Jan Ijäs’s Belgrade Forest Incident… and What Happened to Mr. K? (2020, in featured image), Niina Suominen’s What Time Is? (2020), and Mika Taanila’s Patent Nr. 314805 (2020) will be screened at IndieLisboa, held in Portugal from August 21 – September 6.
Mika Taanila’s Patent Nr. 314805 is included in the programme Director’s Cut, screened in the Cinemateca Portuguesa on Thursday, August 26, at 19:00. Finnish engineer Eric Tigerstedt solved the dilemma of sound-on-film already before World War I. All images and sounds of Patent Nr. 314805 are produced from the surviving test materials originally created in 1914.
Jan Ijäs’s and Niina Suominen’s short films were selected for the Silvestre competition short film programme 4, screened on Sunday, August 29, at 21:30 in Cinema São Jorge.
Mr K walked to the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul on 2nd of October 2018 to apply for a divorce certificate in order to remarry Mrs. Turkish C. Upon entering the embassy, Mr K was no longer heard, he disappeared. The disappearance causes widespread political conflict, leading to a 9% collapse of the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange in two hours. Jan Ijäs’s Belgrade Forest Incident… and What Happened to Mr. K? tells the true story of the assassination of journalist, dissident, Jamal Khashogg. Events are told on the timeline of the news reportage, not on the timeline of the actual assassination. It is certain that Khashoggi was the victim of a political assassination, but what happened and where the body ended up is unknown.
The starting point of Niina Suominen’s What Time Is? was to create a visually interesting and intense, kaleidoscopically abundant work that could be set together with the pioneering electric composition of Jukka Ruohomäki (b.1947). The sound material was created in 1970 with the DIMI-synthesizer designed by Erkki Kurenniemi. The film material (16mm) was shot and developed by the director with the exception of the found footage war imagery. What time is? places the experience of time in the centre of contemplation. The human figures act as reference points for meditation on the passage and ending of time. The images of war function as universal symbols reflecting the inherent violence in human nature through all eras. The work gives us a chance to reflect on the transient nature of time and the relationship of the viewer to the conflict-ridden epoch in which we live.
IndieLisboa, August 21 – September 6 2021, Portugal
More information: IndieLisboa