Azar Saiyar’s My Home (2022, in featured image) and Pink Twins’ The Transient (2023) are screened in the international competition of Videoex International Video & Experimental Film Festival, held in Zürich, Switzerland, from May 25 – June 4 2023. Recently, My Home was screened at Beijing International Short Film Festival. The Transient will continue its travel to Vienna International Short Film Festival, Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and Fest Anča.
Azar Saiyar’s My Home is included in the International Competition 3 “A Place Called Home“, screened on Monday, May 29, at 17:45, and on Friday, June 2, at 16:00. “A bee stung me on my finger. It happened yesterday in the yard of a kindergarten, even though I am not in kindergarten anymore.” Fragmented memories of childhood and adulthood blend together in a song that an unknown narrator is humming. In a sixties TV show children are learning a new game. Someone is waiting in the hallway for a permission to re-enter the classroom. Everything is set. Everything is nailed.
Azar Saiyar is a Helsinki-based filmmaker and visual artist. She often uses archive materials and plays with images and words of collective memory to look towards ways of looking, remembering and storytelling. Her films have been screened at international film and media art festivals, galleries, exhibitions, museums and broadcast on television. My Home is distributed in collaboration between AV-arkki and Raina Film Festival Distribution.
Pink Twins’ The Transient is included in the International Competition 4 “Bright Futures“, screened on Tuesday, May 30, at 17:45, and on Wednesday, May 31, at 16:00. What is The Transient? It is that fleeting moment when you question what you are seeing, when uncanny valley takes over and when harmonious wildlife is revealed as a monstrous result of cloning and obsessive manipulation of nature. Or the moment when you ignore the lure of the real and give in to the overwhelming beauty of growth, the blooming of spring and the glow of midsummer night. Real, based on a true story, artificial, imaginary, a natural paradise, an apocalyptic corruption of nature. The Transient is all of these things and more.
Pink Twins was formed in 1997 by brothers Juha and Vesa Vehviläinen, artists, filmmakers and electronic musicians, born and raised in Helsinki, Finland. Since starting in the hotbed of arts and underground music that was turn-of-the-millennium Helsinki, Pink Twins have polished their musical and visual output into a distinctive and superimmersive audiovisual mayhem. The colourful, abstract cyclic flow of their animation works focus on human perception, its functionality and limits. In their audiovisual live performances Pink Twins create a wholesome and transformative experience with an extremely detailed wall of sound and immersive video projections. Pink Twins have presented their works in exhibitions and festivals on all continents and performed audiovisual live shows through Europe, Americas, Asia and Australia.
Videoex International Video & Experimental Film Festival, May 25 – June 4 2023, Zürich, Switzerland
More information: Videoex
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.