LO SCHERMO DELL'ARTE 2016
Founded in Florence in 2008, Lo schermo dell’arte Film Festival is an international project dedicated to exploring, analyzing and promoting the complex relations between contemporary art and cinema through films, videos, installations, publications and workshops. For the third consecutive year, a selection of the past edition will be screened at the Teatrino in the presence of the artists.
Program of the screenings:
10 MARCH
(Untitled) Human Mask
By Pierre Huyghe, France, 2014, 19′
French artist Pierre Huyghe got the idea for this enigmatic film from the story of a restaurant near Tokyo, where the waiters are trained monkeys. Huyghe, who has often used animals in his work, films a monkey whose face is covered by a mask inspired by traditional Noh drama. A metaphor of the human condition, the monkey is forced to infinitely replay his role, walking in circles, trapped in the same empty restaurant that we can imagine in Fukushima after the nuclear accident in 2011.
In Waking Hours
By Sarah Vanagt and Katrien Vanagt, Belgium, 2015, 18′
Researcher Katrien Vanagt carries out an experiment in optics based on an antique medical treatise and transforms her kitchen in Brussels into a camera obscura in front of her amazed and delighted children, who take part. Filmmaker Sarah Vanagt records all the phases of this marvelous experience.
Quantum
By Flatform, Italy, 2015, 8’
This short film, directed by the Flatform collective, which works between Milan and Berlin, frames a typical Italian mountain landscape, shown as a miniature. Real-life footage undergoes the complex post-production, which characterizes the group’s visual poetry. The soundtrack consists of the famous aria “Nessun Dorma” by Giacomo Puccini. In the presence of Flatform.
Thomas Hirschhorn – Gramsci Monument
By Angelo A. Lüdin, Switzerland, 2015, 94’
Gramsci Monument, an homage to an important 20th century philosopher, is the installation which Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn produced in the summer of 2013 in The Bronx, New York. Hirschhorn lived with the neighborhood’s residents for five months, facing their different realities and ethnicities to construct a monument destined to remain in the collective memory.
11 MARCH
The Performer
By Maciej Sobieszczanski and Lukasz Ronduda, Poland, 2015, 63’
A glimpse into the world of Polish contemporary art, based on the life of celebrated artist Oskar Dawicki, who plays himself. Archival footage and pieces of cinematographic fiction describe his performances, up until the emblematic epilogue: the artist fakes his own death during one of his actions.
The Show MAS Go On
By Rä di Martino, Italy, 2014, 30′
The story of the Roman department store MAS (the acronym for Magazzini allo Statuto). A destination for a wide range of humanity, the setting for infinite micro-stories, MAS becomes the stage for a mix of the stories of clients and shopkeepers and the performances of the actors, including Filippo Timi, Iaia Forte, Sandra Ceccarelli and Maya Sansa. In the presence of Rä di Martino.
Troublemakers: the Story of Land Art
By James Crump, USA, 2015, 72’
A history of Land Art, told by the movement’s protagonists: Robert Smithson, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim, Vito Acconci. Through rare archival footage and Germano Celant’s narration, the film is a tribute to their visionary courage and the works they produced in the immense spaces of the American Southwest’s deserts. The film is distributed in Italy by Wanted.
12 MARCH
Common Assembly: Deterritorializing the Palestinian Parliament
By DAAR, Palestine, 2011, 14′ 24″
Video presentation of an architectural project by the Palestinian collective DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency): a study for the reconstruction of the Palestinian Parliament east of Jerusalem, starting with the events that led up to its abandonment.
Parallel I-IV
By Harun Farocki, Germany, 2014, 45’
Originally conceived as a video installation, Parallel I-IV is one of the very last works of Harun Farocki, one of the most influential and subversive German filmmakers, who died in July 2014. Parallel I-IV reflects on the influence of video games on the cinema, investigating the construction and rules of computerized animation and video games. In the presence of Antje Ehmann, filmmaker and long-time collaborator of Harun Farocki.
Frame by Frame
by Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli, Afghanistan/USA, 2015, 85’
During the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, before American troops arrived in 2001, taking pictures was considered a crime. The film tells the stories of four photographers who fought tenaciously, in extremely difficult situations, to re-build a free press in their country.
13 MARCH
Concrete Love – The Böhm Family
By Maurizius Staerkle-Drux, 2014, Germany/Switzerland, 87′
Portrait of a dynasty of German architects. The prize-winning film follows the work in the studio and at construction sites of Gottfried Böhm, his children and his wife: a family united by a passion for art and architecture, however different their individual characters.
Picturing Barbara Kruger
By Pippa Bianco, USA, 2014, 5′ 26”
Commissioned by the County Museum of Los Angeles, this short film is a portrait of artist/photographer Barbara Kruger, the film’s voice-over. In a few masterful minutes, she talks about her work, habits and theories. Nicolas Jaar composed the soundtrack.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
By Lisa Immordino Vreeland, USA, 2015, 90′
A portrait of Peggy Guggenheim, modern art’s most famous patron and collector. Extracts from an interview conducted in the last years of her life intertwine with archival footage, including unpublished details of her relationships with artists, such as Samuel Beckett, Constantin Brancusi and Max Ernst. In collaboration with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.