Two short documentaries from Jan Ijäs’s ongoing Waste series, Money and Wreck, are screened at international film festivals in Spain and France during November.
Waste no. 1 Money (2017) is screened at the 55th Gijón International Film Festival, held from November 17–25 in Spain. The film is included in the showcase of Scandinavian short films.
Waste no. 1 Money documents how the inflation has resulted in the Zimbabwe dollar completely losing its value. Banknotes are literally recyclable goods, turned into tablecloths and lampshades, for example. In the Harare slums, which are rife with crime, valuable US dollar banknotes must be concealed in clothing, which means that the notes quickly become breeding grounds for bacteria. According to money launderers, dollar bills can best be gently hand washed with Omo detergent in warm water.
Waste no. 2 Wreck (2016) is competing in the 21st selection of PriMed (Prix International du Documentaire et du Reportage Méditerranéen), held from November 19–25 in Marseille, France.
Waste no. 2 Wreck was filmed in 2014 and 2015 in the graveyard for refugee boats on the Italian island of Lampedusa. It is a story about how the value of garbage and rubbish can surprisingly change.
Ijäs: Waste no. 2 Wreck (2016)
Media artist and filmmaker Jan Ijäs lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Ijäs works with documentary, fiction and alternative film. The films of Ijäs deal with serious and difficult social themes, like migration into foreign and hostile societies. Ijäs’s films have been shown very widely abroad by over a hundred film festivals and as installations in museums and galleries.
Prix International du Documentaire et du Reportage Méditerranéen, 19.–25.11.2017, Marseille, France
55th Gijón International Film Festival, 17.–25.11.2017, Gijón, Spain
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