries such as the United States, Canada, Scotland, and Europe, being part of the short film corner at the Cannes Film Festival.
Cesar just presented his first solo multidisciplinary show “PROXIMIDAD” at La Universidad de la Comunicación in México City.

Are you holding me , or am i holding myself?

OVERVIEW : An art film about consciousness

Bound

Creme

OVERVIEW : Through the portrait of a man implicitly appears the chronicle of a broken heart.

BIOGRAPHY :
I am an art teacher at school in Paris. I have studied Art history and philosophy in Paris. Since 2016 I make some short films with super 8

Das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert

OVERVIEW : Two lovers once promised each other to go to Japan together but now she is having a big breakdown. He helps her to recover.

Day and night

GLASS AND BONES

OVERVIEW :

Innocence gets disturbed as she dreams of a vision introducing her to two different attributes of life - virtues and sins - it's taking over her. As the two attributes take over, the beauty of having both is seen in a kaleidoscope perspective because at the end of the day, as a person, you can be both good and bad.

BIOGRAPHY :

Kent Donguines is a graduate of Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Media Studies of the University of the Philippines and Vancouver Film School, Film Production. He values creating a strong network as he collaborates with other emerging filmmakers as a Producer and has established his own company AIMER FILMS last June 2017. IRIDESCENCE, the film he produced is currently on its festival run with numerous awards and nominations. He’s also known for his other projects such as GREY and his Storyhive-funded music video SERPENTINE FIRE.

KALEIDOSCOPE

OVERVIEW : The video "Recover" was shot without the kayaker knowing that I was filming. I accidentally came across this man and was simply intrigued by his meditative movements, his focus and how his body and the canoe seem to merge into one. He'd be upside down, disappearing into the water, sometimes just long enough to make you wonder if he'd ever make it back up. He'd make the most beautiful moves, very dramatic and exercised with the greatest precision. Almost ritualistic or like a dance. I had no idea what the man was doing in the water, and I'd never seen anything like it before. I later learned that the kayaker is practising so called 'qayaq rolls'.

The rolling is intriguing to watch. The disappearing into the sea and the miraculous recovery. The exhaustion. I saw in it a poetic performance showing the thin line between life and death and the balancing act in between. One can only be upside down in the water for so long, a bit longer and you could actually drown.

As the main character is practising his rolls, he literally 'overthrows himself' and then has to 'recover himself'. Literally submerged in his surroundings, one could say there is no ego, he has transcended the difference between himself and his environment. A self inflicted 'falling' and 'getting up' again. A practise for life. Carried out in such precision, like a ritualistic dance with an intense focus. As the Zen Master Dogen said:

"On the great road of buddha ancestors there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment’s gap; continuous practice is the circle of the way. This being so, continuous practice is unstained, not forced by you or others. The power of this continuous practice confirms you as well as others. It means your practice affects the entire earth and the entire sky in the ten directions. Although not noticed by others or by yourself, it is so.”

This quote shows me that there is a considerable connection between this work and Buddhism. In the cycles of overthrowing and resurfacing the main character shows how the self can be transcended in 'ordinary' practice,

Thank you Hitoshi Maida. Singapore 2017.

BIOGRAPHY :
Born 1971 Netherlands

Education;
1994-1998 Willem de Kooning fine Art Academy, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
1997-1998 Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Java, Indonesia
2004 Pacific Art, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, O'ahu, Hawai'i, USA

Recover

OVERVIEW :
A young woman wanders the deserted expanses with a rolling suitcase. A father appears on her skin like a tattoo. A journey between two distresses where poetry is the only salvation.

BIOGRAPHY :
Pierre Bessette Born in 1976. He came to the movies with a rather unusual route. After studying engineering in Paris, he entered the Sorbonne to study philosophy. He obtained the ‘aggregation’ (highest teaching diploma in France) three years later in this discipline. Until now, he teaches philosophy in the french high school of Santiago -Chile. His personal artistic training began in 1999 under the direction of Vincent Lacoste. A few years later, he continued in the course of the ATC - Creative Theatre Workshop. In 2008, he created and directed, “C’est de l’eau” - This is Water - (Théâtre de l'Etoile du Nord, Paris, June 2009), a play essentially physical in which a couple lives its story by drinking glasses of water. By working with director Jean Seban on an adaptation of this performance, reflecting with him on the status of the image, it takes a liking to the realization.

Song Sotto Voce

OVERVIEW :

Strangers is an experimental non-spoken short film that tells the surreal stories of 9 characters evolving in the same space in a complex choreography of interlaced paths. The tight human pattern they weave often comes really close to overlapping, yet they remain invisible to one another.

BIOGRAPHY :

Montreal-based duo Vallée Duhamel creates complex narratives that marry art direction, and hand-rigged objects with high-end production techniques. Their films showcase a synthesis of techniques that often leave the viewer wondering “How’d they do that?” Their signature playful spirit and illusory transitions can be seen throughout their work.

CO-DIRECTOR :

Montreal-based duo Vallée Duhamel creates complex narratives that marry art direction, and hand-rigged objects with high-end production techniques. Their films showcase a synthesis of techniques that often leave the viewer wondering “How’d they do that?” Their signature playful spirit and illusory transitions can be seen throughout their work.

Strangers

OVERVIEW :

An exploration of social and cultural issues. A dancer moves among the people in an old bazaar in Tehran capturing the responses and reactions. Dance is prohibited in Iran.

BIOGRAPHY :

Tanin Torabi (طنین ترابی) was born in 1992 in Tehran, Iran. She has got her BA in Sociology and her MA in Contemporary Dance Performance from University of Limerick, Ireland. Torabi has made several award winning dance films and performances and currently works as a dancer, choreographer and dance film maker in Iran and Ireland.
Her most noticeable works are The Dérive, Invisible Point, Ruby, Beyond the Frames and Immensity. She has received more than 15 awards for her films to date and her works have been described as rebellious, creative, inspiring, unbearably elegant and affecting, emblematic and poignant, empowering to women, and with clarity and an exceptional ambition that is layered with a complexity of personal and cultural nuance, by festival directors.

The Dérive