Iona Roisin’s Muistatko (A Method) (2019) was selected for the OVNI competition at Brest Short Film Festival in Brest, France. Brest Short Film Festival is held online from November 10 – 15.
In ‘Muistatko (a method)‘ a singer attempts to decipher a song they are singing in a language they do not speak. The 1955 song ‘Muistatko Monrepos’n’ was the first Finnish record to go gold and is still the fourth best selling single in Finland. The location it refers to occupies a specific place in Finnish cultural memory, as somewhere that was ‘lost’, and as such the waltz is highly loaded. What meaning remains, when the music is stripped away? At present, the nostalgic is not a neutral territory, it can be hard to separate weaponised nostalgia from its more well-intended forms. When its affective qualities are combined with notions of national identity, a potentially difficult space opens up. Muistatko (a method) is about trying to feel the weight of this context, from the outside.
Iona Roisin (b.1989) is a British artist living and working in Helsinki. She graduated from The Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki and The Cass School of Art, London. Working at the intersection of writing, film and installation, her practice attempts to negotiate the expression of impossibility and/or the impossibility of expression. This considers issues relating to language, power, representation, consent and complicity. She has shown in London, Helsinki, Zagreb and Seoul.
Brest Short Film Festival, 10 – 15 November 2020, Brest, France
More information: Film Court de Brest