FUNDADA ARTISTS' FILM FESTIVAL

Fundada Artists’ Film Festival is a contemporary film and video event run by artists intending to showcase the best in contemporary screen-based art from across the globe. Fundada believes that art should be fun and inclusive yet conceptually strong and critically engaged. The film festival is comprised of selected short films from an international open call and curated by artists Alice Bradshaw and Nancy Porter.

Open Call for Submissions
2012 to be announced shortly.


Monday, 5 March 2012

Fundada TV



Fundada has a vimeo channel with the selected films from 2010 and 2011 festivals vimeo.com/fundada

Wednesday, 31 August 2011

Best of FAFF 2011

Fundada are delighted to announce the Best of FAFF 2011.

The viewing audience at Fundada Artists' Film Festival 2011 voted for the best film of the festival and the winners are:

Gold FAFFTA: Sparrow+Castice (UK) - Sparrow & Castice Do Wakefield (2011)

World Première!
On Monday June 13th 2011 Sparrow+Castice went to Wakefield. One week later on Sunday 19th they returned to Birmingham. At some point between these two dates 10 films were made. These are those 10 films.
sparrowandcastice.tumblr.com

Congratulations also to runners up in second and third place:

Silver FAFFTA: Paul B Johnson (UK) - TV of Tomorrow...Today (2011)

The piece explores the formal mechanisms of our assimilation of the television media, particularly reality television. The focus remains on such mechanisms as editing, framing and graphics by removing the characters' faces, reducing them to puppets. This reductive approach gives the piece its childlike quality. The womb soundscape reinforces the concept of television as a pacifier for society.
web.me.com/stripeypaul

Bronze FAFFTA: Gerard Freixes Ribera (ES) - The Homogenics (2010)

The same people living in the same houses. Uniformisation turns everything into stereotypes. The Homogenics family sitcom is an extreme example.
gerardfreixes.weebly.com

Congratulations to our FAFFTA award winning artists and thank you to everyone who voted.

Thursday, 28 July 2011

Wolfie interviews Alice & Nancy

The Wolf behind Fundada interviews founding co-directors Alice Bradshaw and Nancy Porter.

Wolfie: Where does the name Fundada come from?
Alice: It’s a mix of 2 of our main interests in art: Fun + dada.
Nancy: Well we wanted something that represented, something that could be a play on words but also something legitimate. It means 'founded' in Spanish and came off a bottle of Havana Club rum. We love rum and this subtle tip of our hats to it seemed perfect.

W: Why a film festival?
N: I think it was an interesting move for me personally as it's something I have never done before. It's been great to be critically engaged in something that we are all exposed to and absorbed in. Instead of looking at the big films that are out there, it's been a great experience to look at the smaller films which have a broad spectrum of talent and are interesting artistically.
A: Last year we were thinking of opening a gallery with a dedicated artists’ cinema space. The space we had in mind fell through but the opportunity to run a film festival as part of Halifax Festival came from Square Chapel who kindly offered us the venue and equipment to screen it. We had no good reason not to run it again this year. We’re planning other projects as Fundada though - not exclusively film.

W: This year FAFF comes to Wakefield. What prompted the move from Halifax?
A: The film festival or any other Fundada activity was never set to be tied to any geographical location. We’re peripatetic and opportunistic.
N: The opportunity came to us through Alice as she is a resident in the studio. Plus it has a pub. What's better? Pint and a film.

W: What's the ambiguous “Yes” / “No” for on the FAFF2011 submission form?
N: Interesting question! Originally we thought it'd be an amusing twist to our application forms. We were intentionally ambiguous what we want people to say Yes or No to.
A: It was an experiment to see if it prompted any surreal answers to the “questions.” It prompted more questions than answers.
N: We get a lot of ticks/crosses to Yes, some smiley faces and some questions. I like the response we've had to it.

