Bitter and Bright
Happiness and despair can be close neighbours, as we know from melodrama and its heavy-handed sister, the soap opera. But even in the more cheerful sections of the entertainment industry, an abyss is gaping under the happy surface: What are those gaudy colours covering up? What is the spectacle distracting from? Which reality are we trying to escape? Seven films that implicitely take these questions into account: With entertainers, magicians, disco glitter and hypnotic loops, glaring colours and trippy cuts, they tell tales of the urge to live amid glamour and distraction.
Icebreakers
A ferry makes its way through the ice floating in the wintery Baltic Sea. Yet the ice has long since broken inside the ship thanks to the evening's entertainment: with their presentation, the artists breathe a moment of magic into a world which already seems rather unreal. A journey into the unknown, full of nostalgia and longing.
- Schweden, Frankreich
- 14:53 Min.
- Director: Maximilien Van Aertryck
- Languages: englisch, russisch
- Subtitles: englische
- Year: 2011
Blood & Cinnamon
Forest creatures gather to witness a possibly diabolical birth. The cartoon animals discuss, diagnose and speculate about their clinical pictures and psyches. A ludicrous, pastel colored panopticon.
- Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika
- 05:26 Min.
- Director: Steve Reinke, Jesse Motts
- Languages: englisch
- Year: 2010
Satellites
Images of an enigmatic fainting ritual amongst teenagers. A YouTube trend which on the big screen is transformed into a meditation on the social cosmos of adolescence. On poses, gestures and physical contact, on letting oneself go and, at times, being let down.
- Österreich
- 07:00 Min.
- Director: Karin Fisslthaler
- Year: 2012
Square Dance Hypnotist
A community square dance is performed in a perpetually changing loop that repeatedly revolves upon itself while the audio swings from train station announcements to a tragic tale of despair and alienation of a fugitive in a stolen police car having a radio communication with a police dispatcher. A dizzying journey to the margins of social cohesion.
- Kanada
- 17:10 Min.
- Director: Allan Brown
- Production: Allan Brown
- Languages: englisch
- Subtitles: englische
- Year: 2011
Euphoria
Of entertaining monotony and strenuous amusement.
- China
- 01:40 Min.
- Director: Shuo Wang
- Year: 2012
Play Life Series
Martial arts in the woods, a heated quarrel in the office, tears in the open street – we are watching shootings for chinese soap operas. The scenes may seem odd, but the underlying principle is familiar: Desire machines at work, superficial emotions on demand. Dissected by montage and camera movement, the trivial scenes turn into a study on media gestures and larger-than-life feelings.
- Österreich
- 11:00 Min.
- Director: Ella Raidel
- Languages: chinesisch
- Subtitles: englische, chinesische
- Year: 2012
And I Will Rise if Only to Hold You Down
An evening with a family on the verge of dissolve. While 14 year old daughter Nova and her best friend Candice prepare for the high school dance, her parents are discussing their half-baked divorce procedure. Who takes the records, who wants the record player? A melodrama starring its one devices: glitter, glamour and costumes, music, and last but not least: tears. I's all about the truth in kitsch and blood and the charm of cheap magic tricks.
- Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika
- 24:00 Min.
- Director: Jennifer Reeder
- Languages: englisch
- Subtitles: englische
- Year: 2012
Satellites
SATELLITES shows images of a puzzling blackout ritual which has spread far and wide among adolescents thanks to youtube. The poses, gestures and touches involved are at the center of attention. Bodies are liberated from the "bodiless" space of the internet and embedded in the social context of the cinema in order to pose questions concerning current media portrayals of the corporeal, and the divide between the self and worlds both public and private.
- Österreich
- 07:00 Min.
- Director: Karin Fisslthaler
- Year: 2012