Mika Taanila’s Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow (1998, in featured image) and Seppo Renvall’s Parting (2022) were screened at Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, held from October 24–29 2022 in Czech Republic.
Seppo Renvall’s Parting was selected for the festival’s experimental Fascinations strand. This experimental film directs our attention toward abstract imagery, which accentuates the stock footage present on-screen, before guiding our attention toward text excerpts and colorful shapes that have been edited in a rhythmic fashion and culminating in scenes depicting everyday life. Together with the symphonic background music, they form a coherent composition that could serve as a memory for one person, a dream for another, and a reality for someone else.
Seppo Renvall is a pioneer in Finnish experimental film. He works mainly with film and video, but hid artistic output also includes photography, installations and happenings. His films are characterised by an abstract imagery in black and white and a non-narrative structure that often focuses on the apparently commonplace and everyday. Renvall collaborates with musicians, DJs and audio specialists. His works and performances have been seen in the most prestigious arenas of alternative film and visual arts from Anthology Film Archive in New York to the biennials of Venice and Sao Paulo.
Mika Taanila’s Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow was screened in the thematic screening Fascinations: Progress. Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow is a film about the rise and fall of the plastic Futuro House, a “Space Age” utopia that almost came true.
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.
Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, October 24–29 2022, Czech Republic
More information: Ji.hlava IDFF
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.