W: Were there lots of submissions and does it take ages to review?
A: There were loads. We had them delivered to Westgate Studios and every week there was a new stack by the pigeonholes waiting for collection.
N: The reviewing process is a fairly long process but it never seems to drag because we get so many interesting and varied films, there's always something for us to discuss and muse over.
A: We really impressed by how far our open call went. We had submissions from every corner of the world and it was great reviewing them all.
W: What are the criteria?
A: The submission criteria this year was a maximum of 20 minutes duration and the submissions had to be DVD pal. Last year there were no criteria as we had 5 screening days to play with so feature lengths were not out of the question. We found that despite receiving good quality feature lengths from around the world, short films were much more interesting for us. I think there’s definitely a subtle distinction between film film and art film. It’s not a simple one eg having or not having narrative. And we like film film too.
N: We called it Fundada Artists’ Film Festival because we particularly wanted films made by artists rather than films made by filmmakers. It’s not specifically a criteria though - it’s just suggested in the title, because essentially filmmakers are artists and artists who make films are filmmakers.
A: We also had to make submissions postal only on DVD pal because we had serious issues with film formats last year. Filthy little mov files caused so many problems as they are so incompatible. We had to go to Lumen in Leeds and use their Macs with Final Cut Pro just to convert the files into a workable format. With films already in DVD pal there’s no conversion and quality loss.
N: Essentially, the selection criteria is a mix of quality and subjectivity and also if the films will work together curatorially.

W: What is the selection process?
A: The selection process is we’ll watch all the films together and discuss each one and make a longlist. Once we’ve reviewed all of them we’ll make a shortlist knowing what we’re working with. Then we’ll make the final selection and decide the running order.
N: Last year we didn’t have anywhere suitable to review films so we ended up in bars across Manchester with laptops and wine. We know all the best places to plug in for power, and the preferred seats nearest the plug sockets as well.
A: This year we have a very comfortable HQ with all the facilities.

W: Do you ever disagree about the selection?
A: I don’t think we have... sometimes we’re both unsure about a film and have different levels of enthusiasm for it, but it’s generally an easy process to decide and a good conversation in the process.
N: I don't think we've ever had a disagreement over a film, no. We're both very much on the same page. Plus we're a democracy, like U2 but with the Irish vibe and tax evasion.


W: What have been the worst films to review?
N: Dance. And experimental dance. I have no clue over this as an art form. It's not my place and never will be. Oh and scrotum footage. Can we say scrotum in an interview?
A: Swinging scrotum were the low point of our career as Fundada. We discussed the potential for screening a Worst of FAFF and the ethics of doing that. We haven’t ruled it out. Video documentation as video documentation and not a piece of work in its own right is not a good start and neither of us are particularly keen on dance as a medium, less so as documentation and not live.

W: And the best?
N: Scrotum footage. No, I kid. The best are the ones that when we watch them they instantly strike us as being Fundada. They're normally a little surreal, sometimes they'll feature a woodland animal or a flying rum bottle.
A: We also ran a public vote for best film of the day each screening day last year and have awarded the following Best of FAFF2010 FAFFTAs to: Splitty McCheeks (UK) & NTSC VHS VJ Barry Valentino (US) live, Eagle & Feather (UK) KIPPLE: VHS Art for the Digital Age, Sebaldo (UK) - Bomb Ed, Paul Tarragó (UK) - The Badger Series Episode 1, Kathy Toth (UK) – Loop, Jorge García Velayos (ES) - La Bestia (The Beast), Lemeh42 (IT) - Inner Klänge (Inner Sound) and Sai Hua Kuan (SG/UK)- Space Drawing No.5.

W: What's next for Fundada?
N: We have big plans. We're thinking of something abroad - we want to take Fundada to Europe. And perhaps something printed like a zine.
A: We’re both interested in language and are developing a project around multilingualism and the inherent strangeness of language. Research trips are going to be an important part of the next year. Showcasing artists’ films will still be a big part of what we do though. Fundada TV is here!




http://vimeo.com/fundada

FAFF 2011 Success!

Fundada had a full house at Westgate Studios last night and received some lovely feedback.



"..a great mix of quality short art films ranging from narrative pieces to more abstract works. Films with humour and some with a more serious edge. All wonderfully unpredictable." - BLPT

"[Sparrow+Castice Do Wakefield] was hilarious but moving as there was an implied abstract narrative."

