Novelties and cult classics: experimental films at Tampere Film Festival

AV-arkki has a strong presence at the 47th Tampere Film Festival. Held between March 8 and 12, Tampere Film Festival is the oldest short film festival in Northern Europe. The internationally distinguished event is AV-arkki’s main associate in Finland. The national competition of Tampere Film Festival includes several short films by AV-arkki’s artists. In addition, AV-arkki has curated a special programme celebrating two generations of absurdism and new wave.

The films in the Domestic Competition are:

Fanni Niemi-Junkola: Breath (2016)

Presence, body, power, pulse. The image of a horse is loaded with a variety of meanings in mythology, sports and arts. Niemi-Junkola deals with the co-existence of the animal and the human and its boundaries, the consumption yet the need of seeking connection to oneself via nature.

Pink Twins: Overlook (2017)

Impossible architecture, an ancient burial ground and a lure for psychotic janitors were the building blocks of Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. In this story vignette, chaos animators Pink Twins add zero gravity and a rupture in space-time continuum to the mix and serve a taster of subtle cosmic horror.

Timo Wright: Embrace (2016)

An abandoned house, furniture strewn around, discarded. Slowly, a red smoke starts to pour in through the doors. Eventually the whole house is engulfed with the smoke that hides everything from our sight.

Risto-Pekka Blom: No Connection (2017)

Falling down due to a personal tragedy may save a person from themselves. Matti has drifted into a double life, unable of taking responsibility for his actions and their effects on those close to him.

Samuli Alapuranen: Drag Me to Kempele (2017)

Kempele is a grey hole located in the northern part of Finnish Ostrobothnia. It neither pulls in or pushes away the flow of traffic that trickles through it via the E4 motorway. It is ordinary. It is flat. It is very difficult to come up with any more adjectives describing it. Drag Me to Kempele is a portrait of a mediocre town where people shop, exercise or drive through on their way to North or South.

Mika Taanila: Sad Song of the Hard-Edge Transition Wipe Markers (2017)

Early 1950s newsreel laboratory marker films used for indicating effects like wipes, dissolves and fade-outs in the work print, now freed from their utilitarian practice.

Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki: Otila Magic Blues (2017)

An experimental and episodic movie about the artist’s roots, his dreams, his experiences and his philosophy.

AV-arkki presents: Absurdism and New Wave

Pasi "Sleeping" Myllymäki: To Be Continued (1982)

Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki: To Be Continued (1982)

AV-arkki’s screening at Tampere Film Festival is a celebration of absurdism and new wave spirit. The screening is curated by AV-arkki’s programme coordinator Tytti Rantanen. The screenings take place on Friday, March 10 at 14:00 and on Saturday, March 11 at 18:00 in Plevna Film Theatre.

Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors take over the Finnish pavilion at the Venice Biennale in the summer of 2017 with their installation “The Aalto Natives”, whereas the Nordic pavilion presents Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki’s underground super 8 films from the 1970s and the 1980s. 

With their short films, Nissinen and Mellors transgress the limits of the civilized and the primitive, the individual and the collective, the appropriate and inappropriate. The films are up-to-date in their self-reflexivity, but at the same time they sparkle with anarchist and absurd humor. Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki, “the Tavastian Méliès”, shot several dozens of super 8 films with Risto “Legenda” Laakkonen. They were both delightful and scandalous. Myllymäki aimed his underground films against the apathy of the Finnish super 8 society. The films express the DIY spirit of punk rock, but also pay homage to the tradition of early experimental cinema. “Every film ever made is much better than all the unmade films”, declares Myllymäki.

The screening is a collaboration between AV-arkki and Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

 

Maarit Suomi-Väänänen’s In a Musty, Misty Thicket in the WIFT Finland screening

Suomi-Väänänen: Pöheikön hönkä (2012)

Suomi-Väänänen: In a Musty, Misty Thicket (2012)

Maarit Suomi-Väänänen‘s In a Musty, Misty Thicket (2012) is included in the WIFT Finland screening on Thursday, March 9 at 22.00 in Niagara Film Theatre and on Friday, March 10 at 12:00 in Plevna Film Theatre.

Down in a mysterious, musty thicket on a deserted island, a pot is bubbling over a smoking campfire, around which Pik Mama and Missy are spending a hic-day in the forest. Weird and uncanny things are going on.

Women in Film & Television Finland is politically independent, cultural and professional not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to promote its members’ professional activities, education, professional achievements, networking, and to act as a promoter of Finnish film, television and the moving image culture from the gender equality perspective.

 

 

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Tampere Film Festival 8.–12.3.2017

More information: Tampere FF


AV-arkki has promoted and distributed Finnish media art since 1989. AV-arkki’s promotional efforts have made the artists’ participation in this event possible.