Elina Oikari’s Govadas (2018), Johanna Lecklin’s Not Just a Matter of Passion (2019), Pilvi Takala’s The Stroker (2019), and Teemu Mäki’s How Many Genders Are There? (2018) will be screened at Seoul International NewMedia Festival, held from August 15–24 in South Korea. Oikari’s, Lecklin’s, and Takala’s film were selected for the international competition “Glocal Propose“, while Mäki’s film is included in the curated programme GenderXNation.
Elina Oikari’s Govadas explores the contradiction and harmony between humans and nature through Sámi poetry. The cyclical perception of time among the only indigenous people living in the European Union is presented in the work as unfolding forms and layers based on the archive material from the 1940’s and the super 8 mm film footage from 2010’s. Govadas creates a kinetic meditation on time, memory, landscape and the ruptures between them.
Johanna Lecklin’s Not Just a Matter of Passion comprises two parallel narratives. One shows two young girls discussing the Finnish Civil War as they play a board game based on the 1918 conflict between the Reds and the Whites. In the other, a researcher is listening to an archive interview and viewing photographs taken at the time of the Civil War. Her work focuses on the fates of women and children on the red side of the conflict, the division that split Finnish society in two and the process by which each side attempted to dehumanise the other. The events are set in the present day, with some scenes shot on location in Mänttä-Vilppula, a site of the Civil War front line.
The Stroker is based on Pilvi Takala’s two week-long intervention at Second Home, a trendy East London coworking space for young entrepreneurs and startups. During the intervention Takala posed as a wellness consultant named Nina Nieminen, the founder of cutting-edge company Personnel Touch who were allegedly employed by Second Home to provide touching services in the workplace.
Teemu Mäki’s How Many Genders Are There? is a documentary short film that consists mainly of interviews of transgender people. It also has portrait photos of them, from the various stages of their lives, from childhood to present. The work is a follow-up to the documentary theatre piece called TRANSFORMATIONS — Rewriting Masculinity.
Seoul International NewMedia Festival (NEMAF), August 15–24, South Korea
More information: NEMAF