"I think we should guard against making video films that copy the techniques used in television!"

"I liked that you could follow the story even though it was in a foreign language and the colours were so rich."

[On Women In Sheds] "I have an enduring love of sheds. An affinity. Faffing around. Escapism. Sanctuary. Bloody Lovely."

"Thank you!"


We also asked our audience to vote for their favourite film of the festival and will be announcing the FAFFTA award winner shortly!

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Fundada Artists' Film Festival 2011

Fundada Artists' Film Festival 2011
Wednesday 27th July 2011, 5-9pm
1st Floor, Westgate Studios, 55 Westgate, Wakefield, WF1 1BW
FREE ENTRY

The programme will run 5-7pm and 7-9pm

Sparrow+Castice (UK) - Sparrow & Castice Do Wakefield (2011) 08:00 World Première

On Monday June 13th 2011 Sparrow+Castice went to Wakefield. One week later on Sunday 19th they returned to Birmingham. At some point between these two dates 10 films were made. These are those 10 films.
sparrowandcastice.tumblr.com

Simona da Pozzo (IT) - Exclave (2010) 15:33

Portable Grounds is an intervention about territory, identity and mobility: it acts as a compulsive reflex that pushes to transport, to have objects –or parts of them- with the idea to have a physical link with that we love, to despite distances. A attitude to condense sadness in objects that nourish nostalgia.
www.simonadapozzo.net

Marius Leneweit & Rocío Rodríguez (DE) ...niland 2 (...no land 2) (2011) 09:56

...niland (no land) is a visionary work about the adaptation and transformation of humankind to a life beneath the water surface. The work is based on themes of climate change and develop, particularly the way it has produced a grotesque notion of the sea's rising water table. The interface of air and water functions as the indicator of a climate influenced by humanity, raises questions regarding the ambivalence of the symbiosis human-environment and examines the stringent concurrence of climate change and cultural change.
www.gruppefisch.com

Patrick Moser (US) - Patty Goes (2011) 02:10 UK Première!

An animated homage to the Patterson footage that inspired me as a child.
www.patrickmoserpaintings.com

Fin McMorran (UK) - Women and Sheds (2010-11) 10:50

9 women tell their stories, about their sheds – private space, workshops, refuges and occasional disaster areas. A representative of the local shed community replies, detailing some of her hopes and aspirations and revealing some truths about the complex nature of sheds.
www.finmcmorran.co.uk

Chiara Malta (IT) - D'attends une Femme (Waiting For A Woman) (2010) 20:00

Mireille is drawing a naked woman and a dog for olivia. Anna is wearing some makeup. Priscillie and Virginie are taking their clothes off. Milo knows girls' legs. Annie is very comfrotable with the instruments of her profession. Francoise reas the cards. Christian is jealous. And I, I am filming this little theatre.
www.sacrebleuprod.com

Jennifer Ross (UK) - Caught in Mise en Scene (2010) 03:35

Popular culture is characterised by paranoia; some system or organisation controlling our moves. We crave to break free of the constraints of life and to be a free individual. But what, and how is shaping our existence? Are we able to escape it?
www.jennifer-ross.co.uk

Alice Bradshaw (UK) - Rubbish (2011) 01:00

A montage from the Museum of Contemporary Rubbish.
museumofcontemporaryrubbish.blogspot.com

Rémi Mazet (FR) - Siggil (2010) 18:03

Dakar is a popular district. An old man, Lamine, is getting ready to go to an important meeting. At the other side of the city, in a sumptuous villa, someone is waiting for him anxiously.
www.sacrebleuprod.com

Marzia Moretti (IT) - Azione Sovversiva Minima 6 (Minimal Subversive Action 6) (2010) 00:44 World Première

Intake, compression, power, exhaust.

