Mika Taanila attends the Grand Jury of 25fps Festival – the 14th International Experimental Film and Video Festival, held in Zagreb from September 27–30. Other Jury members are Jesse McLean and Petar Milat.
25fps festival presents a special programme of each Jury member’s oeuvre. Mika Taanila’s retrospective screening “Eclipsed World” will be screened on Sunday, September 30, at 16:00. The screening includes the following titles:
The Zone of Total Eclipse (2006)
This piece is based on scientific film footage shot by the Finnish Geodetic Institute in Poroluoto, western Finland in 1945. Filmed during a total solar eclipse, this was the first time in history that sound film was used to measure the exact geographical distance between two continents, Europe and North America.
A Physical Ring (2002)
A Physical Ring is a found-footage film configured into a site-specific installation for between one and four projectors. Its raw material is documentation of anonymous physical tests that took place in Finland during the 1940s; the original purpose of the tests remains unknown.
Optical Sound (2005)
Obsolete office tools transform into musical instruments of the future. The film is based on The Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers by [The User].
Branches (2017)
Woody observation case in Helsinki through an early 1950s newsreel footage. Four locations in shots, accompanied by four tape loops and four locked-groove vinyls. An anaglyph 3D film.
The World (2017)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (dir. Nicolas Roeg 1976) evacuated and flipped. In abandoned landscapes, animals, furniture and empty vehicles are left awaiting for disaster. ”We must have died alone, a long long time ago.” (D.B.)
Future Is Not What It Used to Be (2002)
A twisted portrait of one of the unsung pioneers of early electronic art, Finnish nuclear scientist / artist Erkki Kurenniemi, revolving around his massive project of “collecting everything”.
Mika Taanila: Future Is Not What It Used to Be (2002)
In addition, the festival programme includes the audiovisual performance/concert SSEENNSSEESS by Mika Taanila and Circle, on Saturday, September 29, and Taanila’s exhibition “Film Reader” (courtesy of Balzer projects).
Mika Taanila (s. 1965) is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. He works with documentaries, experimental film and visual arts. Human engineering, utopias, failures and man-machines are recurring themes in his films and installations. Taanila’s works have been shown at major international group shows, such as Venice Biennale (Nordic Pavilion 2017), Aichi Triennale (2013), dOCUMENTA (2012), Shanghai Biennale (2006), Berlin Biennale (2004), Manifesta (2002) and Istanbul Biennial (2001). Solo shows include the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki (2013–14), Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2013), TENT, Rotterdam (2013) and Galleria Heino, Helsinki (2010). Taanila’s short films have been screened altogether at more than 300 international film festivals and special events. In 2015, Taanila was awarded with the prestigious Ars Fennica Award, the biggest Finnish art award.
Jonna Kina’s Arr. for a Scene selected for the international competition
Jonna Kina: Arr. for a Scene (2017)
Jonna Kina’s Arr. for a Scene will be screened in the International Competition 1 on Thursday, September 27, at 20:00.
Awarded as the Best Nordic Short Film at Nordisk Panorama 2017, Arr. for a Scene is a documentary of two foley artists while they are producing sounds for one of the most famous film scene in the film history (the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, 1960). This performance is documented on 35 mm film. The original film scene will remain invisible while the viewer sees only the foley artists creating sound effects for the scene, such as footsteps, shower and door closing. During the performance, the foley artists are looking straight at the camera. The film inverts the position of the screen and the gaze of the viewer. The viewer becomes part of the scene. The film examines the way sounds are constructed for the use of cinema and what happens when the structures of a film are dismantled into parts.
Jonna Kina (b. 1984, Lappeenranta, Finland) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with photography, video, sound and text. She has studied in Helsinki, New York and Jerusalem. Kina’s works have been presented in numerous exhibitions such as Museo Amparo, Puebla (2016), Gallery AMA, Helsinki (2016), Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago (2016), Kunsthalle, Helsinki (2016), Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne (2015), Finnish Museum of Photography (2015), Finnish Institute, Stockholm (2014), Sala Alcalá 31, Madrid (2014) and Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg (2014). In 2013 she received a special mention from the jury of Photo Levallois Award and was nominated by the by Hasselblad Foundation’s Victor Fellowship Award and in 2014 by the Source Cord Prize.
25fps Festival – the 14th International Experimental Film and Video Festival, September 27–30 2018, Zagreb
More information: 25fps Festival