WomenCinemakers, Special Edition by WomenCinemakers

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Contents 04 Katelina Kancheva

138 Niurca Marquez

SIRIN

Abandoned Transits

164

Madeleine Smith

Nicola Hepp

Fort

Echo

198

Christine Vandemoortele

Molly Lucille

Everybody is Quiet

It Never Leaves You

226

Yu Jiang

Jessye Wdowin-McGregor

Nanyang Jellyfish

Isle of Grain

112

260

PINION&CROWN ensemble

Marie Lambin-Gagnon & Hannah Schallert

OXYMORON

Nature Morte

Women Cinemakers meets

Katelina Kancheva Lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria

A Man and a Woman pressed by the circumstances. The man is ill while the woman is taking care of him as their love is dying. "To untie the knot you need to set it on fire - it will burn and the two ends of the rope will hang free.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

Sofia and after your studies in

and Dora S. Tennant

contemporary dance techniques at

womencinemaker@berlin.com

International Nomad Dance Academy,

Hello Katelina and welcome to Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted background: you have a solid background of directing, acting and dancing: after having earned your degree in Department of Theater from New Bulgarian University-

you nurtured your education with a oneyear class of directing for movies and television in NATFA-The National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts-Sofia and also 3 months scholarship specialization in Utrecht School of the ARTS. How did these experiences influence your evolution as a director? Moreover, how

Katelina Kancheva Photo by Peter Vulchev

Women Cinemakers does your cultural substratum due to the relationship between your Bulgarian roots and the time you spent in India direct the trajectory of your artistic research? Hello, dear team of first to say that for me it is a big honor to be part of it. I’m born in Bulgaria but I spent the first years of my life in India because of my parents’ job. I think this period of my childhood influenced my interest in India later in my life. I can say I feel India as a second home, it is always going to be in my heart and give me inspiration.Every time I can, I will go back to it.My professional involvement with art started when I was 19, in the class of Prof. Ivan Terziev, A One-Year of Filmmaking in NATFA.This experience then set my way which I was developing for years.I shoot my first movie there and it was documentary. Than I’ve got my BA of acting in New Bulgarian University.After my graduation I studied contemporary dance , and my final projects was connected more with film and photography true the body of a

dancer.I would like to say that the wide spectrum of activities related to art is not always useful unless it leads in your personal way. Of course, my personal choice to be an actress and a director was my main mand most important choice. I am what I am now because of all those years of learning and enriching. After all It happened that my journey through different arts met me with Krum Yankov and transformed into the films we created together.Our first film was The Time of Clouds and Rain , in 2012 who won an award for experimental film. Than we continued with Vacuum, Sirin and A Life of Thousand Years. For this special edition of we have selected , a captivating short film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once impressed us with your brilliant storytelling is the way it sapiently engages the viewers with a

cliché free narrative. While walking our readers of , Could you tell through us what did attract you to this particular story? SIRIN was made suddenly, something like when in speech we don’t know what we will say or answer but our words come out almost at the same time as the thoughts. This film alongside VACUUM is one of my most spontaneous works. The first title we chose for it was PICNIC, and our idea was to make a much longer movie about our characters, including their home and daily life. We shoot SIRIN in three days at locations in the neighborhood I lived back then. SIRIN was started as our reaction to specific events in my country but in the end it became an autonomous poetic expression. It became a film about the time when a person needs to find help from the outside, from the world, but there is no help. It is a film about the hopelessness and lack of perspective of a given situation – like a bind where every movement, even every thought tightens the knot. A situation in which the sad person seems to be doomed to become sadder and only a miracle can help. I need to say that short films are often seen

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Women Cinemakers as just an exercise in film-making or a step leading to full-length films while I am now addicted to its explosive form. This is maybe the shortest way in cinema, the closest to poems. features stunning Elegantly shot, cinematography and a keen eye for details: what were your when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? Here, as in our other films, we always work with a limited budget; in a way, we never shoot what we want but what we can at that moment. The script of SIRIN was shortened and adapted to what was possible, and this is a marvelous synthesis which we learned to enjoy. The common thing between our different films is that we try to find the feeling of monumentality in the everyday characters and events; we see icons and living myths in people crossing the street. And, of course, the black and white, which save us from the colorful imagery of the world, from its seeming diversity, and from the

unavoidable video image which we can call ‘plastic’. Black and white images are like a world made from only two ingredients, and they make life simpler – only the basics. All our films were shot by the same cinematographer– Delyan Georgiev – with a camera Sony NEX-EA50UH with interchangeable lenses. We use only one lens in our work50mm. As in life we look with one eye.We set our camera to black and white at the beginning, not in postproduction, so there is no way back. With its brilliantly structured storytelling imparts unparalleled to the narration, to unveil an ever shifting internal struggle. We have particularly appreciated the way your film gives to the viewers the sense they are watching , a feature that we have had the chance to appreciate also in : would you tell how did you