Paul B Johnson (UK) - TV of Tomorrow...Today (2011) 01:10

The piece explores the formal mechanisms of our assimilation of the television media, particularly reality television. The focus remains on such mechanisms as editing, framing and graphics by removing the characters' faces, reducing them to puppets. This reductive approach gives the piece its childlike quality. The womb soundscape reinforces the concept of television as a pacifier for society.
web.me.com/stripeypaul

Gerard Freixes Ribera (ES) - The Homogenics (2010) 04:00

The same people living in the same houses. Uniformisation turns everything into stereotypes. The Homogenics family sitcom is an extreme example.
gerardfreixes.weebly.com

Andrew Branscombe (UK) - Retrograde (2011) 05:15

Our lives today our driven by storage, the Internet is built upon huge databases, but how long can this storage last, and does the constant replication of this data cause the original qualities or meanings to become diluted or erased? The film depicts the interior of a VHS VCR, the HD footage has been deliberately deteriorated by reproducing it on various 'older' technologies, from DVD to the infamous VHS. The VHS media has been re-recorded repeatedly until the resulting image becomes completely incoherent.
andrewbranscombe.blogspot.com

Rudolf Costin (RO) - O Dada (2010) 01:43

O Dada is an illustration of a literary exquisite corpse assembled by chance in a coffee shop in Cluj-Napoca. The video is a subjective view of the produced poem, with sudden cuts in the image and sound, the same way as the words are divided in dada poetry. By definition, a dada poem is an assembly of verses with no links between them, just like the sliced up storyline of this video.

Fin McMorran (UK) - Paper (2009) 04:30

At the end of a long and weary art conference, full of long words and longer papers, the audience is doodling and dreaming of teabreaks. Then, the final paper comes unexpectedly to life with an unplanned demonstration of theory becoming practice allowing the metaphorical fish to tell it like it really is.
www.finmcmorran.co.uk

Katriona Skinner(UK) - I Will Brush Them Again if You Want (2010) 01:24

The everyday is a structure and sequence of familiar patterns formed into routines of repetition. The insignificant becomes significant. I sort through the mundane, patch-working humdrum monotonous moments together creating a glimpse of the reality of the everyday.  I investigate the trivial, the uncanny and the absurdity of the quotidian by removing its structure to create a new order, using staged and real home movies to capture rhythm,  like the ticking of a clock; to capture the beat of the day.
www.katrionaskinner.com

Anna Francis (UK) - Emoticon (2011) 08:00

Within my work as an artist and as a child of the 70s struggling with the digital age I use social media a lot within my practice. While I see the great benefit of this astounding connectivity I am also perturbed by the limitations and dumbing down of meaningful connections which can, on occasion, be the result. In Emoticon I am exploring the limitations and possibilities of the emoticon in adequately representing a broad range of human emotion. The shorthand of the emoticon is used by many to attempt to add a human and emotional level to what are often kneejerk, quick-response messages. The immediacy of email and text has meant that the nuances of human emotion are often lost in translation, misunderstandings frequently occur. www.annafrancis.com

THANKS
Fundada would like to thank the following people without whose help FAFF2011 would not be possible: The artists, Westgate Studios for the use of the space, The Arthouse for the use of their projector, Facelessco for the use of their speakers, Bob Milner for his amazing illustrations, The Hepworth Gallery for the cardboard, Sparrow+Castice for the transportation of the cardboard, Our friends, family and colleagues for their ongoing support.

Saturday, 16 July 2011

Fundada TV Launches!

Fundada TV is a new online channel showcasing the Best of Fundada Artists' Film Festival.



A new film uploaded each week!

http://vimeo.com/fundada/

FAFF2011 Programme Confirmed!

FAFF2011 will take place on Wednesday 27th July 2011, 5-9pm
1st floor, Westgate Studios, 55 Westgate, Wakefield, WF1 1BW
Screenings: 5-7pm and 7-9pm


