Four short films by AV-arkki’s artists Maija Blåfield, Marja Helander, Simo Saarikoski, and Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts were selected for the programme of Aesthetica Short Film Festival, held from November 7–11. Aesthetica Short Film Festival is a leading BAFTA-Qualifying festival that takes place annually in November in York, UK.
Marja Helander‘s Eatnanvuloš Lottit – Birds in the Earth (2018) will be screened in the Dance film programme “Wilds”. Birds in the Earth is a short film based on dance. The main characters are two young Sámi ballet students; Birit and Katja Haarla. The movie tells a bit melancholic story through their dance performances. At the same time it examines the deeper questions of the ownership of Sámi land.
Screenings:
Wednesday, November 7, 12:00, York Theatre Royal (Studio)
Thursday, November 8, 13:00, Friargate Theatre
Sunday, November 11, 15:00, Everyman (Screen 4)
Minna Rainio‘s and Mark Roberts‘s They Came in Crowded Boats and Trains (2018) will be screened in the Documentary Programme 2 “Past, Present & Future”. In They Came in Crowded Boats and Trains, refugees from Finland and Iraq struggle across geographical and temporal borders on a journey to find safety. The film interweaves the stories of Finnish refugees during the World War II with the journeys of refugees from Iraq who travelled to Finland in the present day. The division between us and them, the past and the present, becomes blurred. It was awarded with the Turku Biennial Prize in February 2018.
Screenings:
Wednesday, November 7, 11:00, Everyman (Screen 3)
Friday, November 9, 14:00, Everyman (Screen 2)
Saturday, November 10, 18:45, YSJU (Fountains)
Sunday, November 11, 10:00, Yorkshire Museum
Maija Blåfield‘s On Destruction and Preservation (2018, in the featured image) is included in the Documentary Programme 3 “Overcoming Adversity”. Premiered at Visions du Réel, Nyon, On Destruction and Preservation consists of five separate documentary stories. One was filmed in arctic Svalbard on a guided tour on a rainy February day. The focus of the sightseeing changes to something not originally intended and becomes an introduction to climate change. The identifiable and endearing humanity of the characters appearing in the story make the topic easier to address. And there is also humour. The other stories correspond and react to this setting in different ways. Stories include a discussion about saving the world, a famous Swedish eel who lived alone in a well over a century, a luggage lost in the ocean due to a wreck of a container ship and a sex scene of fungi giving birth to new life in a deteriorating house.
Screenings:
Wednesday, November 7, 15:15, Yorkshire Museum
Friday, November 10, 20:00, NCEM
Sunday, November 11, 16:45, King’s Manor
Simo Saarikoski’s Abandoned Land (2018) will be screened in the Documentary Programme 5 “Finding Your Place”. Abandoned Land is an experimental video that documents abandoned places, infrastructure and phenomena in Finland. The video uses Finland as an allegory to approach recent changes of the European infrastructure and society with haunting images, prosaic narration and music.
Screenings:
Thursday, November 8, 11:45, NCEM
Friday, November 9, 10:00, NCEM
Saturday, November 10, 14:15, YTR
Sunday, November 11, 11:30, Friargate Theatre
Aesthetica Short Film Festival, November 7–11 2018, York, UK
More information: Aesthetica Short FF