The competition selections and some parts of other programme of the 66th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen go online from May 13–18. Each screening will be available for 48 hours. You can find the schedule here.
Mika Taanila‘s new short film Patent Nr. 314805 (2020, in featured image) was selected for the international competition. 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.
In AV-arkki, we continue our yearly tradition of showcasing our recent acquisitions in a distributors’ screening – this year, the screening will be presented online.
AV-arkki’s screening as well as the International Competition screening 9 with Mika Taanila’s Patent Nr. 314805 are both scheduled for Sunday, May 17 20:00 – Tuesday, May 19 20:00 (CET).
The titles in AV-arkki’s screening are:
Joonas Hyvönen: Bog Body (2019, 16:41)
In an animated short film Bod Bogy, a human cadaver moves layer by layer deeper into a swamp somehow retaining sentience. Descending, she gets evermore entangled in a hive mind of everything the bog has preserved in itself through time. She, however, gets resurrected into a future society, just as the bog bodies of our times have been raised from the swamps.
Mervi Kytösalmi-Buhl: Haarband (1982, 04:15)
In a hypnotic video, the artist’s head is soaked in blue colour. But the hair keep swaying and cascading, following their organic routes.
Marjo Viitala: Mirror (2019, 07:09)
Longing for love and acceptance gets us to pursue the company of others. However, we tend to let some people closer than others. The same principles and rules do not apply to everyone.
Hanna Arvela: Bird’s-Eye View (2019, 05:31)
Exact words from artist interviews are mouthed by other professionals.
Iona Roisin: Muistatko (A method) (2019, 04:00)
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.
Azar Saiyar: Tell Me (2019, 07:44)
A narrator asks: “Do you know this bird?”. The video quotes both public and private archival images in which birds are in the centre – birds as individual living beings but also as creatures habiting the world and stories created by humans.
Milja Viita: Animal Bridge U-3033 (2018, 12:08)
Animal Bridge U-3033 is about the parallel realities of humans and wild animals. It’s filmed during a year on a bridge above motor highway. These bridges are architecturally engrossing structures, addressed only to the nature, allowing animals to cross the highway. The built environment meets the untouched nature in this narrow strip of urban forest. The 35mm film sequences shot with an old camera create contrast with a mysterious reality captured by trail cameras.
Vesa-Pekka Rannikko: Multi-faith Prayer Room (2020, 05:13)
Animated drawing “Multi-faith Prayer Room” combines limbo zones of travelling to assosiativeness of memory. Constantly shaping animation juxtaposes images from transit areas of airports and humanised birds to fragmented written narration. The starting point of the work is Heathrow airport’s hybridised prayer room.
Elina Brotherus: Passing Music for a Tree (2018, 01:52)
After Mieko Shiomi, Passing Music for a Tree, 1964: Pass by a tree or let some object pass by a tree, but each time differently.
The 66th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, May 13–18 2020, Germany
More information: ISFF Oberhausen