Programme:
Sparrow+Castice (UK) - Sparrow & Castice Do Wakefield (2011) World Première!
Simona da Pozza (IT) - Exclave (2010)
Marius Leneweit & Rocío Rodríguez (DE) ...niland 2 (...no land 2) (2011)
Patrick Moser (US) - Patty Goes (2011)
Fin McMorran (UK) - Women and Sheds (2010-11)
Chiara Malta (IT) - D'attends une Femme (Waiting For A Woman) (2010)
Jennifer Ross (UK) - Caught in Mise en Scene (2010)
Alice Bradshaw (UK) - Rubbish (2011)
Rémi Mazet (FR) - Siggil (2010)
Marzia Moretti (IT) - Azione Sovversiva Minima 6 (Minimal Subversive Action 6) (2010)
Paul B Johnson (UK) - TV of Tomorrow...Today (2011)
Gerard Freixes Ribera (ES) - The Homogenics (2010)
Andrew Branscombe (UK) - Retrograde (2011)
Rudolf Costin (RO) - O Dada (2010)
Fin McMorran (UK) - Paper (2009)
Katriona Skinner (UK) - I Will Brush Them Again if You Want (2010)
Anna Francis (UK) - Emoticon (2011)

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Best of FAFF2010

The public voted FAFFTA winning Best of FAFF2010 are:

Splitty McCheeks (UK) - You Pigs present NTSC VHS VJ Barry Valentino playing live with Splitty McCheeks

Special guest performing with Splitty McCheeks at the FAFF Launch Event at Square Chapel, Halifax featuring Hollywood based NTSC VHS VJ Barry Valentino. Barry plays 10 VHS video players hung round his neck projecting the mixed images through a digital projector strapped to his head.

Eagle & Feather (UK) KIPPLE: VHS Art for the Digital Age

Kipple: A term borrowed from Phillip K Dick referring to the detritus of modern living that will one day overwhelm us. Collaboratively, Eagle & Feather have been putting their own interpretation on the term kipple for a number of years. Through regular visits to charity shops, public libraries and jumble sales they have amassed a collection of absurdly peripheral and esoteric videotapes, selected for their distinct peculiarity. Theirs is an attempt at alchemy, taking base material and transforming it, by various means – editing, manipulating, combining and reducing - into something that is imbued with new qualities - humour, drama, pathos and poetry. Turning kipple into non-kipple, at least temporarily.

Sebaldo (UK) - Bomb Ed

"I am eating the bread of modern design. I spend my days teaching ideas how to spread their wings and cross roads safely. I am extremely versatile. I specialise in Illustration, animation, 3D, concept building and narrative work. When not swimming in ponds I am an expert Papier Mâché sculptor. I love my work, and unlike normal ducks, I can land on trees."

Paul Tarragó (UK) - The Badger Series Episode 1

The Badger Series has issues and attempts, each episode, to resolve them. Recasting a glove puppet through his own present day sensibilities, Paul assumes the role of a kindly uncle mentor to a household of capersome woodland creatures. Mortality, self-sacrifice, depression, altered states of consciousness and transgressive art practices are all explored as part of their everyday lives together. Meanwhile the show is mindful to adhere to the traditional structural formulae, with entertainment numbers and routines appropriate to the scaled down sitcom world that they occupy. The series is equal parts moral instruction and narrative play, mediate through the forced fit of an experimental filmmaker as children's entertainer.

Kathy Toth (UK) - Loop

Loop is a stopframe animation where handmade charcoal drawings have been photographed. Each object is rubbed out and then redrawn onto the same drawing for the next frame, thus leaving a trace of movement. These objects are inspired by found imagery resembling scientific diagrams. My interest lies in how diagrams are perceived once taken out of context and viewed purely as a set of shapes and lines. While drawing diagrams I begins to associate them visually with other objects in a way that is similar to cloud spotting and 'projective tests' within psychoanalysis.

Jorge García Velayos (ES) - La Bestia (The Beast)

In Paris begins a strange revolution on the roofs, with the sculptures and the clouds. When the beast appears is time for the destruction.

Lemeh42 (IT) - Inner Klänge (Inner Sound)

Kandinskij published one of his most important works, Klänge (Sounds). The general principle of Klänge was the liberation of the inner sound. One century later, Lemeh42 realizes a personal homage to this Russian painter. Inner Klänge (Inner sounds) is an animated journey to find the Inner sound.

