Feet
The film explores the sexual aspects of Serbian folklore. Ancient myths that have trickled into everyday household remedies or explanations are juxtaposed with the joys of the female and male sexual forms from which all human life originates. Functioning as both sexual liberation and reinvented modern myth, Balkan Erotic Epic is a display of the need for a cultural change in viewpoint around sex.
In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.
IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi, two intelligent and passionate men, found new depths in Shakespeare’s classic drama, Hamlet. Filmmakers Mark Olshaker and Larry Klein follow the company through four weeks of rehearsals, from the first read-throughs to opening night.
The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.
A short documentary film functioning as the introduction to the One Minutes x Inter-Architecture Department (Gerrit Rietveld Academy) short-film broadcast episode for Rietveld TV, as aired on SALTO. This broadcast was meant to give an artistic impression of a communal art-project developed by the Inter-Architecture Department for the municipality of Amstelveen, The Netherlands. This short documentary film introduces each duo placed and posing at their respective project-based locations, spread out over Amstelveen, through purposely awkward still-but-moving vignettes. The duo's are reintroduced several times in quick succession, with each consecutive appearance showing more of an awkward inter-personality, meant to evoke a certain liminal playfulness. An overpass, a bridge, a bridge-barrier, a docking port, the border between Amsterdam and Amstelveen, the edges of Amsterdamse Bos, an abandoned railroad.
A silent experimental film, originally made in accompaniment to Josephine Zwaan's '1/4' album release presentation in 2016. The film sees musician Josephine Zwaan persist through a test of endurance, with the foundation of the film being a one-take of her staring deeply into the lens of the camera, haphazardly overlayed and re-framed by graphical elements color-matched to the album's artwork.
A group of young men waltz in pairs, balancing with a glass between their foreheads. In this captivating setting, director Albert Rask crafts a new code of conduct - an allegory reflecting the experience of growing up. A playful yet poignant exploration that reframes the burdens of responsibility, expectations and the rules of adulthood.
The Concrete Road is a three-channel installation work which was premiered during the Graduation Show 2021 at Gerrit Rietveld Academie. "Landscape shifts, unmodernised desires. This is a story comprising three avatars of myself talking to and interviewing each other, reflecting on memories and weaving a path on coming of age. Sticky childhood memory which never fades. Loosely fitted gender/racial identity struts in juvenile cravings. Self-loathing, negation of the past, and his frowning parents. The tyranny of modernism leaves a leaky path for the protagonist to escape and slobber in a dream of wet summer night. My highest appreciation towards Bertien van Manen, who not only provides images on memory bubbles, but also her images help me to develop the initial script for this work."
