In the short film program LOST ARCHIVES II, personal and political heritage manifests itself through the realization, discovery, contemplation of archives. The social effects resonate on both private and institutional levels. Questions of loss and provenance are staged cinematically through archival reappraisal. The film works surprise with a refined musical framing, creating a mixtape of memories ranging from traumatic war experiences to the disintegration of political systems and belief constructs. (Afsun Moshiry)
What do people leave behind when they immigrate? For the loved ones left behind, material belongings and places turn to precious objects and memories that can be archived and saved upon the time their owners return – if they ever will.… >>>
At his request, after 30 years, Karla Crnčević digitalizes the VHS material her father filmed. She is wondering if he remembers what he captured back then. Created from an impulse to rethink and rewatch personal archive footage, the film explores memory and its relation to documentation and non-institutional archive practices. Connecting politics with intimate spaces, the film questions both the influence of war on private archives and the role of gardens as places of new beginnings.… >>>
THE CYAN GARDEN considers the limits of giving form to the past which cannot cohere into memory. In part filmed on “Lucky”, a discontinued b&w 16mm film reel stock intended for military aerial detection, the film revolves around a radio station that was not supposed to be detected and an Airbnb apartment that has been reconstructed named “The Lover”. Between 1969 and 1981, a Malaysian communist underground radio in exile “Voice of the Malayan Revolution” resided in what is now soon to be a resort. Contemplation on a revolution’s fraught relation to emancipation, THE CYAN GARDEN interweaves visual notes on contemporary urbanization, revolutionary bodies, stifled romance, and inability to remember “rightly” as love songs lull in the background.… >>>
Soviet Lithuania, 1975. Against the backdrop of an industrial fishing boat, fishermen kiss their wives goodbye. Even though the ship sails thousands of miles away from the Iron Curtain, its shadow follows the men. They are going off to the sea to catch fish in the far Atlantic coasts of Africa. Besides fish the men are interested in the African heritage and culture which they bring in pieces back home.… >>>
Museum depots are places where things are kept out of sight, but also protected from all-too-schematic historical judgments. In his new film, Assaf Gruber continues his ongoing investigation of the backstage areas of art institutions to engage with Neue Galerie Graz’s holdings. In the cage-like space of the repository, we see a naked musician working intensely on a composition. He is inspired by artists who belong to a gray area between modernist aspirations and enthusiasm for Nazism. Our mysterious protagonist tentatively plays a familiar melody. It's a song known to many of us, recognizable from dance floors across Europe – but how many of us have ever bothered to listen to its remarkably imperialistic lyrics?… >>>