Cinematic Era: 1998 Vintage

Jacques Perconte takes us on the heels of a silhouette that will gradually take on the final shape of a young woman. Divided into three scenes of different durations and speeds, “promenade” immerses us from the start in a nocturnal atmosphere, dense than in universes alternately, confined, feverish, and finally contemplative; each is bathed in light and its own atmosphere. Only nuance, intermediate shots, on a dark sky where a moon is gradually extracted from the clouds which mask it. The whole punctuates with repetitive rhythms. Coming to the light, coming to the day, one thinks of course of the birth and the passage of life. The impression is only confirmed by a soothing finale facing the ocean.

Bionda Salvatore, an 83-year-old farmer's wife from a small village in Abruzzo, had to leave her house and garden and now lives in Switzerland with her daughter-in-law and son. What is her everyday life like in emigration, how does she cope with homesickness and what must real gnocchi taste like?

In the three-part series Nine Years Later, Beck revisits video performances he created nearly a decade earlier to music by the British pop band The Smiths. Beck betrays the apparent effortlessness of the original clips by editing them alongside the numerous rehearsals, variously self-conscious and obsessive, they required. With inter-titles and voice-over, Beck recapitulates his performances according to the video technology he used to produce them. As a result, the body, in its correlation with the evolution and obsolescence of technology, is revealed as a purely “enjoying” substance. Whether portraying a vindictive martyr in Bigmouth Strikes Again, a suicidal loner in Panic, or a comatose drag queen in Girlfriend In A Coma, Beck brings the violence and malice implicit in lead-singer Morrissey’s lyrics graphically to life.

Short film by Jan Peters

Live VHS from Blackmore's Night's "Shadow Of The Moon" tour, recorded in 1997-1998. Before each song Ritchie/Candice introduce the songs. The VHS are 69 minutes and 29 seconds long.

Documentary on the legacy of the Mexican 1968 social movements

Through video collage, Cantor sets her unapologetically fatalist observations on love and intimacy to a wide-ranging set of audio-visual quotations, including clips from Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly, the well-known beach scene from From Here to Eternity, the works of John Cassavetes, and more.

16mm. 5 minutes. Colour.

Conceptual vandalism of a very monotonous early morning educational TV show.

En la Plaza de Toros México is the fourteenth album by Mexican pop singer, Ana Gabriel, and her second live. It was released in 1998. It is a compilation of previous rancheras and pop material that they wrote themselves. Gabriel also pays tribute to the quintessential ranch composer José Alfredo Jiménez and Juan Gabriel

Martin Radich’s graduation film at Edinburgh College of Art is an improvised, documentary style portrait of the British working class.

Trailer Song is about the human need for self-sufficiency and autonomy. Absolute independence from the culture that keeps us warm and fed is a fantasy, and Trailer Song is a musically rendered version of that fantasy. The office worker buys a trailer and gives up urban life. She sings: "....With fresh butter I churn and bread that I bake, Taste it, try it. Do you see a mistake? Dandelion tea, It's so easy to brew, If you care to come here, I'd give some to you..."

Fever is a visually dense, poetic exploration of the bond between a mother and child and the interruption of illness. Inspired by the open creativity and free-association of children, extreme close-ups of quotidian objects, distorted “synchronous” sounds, and floating text intermesh to convey the fluctuation between security and danger, confidence and doubt when a child falls ill.

DVD 4' and photograph. Part of the Gilberto Chateaubriand collection, MAM Rio.

This work explores the notion of differences and the impossibilities of clearly stating the importance of differences, regarding sound and images, visual and audio perception, sexual identity, Cantonese, written Chinese and English languages, representation by mass media and by ourselves, and interpretations of street actions.

This film is set in a traditional household in Nepal and documents a servant girl, Nani; a married woman, Sarita; and a mother-in-law, Ama. In interesting mixture of entrapment, duty and tradition unfold.

Up and Under is an impressive piece of land art designed by American artist Nancy Holt. Up and Under was completed in 1998. The tunnels included in Up and Under are aligned with the main compass directions, and the pools of water are called “the eyes of the earth” according to a custom of the Seneca Indians.

A documentary/shockumentary about the world of bullfighting, running of the bulls, and other events.

Two hogs argue about boarding Noah's ark.

Wa-wa was my college classmate and we were in love. She dreamt about opening a shop at that time, so we returned to Guishan after graduation to fulfil her dream. I began to document the process with my camera. In the end, the dream was fulfilled and yet the dreamer was forever gone.