Sai Hua Kuan (SG/UK)- Space Drawing No.5

Space Drawing No.5 was created in 2009 in Russia. Through the simplest yet most fundamental function of line - to divide, subtract, Space Drawing attempts to capture a moment of transitory energy.

Sunday, 10 April 2011

FAFF2011 CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS


FUNDADA ARTISTS' FILM FESTIVAL 2011

Wednesday 27th July 2011
Westgate Studios, Wakefield (UK)
FREE ENTRY

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS


WHAT: Open call for single-channel screen-based art; film, video, animation (no thematic criteria)

WHO: Anyone can submit to FAFF2011; all nationalities, all career levels including students

DURATION: 20 minutes maximum

FORMAT:
Films should be supplied on DVD format. A film still (jpg at 300dpi) is also required.

LANGUAGE / SUBTITLES:
Films with non-English dialogue do not have to have English subtitles but it is recommended.

COST: No submission or participation fee. Postage for postal submissions is payable by the applicant. Postal submission cannot be returned. Please note that only FAFF2011 is only able to notify successful applicants.

POSTAL SUBMISSIONS ONLY


DOWNLOAD FORM (PDF): http://bit.ly/FAFF2011

POSTAL ADDRESS:
(Non-EU submissions: No commercial value, for cultural purposes)

FAO Alice Bradshaw, FAFF2011, Westgate Studios, 55 Westgate, Wakefield, WF1 1BW, UK

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS (Receiving date not postmark date): 27th June 2011

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

FAFF2010 Programme: Friday 20th August 2010

Sam Holden (UK)
70 still frames and 5 minutes 50 seconds

70 still frames and 5 minutes 50 seconds of video Using a digital SLR, image capture software and a hidden video camera 70 Still Frames and 5mins 50 seconds of Video highlights how much we simply don't see when encountering someone's photographic reproduction and underlines how problematic photography can be as representative medium.


David Cochrane (UK)
Rehearsal (Day In, Day Out)

Performance related video
An unknown protagonist puts on and takes of different ties


Şinasi Güneş (TR)
Anatolia

This work contains images of women who live in Anatolia and have different cultural features and also of women who are veiled are scrutinised.


Sarah Filmer (UK)
Unravel

A disparate collection of personal moments becomes an articulation of the universal notion of loss. The pale blue jumper has a trajectory through the world that acts as a metaphor for the life of any one or any thing. It's story is spoken, while the visual elements of the video allude to the ways in which we incorporate a life-changing death into a lived experience.


Maggie Hall (UK)
Rolling Drawing

"I produce work without a narrative and verbal content, work that exists purely to be experienced communicating a semi-intuitive understanding. I want to leave my work open to the formation of ideas and concepts rather than react to them. Recently I have begun to merge the initial creation of my work with the final product, recreating a version of the process. These works intend to compress, contain and capture the initial energy and tensions revealed in their creation."


Tom Walker (UK)
Spin

"My work draws from sources such as performance art history, jackass and youtube and it is from these that I extrapolate the ridiculous, the futile and failure of actions or moments in order to create my work. These stimuli can either be used as a trigger or directly within the work, the videos always feature me, after all if one cannot make an ass of one's self then what is the point? Maybe it is I who is laughing at me, laughing at you, laughing at me."


Sarah Buckius (USA)
Trapped Inside Pixels

This animation combines performance, video and photography to digitally transform human movements to create kaleidoscopic patterns. This work explores how digital media uses replication to reconfigure a digitized single moving body into infinite animated mutations.


Kit Merritt (UK)
We Shall Never Speak of This: 7th January

Performance in response to an item received in the post. Part of an on-going mail art piece titled We Shall Never Speak of This , in which conversations with other artists evolve in every medium except the spoke / written word.


Sai Hua Kuan (SG/UK)
Space Drawing No.5

Space Drawing No.5 was created in 2009 in Russia. Through the simplest yet most fundamental function of line - to divide, subtract, Space Drawing attempts to capture a moment of transitory energy.


