Starting in 2014, the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival expanded its profile by the presentation of a European film and media dis- tributor, addressing both structural aspects and the substance of their activities. This year we are pleased to present Square Eyes from Vienna. Numerous short and feature-length films by Square Eyes have been part of the program for many years, some also won awards: most recently in 2015 Mea de Jong won the Golden Key for “If Mama Ain’t Happy, Nobody’s Happy” and in 2014 Guido Hendrikx won the junges dokfest: A38 pro- duction grant Kassel-Halle for “Escort”. Square Eyes is a sales and festival distribution agency which helps outstanding non-mainstream films find the audience and recognition they de- serve. They specialise in representing bold, au- thor-driven features and shorts, and collaborate closely with filmmakers to devise bespoke festival distribution and sales strategies. By limiting their portfolio, they ensure that each film they work with receives the attention it needs to reach its fullest potential.
Lembri Uudu worked in a Pähkla village's kolkhoz as a tractor driver. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the kolkhoz was disbanded, Uudu died and most of Pähkla's villagers lost their jobs. But sometimes it takes time for a person to realize that he is actually dead.… >>>
As on a high horse sits the motorcyclist proudly on his bike. Everyone else wants to ride too, but he wouldn't lend his Honda to anyone. In this reenactment, mise en scène is used as a means to illustrate foolishness and hubris. Sometimes a sound collage of an arcade caricatures the driver's arrogance, sometimes a Wagner hymn accompanies his rounds in the jungle. Through these juxtapositions, the reference to the lived reality of the young protagonists is established.… >>>
The film reflects on the experience of not being able to see the world with depth perception. Made up of micro-events from "satisfying video" that swarm on the internet, the abstract narrative unfolds through an appropriation way by referring to trance and minimal music. It's about a desire for groundless waves, blended with today's inexorable entropy of our information societies.… >>>
In SWATTED video gamers describe their struggles with "swatting", a life-threatening cyber-harassment phenomenon, in which people are targeted through falsified emergency calls that trigger SWAT team interventions (SWAT = Special Weapons And Tactics) at their homes, preferably while they are live streaming their games. Using interviews, found footage, and manipulated in-game images, the film constructs a view of a world, in which the monitor used to interact with virtual worlds becomes a permeable portal and the game manifests as a real threat inside the teenagers’ bedrooms.… >>>
Fedor is a young locksmith in Murmansk, a frozen city in the obscurity of the Russian Arctic. Client after client, he roams through the alleys of concrete animated by a fantasy that isolates him from the city and its population. His dreams corrode his relation to reality and open the door to a phantasmagoric universe; a second sun is rising above the Russian Arctic.… >>>