Elise is a timid woman. She’s even afraid of trees. When one day a paper plane sails through her window, she’s so agitated that she hardly sleeps a wink that night. The next morning Emil, a boy in a baseball cap, knocks on her door. He’s looking for his plane and also needs to go to the loo. Suddenly Elise’s life changes in a wonderful way.
Complete darkness. Our concentration turns to the spherical sounds around us. Basses wander through our body, triggering images, emotions. The sensory overload which usually has us so firmly in its grip is turned off. Sound – improvised and modulated interactively – takes the lead. Stories emerge. And all this exclusively in our own heads.
England, mid-19th century: children keep the flow of air going in narrow, sooty chimney flues. The report of a chimney sweep of the time is brought to life by pencil drawings.
In the mid-19th century, a massive fireplace was the centrepiece of every stately home in England. Children are agile enough to keep the flow of air going in the narrow and dark flues. Their young skin is scraped raw by the sooty stone walls. Their fear of falling is as strong as their fear of the master’s punishment. Black-brown-red cross hatching and unusual camera perspectives bring to life the report of a chimney sweep of the time.
A Syrian Orthodox nun lives in an abandoned estate in south-eastern Turkey. Despite hostilities from the Muslim neighbourhood: she won’t be driven out.
In a dilapidated village in south-eastern Turkey, a Syrian Orthodox nun endures alone with her animals. However strong the hostility of her predominantly Muslim neighbourhood may be: she won’t be driven out, for she has sworn to protect the church and not to leave the sacred place. This quietly filmed observation of everyday life focuses on an isolated woman who carries the pain of a whole community inside her.
The population of the village was tortured and driven away in the 1990s. The nun Dayrayto came here only afterwards. Today she rarely receives visits from passing believers. She usually spends her days doing maintenance work on the church and taking care of the animals. Right now she is worried about her old dog. Has he been poisoned? What to make of the provocations and threats she talks about? Dayrayto is always vigilant, even when she’s resting. From her elevated dwelling she looks far across the landscape, registering every vehicle, however distant. But she is in no way distracted by the presence of the film crew. The unobtrusive camera follows the nun – not at every turn, but as a constant, protective companion as she endures on her “bastion”. Loneliness, worries and fear shape this sparse life. They made her suspicious, but also fearless.
A virtuoso filmic reflection on automatisms in art and an encounter with Margaret Raspé on a Greek island, where the artist and filmmaker spends part of the year. Considered to be a pioneer of feminist German film, “I know where I am” is how she sums up her feeling on the island. Orientation in space, control and letting go are all central categories in her artistic practice.
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2020
Animated Film
Germany
2019
4 minutes
English,
German
Subtitles: 
English
A cosy family picnic at the place they have been visiting since the Cretaceous period is what Mom, Dad and Go Zilla want. But first the big city that has annoyingly sprung up there must be flattened. In the father’s opinion, the performance of his offspring unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired: Too dreamy and still sucking on a pacifier, the little one just doesn’t wreak enough havoc. It’s an entertaining story in the almost normal everyday life of a family.
Cinematic genealogy: A grandson sets out to document his grandparents’ boundless love but upon closer inspection of the myth is unable to overlook the family rifts.
A young man meets a young woman and both fall for each other. A house is built, children are born, the fairy tale story of boundless love takes its course. A grandson sets out to explore the myth of his grandparents’ romance and tries to honour his deceased grandfather on film, assisted by all the surviving relatives. Not an easy undertaking when things may not have been exactly as the family tradition would have it …
In his search Rocco Di Mento unearths old 8mm home movies, an unpublished novel, various love letters and a whole host of long-suppressed feelings. It’s hardly surprising that this mixture begins to develop a dynamic of its own. Suddenly the issue is no longer only the search for the love of one’s life but also the questions of what holds people together above and beyond their relationship status and degree of kinship and how forgiveness is possible even though you have long since lost faith in it. An ingeniously constructed family constellation full of Italian temperament, in which tension, emotion and truthfulness are inextricably linked. Because: “Even if you leave you will always be part of your family.”
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
Credits
Director
Rocco Di Mento
Cinematographer
Sabine Panossian
Editor
Antonella Sarubbi, Valentina Cicogna, Rocco Di Mento
Accompanied by Mother Nature we embark on a collective journey. In this multiplayer VR ritual, we get the chance to become reconciled with her and ourselves.
Welcome to the Anthropocene. Welcome to an age entirely shaped by humanity’s actions. This multiplayer VR ritual arranges a meeting with Mother Nature. We get the chance to become reconciled with her, re-establish lost connections to the world and re-achieve some harmony with the earth and ourselves.
The Smallest of Worlds – A Social Landscape of Collected Privacy
Uwe Brunner, Bettina Katja Lange, Joan Soler-Adillon
Walk-in archive, time capsule and storage for the collective memory of a state of emergency: globally collected snapshots of self-isolation and quarantine.
The Smallest of Worlds – A Social Landscape of Collected Privacy
The Smallest of Worlds – A Social Landscape of Collected Privacy
Uwe Brunner, Bettina Katja Lange, Joan Soler-Adillon
Extended Reality 2020
-
Austria,
Germany,
Spain
2020
10 minutes
English
Covid-19 has made quarantine and self-isolation the everyday experience for many. This project, developed at the CPH:LAB, invites people to scan their most personal places and moments. The resulting VR experience is a walk-in archive and time capsule, the collective memory of a state of emergency which also preserves forgotten virtues like deceleration and the spirit of discovery.
Lars Rummel
Credits
Director
Uwe Brunner, Bettina Katja Lange, Joan Soler-Adillon
A pylon waves its tentacles. The gaze tries to bring order to the jumble of lines and sketches anew what can be assembled from the remnants of perception.
The gaze follows a line of trees and tries to visually order near and distant branches. A jumble of lines sketchily leaves behind what is and sketchily captures what can be assembled from the remnants of perception. Hand-drawn lines conquer the third dimension with digital crackling. A pylon waves its tentacles.