Sara Brannan (UK)
Work no.14

"I am using animation as an extension of my sculptural practice and I am using the medium to promote ideas that I am unable to do in conventional sculpture. I am shifting the location of the art object from being wholly material into the realms of digital art and in doing so I can play with form, movement and perception. The low-resolution DIY ethic of my practice is continued by using basic tools and equipment to produce the works."


Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans (BE)
The Good Life (a guided tour)

The Good Life shows a guided tour through empty white gallery spaces. An exhibition is being built up, paintings are ready to be unpacked. A guide is accompanying a small audience and comments upon the art and the fantastic spaces in the museum. However, after a while the guide appears to be an estate agent who recommends a visionary architectural design (by architectural agency 51N4E), which will replace the museum with exclusive lofts.


Tether / Grin & Slutsky (UK)
Grin & Slutsky

Soon, Grin & Slutsky will reveal the one thing that all people want to know...


Doplgenger (SRB)
Voices Gazes Traces

Medusa, one of the three sisters known as the Gorgons, was punished by given the destructive power to turn anyone who looked directly at her into stone. The piece Voices Gazes Traces as expanded cinema deals with feminist concept of writing here transposed to film medium. It is a study of the screen history and contemporary placement of 'Woman as film Icon'.


Milk, Two Sugars (UK)
Cinefun

Bob Milner on Cinefun: "I became interested in the expressive qualities of the human voice during voice workshops I attended some years ago. Participants were encouraged to play with sound, in the way children seem to, before they learn to speak. We gurgled and chortled, made animal noises, called and crooned, and we communicated to each other using these nonsense sounds. Though we were sometimes in a darkened room where we could not 'read' each other's facial expressions, we were able to convey emotion and meaning with these nonsensical noises. As a visual artist, I wondered if something as abstract as these sounds could be explored in visual imagery. How could I depict an energetic, joyous laugh, or a gut-wrenching, wailing sadness? Could frenzied, erratic lines convey wild cackling calls, or a soft smudgy line convey a gentle humming? I didn't know then and I still don't. Enjoy the film!"


Paul Tarragó (UK)
The Badger Series Episodes 7 & 8

The Badger Series has issues and attempts, each episode, to resolve them. Recasting a glove puppet through his own present day sensibilities, Paul assumes the role of a kindly uncle mentor to a household of capersome woodland creatures. Mortality, self-sacrifice, depression, altered states of consciousness and transgressive art practices are all explored as part of their everyday lives together. Meanwhile the show is mindful to adhere to the traditional structural formulae, with entertainment numbers and routines appropriate to the scaled down sitcom world that they occupy. The series is equal parts moral instruction and narrative play, mediate through the forced fit of an experimental filmmaker as children's entertainer.


FAFF2010 Programme: Thursday 19th August 2010

Clare Harris (UK)
Passing Moment

Passing Moment is a short film in which the viewer is placed in a position of being a voyeur in which they observe consciousness looking in on itself. With ambiguous and sometimes tense imagery the viewer finds themselves lost in a void of emotion.


Roland Wegerer (AT)
Sunwatersandbucket

On a beach near the Danube a bucket full of water will positioned. The bucket will be knocked down. A splash flows over the sand and looks for a way to the water. Because of the angle of view the qualities of this process can be seen. Extensions, course, glittering, ooze away, reducing. A narrative game with our perception.


Lin de Mol (NL)
You Can

Slowly, in a meditative mood, the camera investigates details of the interior of an old house. The water tap is dripping, a woman's hand is embroidering a table cloth and a lizard slowly crawls over a bowl of red berries. Trees, duckweed and brushwood alternate with scenes from the interior, describing the mood of a moment like a string of haikus. Bach's opening aria of the Goldberg Variations forms the frame of this 'associative editing' piece that bears references to Dutch painters Pieter Claesz ad Lara de Moor.


Sara Rajaei (NL)
Forever for a While

A young woman enters a living room, moments later she is an elderly woman looking at herself in a mirror, or is a little girl sitting in a chair. Once in a while they seem to find themselves in the same space, which is otherwise populated by family members who are completely taken up with each other, while the woman is moving in isolation as if she is not really there, her gaze turned inwards.


