Niina Suominen’s What Time Is? (2020), Milja Viita’s When We Are Nothing Left (2019), and Mika Taanila’s Patent No. 314805 (2020) were selected for the international competition of Regensburg International Short Film Week, held online from May 21 – June 6 2021. Mika Taanila’s Patent No. 314805 will be screened in the competition programme 5 “Battlefield” while Niina Suominen’s What Time Is? and Milja Viita’s When We Are Nothing Left are included in the competition programme 8 “Cosmic“.
Finnish engineer Eric Tigerstedt solved the dilemma of sound-on-film already before World War I. All images and sounds of Patent No. 314805 are produced from the surviving test materials originally created in 1914.
The starting point of What Time Is? (in featured image) 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.
When We Are Nothing Left is a minimalist film about time, infinity and life cycle, created in the spirit of William Blake. The film is shot and hand processed at the Film Farm in Ontario, Canada, during the summer 2018.
Regensburg International Short Film Week, May 21 – June 6 2021, online
More information: Regensburg ISFW