
Jonna Kina’s new diptych short film After Life followed by Red Impasto Jar (2021) will have its World Premiere in front of the live audience at Berlinale Summer Special screenings, held from June 9–20. After Life followed by Red Impasto Jar is included in the Berlinale Forum Expanded Shorts Programme 4, screened on Sunday, June 13, at 21:30 in Open Air Kino HKW. The film was presented for the film industry and professionals during the European Film Market (EFM) in March.
After Life followed by Red Impasto Jar is composed of two separate films followed by each other. Both films explore transcendental issues through archaeological and illegal excavations of tombs.
After Life consists of a sequence of meditative short scenes picturing the ruins of a small Faliscan necropolis of Cavone di Monte Li Santi in Italy and its surrounding natural elements. The rock-cut chamber tombs of the necropolis had been illegally excavated before they were archaeologically discovered in 2015 – a phenomenon still faced by many rural archaeological sites.
At the center of Red Impasto Jar is a looted archaeological tomb object. In antiquity, the funeral was a significant ceremony where entombing of the body was just one component in the complex sequence of events. This ancient Faliscan tomb item dating back to the 6th century BCE was passed to the archaeological museum (Mazzano Romano, Italy). The jar is radically altered and damaged by being cemented into the structures of a house as a decorative element. The film portrays the state of the pottery focusing on the detailed choreography and documentation of the object with a slow 360° rotation on a robust industrial motor against a monochromatic background.

By unveiling and deconstructing forms and methods, Jonna Kina’s works suggest complex questions dealing with a diverse range of topics: the transsensory power of sound; the relations and exchanges between artifice and reality; the mechanisms of translation; the relationship between the viewer and the artwork. Kina’s works has been presented in international exhibitions and festivals, such as Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; International Film Festival Rotterdam; Berlinale Forum Expanded; Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA; Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne; Moscow Biennale for Young Art. Nordisk Panorama selected Kina’s film Arr. for a Scene as the “Best Nordic Short Film” (2017).
Berlin International Film Festival / Berlinale Summer Special, June 9–20 2021, Germany
More information: Berlinale