Jan Ijäs’s Waste no. 1 Money (2017) and Anssi Kasitonni’s Saladdin Castique (2018) are screened at Open-Air Filmfest Weiterstadt, held from August 16–20.
Awarded with the first prize at Ciné de Huesca, Waste no. 1 Money documents the situation where the inflation has resulted in the Zimbabwe dollar completely losing its value. Banknotes are literally recyclable goods, turned into tablecloths and lampshades, for example. In the Harare slums, which are rife with crime, valuable US dollar banknotes must be concealed in clothing, which means that the notes quickly become breeding grounds for bacteria. According to money launderers, dollar bills can best be gently hand washed with Omo detergent in warm water.
Media artist and filmmaker Jan Ijäs lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Ijäs works with documentary, fiction and alternative film. The films of Ijäs deal with serious and difficult social themes, like migration into foreign and hostile societies. Ijäs’s films have been shown very widely abroad by over a hundred film festivals and as installations in museums and galleries.
Jan Ijäs: Waste no. 1 Money (2017)
In Saladdin Castique, a man walks in the forest and tries to find berries. He finds instead an empty French salad dressing bottle. A genie comes out of the bottle and grants the man three wishes. The man uses the wishes traditionally but he uses bad language all the time and the genie does not like it. The man is going to learn a lesson.
Anssi Kasitonni is a skateboarder and an award-winning artist from Sahalahti, Finland. He has worked in music, drawing and sculpture, but to many of his fans, the most beloved of his works are the short films he makes at his own farm. The films deal with age-old questions related to morality, love, death, generation gaps, sexuality and, of course, submarines. The ideas are epic, the films decidedly homespun. His movies create their own world that tells us something essential about ours. Kasitonni won the esteemed Ars Fennica Award in 2011.
Open-Air Filmfest Weiterstadt, 16.–20.8.2018, Germany
More information: Open-Air Filmfest Weiterstadt