Short films by Elina Oikari and Azar Saiyar will be streamed in the official selection of International Ethnographic Film Festival Québec (FIFEQ). Elina Oikari’s Govadas (2018) will be streamed in the Québec edition from May 20 – June 6 while Azar Saiyar’s Monument of Distance (2018) will be streamed in the Montréal edition from June 14–27. Both programs are hosted by Tënk – an online platform for documentaries.
Govadas (in featured image) explores the contradiction and harmony between humans and nature through Sámi poetry. The cyclical perception of time among the only indigenous people living in the European Union is presented in the work as unfolding forms and layers based on the archive material from the 1940’s and the super 8 mm film footage from 2010’s. Govadas creates a kinetic meditation on time, memory, landscape and the ruptures between them.
Elina Oikari is a filmmaker who works with fiction, documentary, and alternative film. She has graduated with a Master of Arts from the ELO Film School Finland in Aalto University majoring in documentary film directing (2014). Oikari’s work often explores current social themes connected with timeless places and stories. Using a sharp palette of absurd humor and reflective visual language she aims to push the boundaries of cinema.
In Azar Saiyar’s Monument of Distance, Googoosh, a popular and loved iranian-azerbaijani singer, performs a version of the song Ayrılıq – Separation. The performance is from 1970s television show and it has been copied several times from one videotape to another. Ayrılıq could be a love song but it is told that composer Ali Salimi (who had migrated from Soviet Azerbaijan to Iran and left behind his home and loved ones) wanted to make music about his sense of longing.
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.
International Ethnographic Film Festival Québec, May 20 – June 27 2021, Montréal & Québec / online
More information: FIFEQ