Azar Saiyar’s History Bleeds Under Your Fingernails (2016) and Pekka Sassi’s Making Art Video (2016) are selected in the international short film competition of the 300th Stuttgarter Filmwinter, held from January 18–22. The festival programme includes also works from Maarit Suomi-Väänänen and Pilvi Takala.
Still from Saiyar: History Bleeds Under Your Fingernails (2016)
Saiyar’s History Bleeds Under Your Fingernails is a short documentary film on the history of taming the left hand and on the culture of cultivating the bodies that do not fit. It is included in the Short Films 3 section, screened on Thursday, January 19 at 21:30 (reprise on Friday, January 20 at 15:30).
Pekka Sassi’s Making Art Video will have its world premiere in the Short Films 6 section, on Saturday, January 21 at 15:30 (reprise: Sunday, January 22 at 11:30). The work is a documentary about making a video by the same name. The artist is trying to describe his works and advice the viewer. The video shows how difficult it is to translate visual thinking into verbal language.
Both Saiyar’s and Sassi’s films are screened in Haus der Geschichte.
Maarit Suomi-Väänänen’s Minispectacles: Albuquerque Straight (2016) is included in the special programme “Strange Creatures”, screened on Sunday, January 22 at 11:30 in Fitz! Minispectacles is a series of one minute works, cinematic haikus. Albuquerque Straight visits a man and a lynx on the Route 66. To be continued all the way to Part 100. Woman with a pocket camera.
Still from Suomi-Väänänen: Minispectacles, Albuquerque Straight (2016)
The festival is extended with an exhibition “Courage to Lie” in the Stadtbibliothek Stuttgart. Dedicated to documentaries that question the boundaries of truth and lie, the exhibition features Pilvi Takala’s Real Snow White (2009). In Takala’s performative video, the absurd logic of the ‘real character’ and the extreme rules of Disneyland become apparent when a real fan of Snow White is banned from entering the theme park dressed as Snow White. The exhibition is open until March 4.
Still from Takala: Real Snow White (2009)
300. Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Germany, January 18–22
More information: Stuttgarter Filmwinter