Jenni Toikka’s Prelude Op. 28 No. 2 (2022, in featured image) and Hanna Hovitie’s Square the Circle (2023) are screened at Festival Tous Courts, taking place in Aix-en-Provence, France from November 28 – December 2, 2023. The films are a part of the 9th edition of the festival’s experimental section, this year titled Diffusion, and are screened in the Competition 2 screening on Friday December 1 at 1:30 pm in Cinéma Cézanne. The experimental section of the festival runs from 30 November – December 1, 2023.

In Prelude Op. 28 No. 2, during a single long shot, we see two people taking turns playing the piano and listening alternately. The piece is the same on both times – Preludi Op. 28 No. 2 by Chopin – but when the performer changes, the interpretation of the song changes along with the perspective from which the song and its performance are viewed. The uninterrupted playing and single shot capture the event in one temporal moment, but as the camera moves and two people change places, time is equally layered.

Jenni Toikka (b. 1983) is a Helsinki-based visual artist working predominantly with moving images. Toikka graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki in 2012. She has had several solo exhibitions in Helsinki including at Sinne, Forum Box and Kluuvi Gallery. In autumn 2019, her work was shown in the solo exhibition Reel at HAM – Helsinki Art Museum. Jenni Toikka’s video pieces have been seen internationally in group exhibitions and at festivals. Her work is represented in the collections of the Saastamoinen Foundation, Espoo Modern Art museum EMMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.

Square the Circle asks: How to be a circle in a square world? In a two-dimensional space, out of time, a person seeks their belonging to the world through a journey to infinity.

Hanna Hovitie (born 1991) is a film director and video artist from Helsinki, Finland. Her films have been shown and awarded at several prominent international festivals such as DOK Leipzig, Melbourne International Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, and International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Festival Tous Courts: November 28 – December 2, 2023, Aix-en-Provence, France

More information: Festival Tous Courts

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. If you want to hear the latest news from our distribution, subscribe to our newsletter!