Saara Ekström’s Amnion (2023) was picked for the experimental category of Blue Danube Film Festival, held from September 20 – 30 2023 in Austria, Slovenia and Hungary. The screenings will take place September 20th in Kulturzentrum Spittelberg im Amerlinghaus, Vienna, 24th in Kaleidoszkóp Ház, Esztergom and 26th in Cirko-Gejzir Cinema, Budapest.

Landfills on the fringes of cities reveal all about our culture, habits, fears and desires. Here treasures turn into trash and the excess of our discarded welfare and cheap labor dances in the wind. Shot in 8mm film, Amnion (innermost membrane enclosing an embryo) is a dark and melancholy vision, where the organic merges with the synthetic, polymer molecules imitate the DNA helix, and new life begins to take shape under transparent folds of plastic wrapping.

Saara Ekström works in film, photography, text and installation. Chronotopes where time and place densify, time that nurtures and erodes, the ambivalent desire to both remember and forget are at the core of her art. Ekström’s work has been shown extensively in various museums and festivals in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She received the Finnish media art prize AVEK-award in 2018 and the prizes of SW Finland in 2017, Finnish Art Society in 1995 and the Aboa prize in 1994. She has been the Helsinki Festival Artist in 2005 and was nominated for both Ars Fennica and Carnegie Art Award prizes in 2010.

Blue Danube Film Festival, September 20–30 2023, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia

More information: Blue Danube Film Festival

AV-arkki has promoted and distributed Finnish media art since 1989. AV-arkki’s promotional efforts have made the artists’ participation in this event possible. If you want to hear the latest news from our distribution, subscribe to our newsletter!