Joanne Masding (UK)
Tree Door

A plastic three is wedged into and take out of a space in a door frame while a projection of a plastic tree is wedged into and taken out of a space in a door frame.


David Cochrane (UK)
Incident

Performance related video - diptych
Left screen - a candle is melted using a blowtorch
Right screen - a paper house is built


Gerald Zahn (AT)
Nur Noch 5 Minuten (Just 5 More Minutes)

A study of time in cinematic perception, Viennese media artist Gerald Zahn visualises 5 minutes by filming a person holding his breath for the duration of the film. In contrast with the casual disregard for mere 5 minutes in the film title, the film fills this period with significance. The emotional turmoil on the actor's face as he fights through every second on the stop-watch, making 5 Minutes a cinematic era of tension, impatience, doubt and expectation.


David Cochrane (UK)
Dealt

Performance related video
A deck of card is dealt out


Lernert & Sander (NL)
How To Explain It To My Parents: Arno Coenen

In How To Explain It To My Parents: Arno Coenen, multimedia artist Arno Coenen is sitting at a table with his father. Together they taste Arno's elf-brewed Eurotrash beer; followed by an attempt at a dialogue on how the brewing of beer can also be regarded as art. But ultimately, the conversation mainly tells us a great deal about the father-son relationship.


Paul Tarragó (UK)
The Badger Series Episode 5

The Badger Series has issues and attempts, each episode, to resolve them. Recasting a glove puppet through his own present day sensibilities, Paul assumes the role of a kindly uncle mentor to a household of capersome woodland creatures. Mortality, self-sacrifice, depression, altered states of consciousness and transgressive art practices are all explored as part of their everyday lives together. Meanwhile the show is mindful to adhere to the traditional structural formulae, with entertainment numbers and routines appropriate to the scaled down sitcom world that they occupy. The series is equal parts moral instruction and narrative play, mediate through the forced fit of an experimental filmmaker as children's entertainer.


Lemeh42 (IT)
Inner Klänge (Inner Sound)

Kandinskij published one of his most important works, Klänge (Sounds). The general principle of Klänge was the liberation of the inner sound. One century later, Lemeh42 realizes a personal homage to this Russian painter. Inner Klänge (Inner sounds) is an animated journey to find the Inner sound.


Adam Brandon (UK)
02/60

The film is based upon the parallels between our perception of time, and the fundamental quality of time itself. By slowing footage to 2000 frames per second, the viewer is given a unique look into an unseen world, questioning not only our perception of time, but of the very idea of the natural, unchangeable forces surrounding us.


Lernert & Sander (NL)
Revenge: Bottle of Champagne
Revenge: Bowling Ball
Revenge: Hammer

The ingredients: a bottle of champagne, a bowling ball, a hammer. And the laws of physics. The goal: sweet revenge. Revenge is a series of short videos, originally part of a two hour documentary about revenge for Dutch VPRO television.




Tom Walker (UK)
You and Me

"My work draws from sources such as performance art history, jackass and youtube and it is from these that I extrapolate the ridiculous, the futile and failure of actions or moments in order to create my work. These stimuli can either be used as a trigger or directly within the work, the videos always feature me, after all if one cannot make an ass of one's self then what is the point? Maybe it is I who is laughing at me, laughing at you, laughing at me."


Sarah Harbridge (UK)
Not Reacting to Something Horrific

This video comes from Sarah Harbridge's current project (March 2010) to attempt to make a piece of art each day, within her means: time, ability, cost.


Paul Tarragó (UK)
The Badger Series Episode 6

The Badger Series has issues and attempts, each episode, to resolve them. Recasting a glove puppet through his own present day sensibilities, Paul assumes the role of a kindly uncle mentor to a household of capersome woodland creatures. Mortality, self-sacrifice, depression, altered states of consciousness and transgressive art practices are all explored as part of their everyday lives together. Meanwhile the show is mindful to adhere to the traditional structural formulae, with entertainment numbers and routines appropriate to the scaled down sitcom world that they occupy. The series is equal parts moral instruction and narrative play, mediate through the forced fit of an experimental filmmaker as children's entertainer.