"This peculiar instrument consists of two metre long prosthetic tongue whose one side is inserted into my opened mouth and the other one is sharply pointed like a warrior's sword. I also have a shiny helmet that encloses my brain and protects my face with two elegantly cut out metallic side sheets. And then imagine me, standing in the middle of the room and "exercising my tongue", stretching it, pulling it out, and perhaps inflicting pain upon myself while being covered by this ambivalently protective device while trying to pronounce inaudible words. As I am making my "beautifully threatening" instrument for the straight and correct (ortho) pronunciations of the words (orthoepy) right here and now, I realize that I am setting up conditions for the war. This war will be fought for the sake of "just words" and it will certainly require proper arms of justice - an elongated iron tongue and a defensive helmet." - Kinga Araya

A fragment from an unfinished project by Peggy Ahwesh.

When director Miyoshi saw a town full of happy young people, he thought. "Is everyone really happy?" The film is a "documentary-style story of the modern search for happiness", in which video cameras were used to interview various young people in schools, train stations and on street corners. The film asks questions such as: "Are you happy now?", "What is sheer happiness?", "What is boring and what is fun?", "How old do you want to live until?", "What is your dream for the future?".

White South African farmers risk everything to start a new life in the Congo.

Jacques Perconte takes us on the heels of a silhouette that will gradually take on the final shape of a young woman. Divided into three scenes of different durations and speeds, “promenade” immerses us from the start in a nocturnal atmosphere, dense than in universes alternately, confined, feverish, and finally contemplative; each is bathed in light and its own atmosphere. Only nuance, intermediate shots, on a dark sky where a moon is gradually extracted from the clouds which mask it. The whole punctuates with repetitive rhythms. Coming to the light, coming to the day, one thinks of course of the birth and the passage of life. The impression is only confirmed by a soothing finale facing the ocean.

In the three-part series Nine Years Later, Beck revisits video performances he created nearly a decade earlier to music by the British pop band The Smiths. Beck betrays the apparent effortlessness of the original clips by editing them alongside the numerous rehearsals, variously self-conscious and obsessive, they required. With inter-titles and voice-over, Beck recapitulates his performances according to the video technology he used to produce them. As a result, the body, in its correlation with the evolution and obsolescence of technology, is revealed as a purely “enjoying” substance. Whether portraying a vindictive martyr in Bigmouth Strikes Again, a suicidal loner in Panic, or a comatose drag queen in Girlfriend In A Coma, Beck brings the violence and malice implicit in lead-singer Morrissey’s lyrics graphically to life.

Live VHS from Blackmore's Night's "Shadow Of The Moon" tour, recorded in 1997-1998. Before each song Ritchie/Candice introduce the songs. The VHS are 69 minutes and 29 seconds long.

Conceptual vandalism of a very monotonous early morning educational TV show.

En la Plaza de Toros México is the fourteenth album by Mexican pop singer, Ana Gabriel, and her second live. It was released in 1998. It is a compilation of previous rancheras and pop material that they wrote themselves. Gabriel also pays tribute to the quintessential ranch composer José Alfredo Jiménez and Juan Gabriel

Trailer Song is about the human need for self-sufficiency and autonomy. Absolute independence from the culture that keeps us warm and fed is a fantasy, and Trailer Song is a musically rendered version of that fantasy. The office worker buys a trailer and gives up urban life. She sings: "....With fresh butter I churn and bread that I bake, Taste it, try it. Do you see a mistake? Dandelion tea, It's so easy to brew, If you care to come here, I'd give some to you..."

Twenty-two-year old Jackie Pullinger graduated as an oboe student at the Royal College of Music in England and then boarded a slow boat to China and prayed for guidance about where to get off. She ended up in Hong Kong. She began with no organization and no financial base, just an unshakable conviction that the same Jesus who helped and healed the hurting and hopeless can do the same today.

Sometimes autobiographical, sometimes observational, filmmaker John Burgan takes the viewer on a search for identity, sharing his own roots as English adoptee as well as reflecting on the torn identity of the city in which he chose to live.

A young woman explores her mother's past and uncovers a secret at the heart of her family's history. Based on an autobiographical memoir, the film suggests that the truth--no matter how painful--provides a path to redemption.

Some eccentrics who live in the same apartment block are forced to confront their inner most compulsions by a spaceship load of galactic gate-crashers thirsty for new sensations.

After a new partner is added to life, how will the relationship between the two adjust accordingly?

A documentary on Walter Benjamin and his Passagenwerk.