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Women Cinemakers develop the structure of your film in order ? to achieve such Moreover, how does fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories that you tell in your films? Stories are always in supply for me. I just pick one and use it. I mean, I use it like a carrier, and it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t interesting for me at all to tell the story. To tell the story is something that leads the audience by the nose but the image is something enigmatic which is my goal. Of course, the main content is between the scenes, in the connections between the shades of the colors, I mean it is in the nonstop motion of the film in time , and at the same time in the constant attempt to keep it in the moment. Both VACUUM and SIRIN have a similar genesis if you look the process from the outside. They were more like walking around with a camera, the places we were shooting got used to us so much that people stopped paying attention. In fact, both films are very short

Women Cinemakers periods of time, almost real time for the characters, a couple of hours for them – get home from work, a painful walk, just a short period of their time. This is the boring hours of people’s lives, and they are most of the time. Our goal was to see those empty hours as significant, as setting people’s fate, as the empty space from which everything starts – the act is born out of nothing, the thought comes from no-thought. Featuring compelling narrative drive leaps off the screen for its essential still effective and we like the way you created entire scenarious out of : how did you structured your film in order to achieve such powerful narrative effect? In particular, will what what are you hoping trigger in the audience? Our film is not political but I hope the audience will feel the common feeling of weakness and desperation in our Bulgarian society. We had

Women Cinemakers huge problems on political and levels. In the period of few years 2013-2015 there was a wave of wave of suicides by selfimmolation in public and other places, starting with the Antimonopoly protests in early 2013. The wave continued in 2014 under conditions of political instability, parliamentary elections and relatively high unemployment. The feeling is similar to be sentenced for life, with no right to appeal the sentence. Then your life is without creative power. I am not diagnosing, just at that moment this was my feeling about my country. For us, the anonymous heroism of people in our country is very important because they go on with their typical daily efforts despite the motto “Everything is allowed” and the “scoundrels”. Exactly this quiet and creative force has kept the world. What was your preparation in terms of ? In particular, do you like spontaneity or do you prefer to meticolously schedule every details of

Women Cinemakers your acting and shooting process?

just gravitation.

We plan carefully and we predict space for spontaneity. Because we also work in theatre, I will take an example from there, to be more clear. Our theatrical plays, their movements and choreography, they don’t come from our wishes how the actors should move or behave, but they are a result of exercise and limitations we have set in advance. What I mean is that the acting belongs to the person in front of the camera. However, it is regulated by the rules and limitations of the preliminary exercise, just like in a normal human game. We always take the individual’s body and face fully into account because they carry a sense of fate. We can show them in different situations or combinations but we never try to change the feeling that comes from the natural presence of the actor. While we are filming, it is often enough to ask the person to just walk in front of the camera for a couple of times. For example, the puppet for SIRIN was made very heavy on purpose, to be difficult to carry. This is not acting it’s

Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes: German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that " ": how do you consider the relation between of the ideas you explore of creating your films and as an actress? I think it’s impossible to create a poetic work just intellectually. It is an act of the body and the hidden content, and the body has a quicker and more primitive access to this content. The body itself is a perfected form. I need to confess that we realize intellectually our works only after we have finished them. Of course, we are full of information from different authors and sources but there are not a solution for us, only inspiration. I am happy that I still can’t call it a method and I still call it inspiration. As an actress, I only pay

poster by Lada Yankova

Women Cinemakers attention to be in a condition which corresponds to the mood. There is an Indian proverb which says that if you understand from where comes the mood which has no reason (happiness without reason, sadness without reason) then you will understand where the gods live. Your films are often the results of the collaboration with Krum Yankov: could you tell us something about the making of your film? How would you consider of your work? With Krum Yankov, the director, I have been working since 2011. All our films are a result of this tandem. Our friendship of ideas became a relationship which we nurture with much love. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have

Women Cinemakers been from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing: as a passionate advocate of women in film, what's your view on ? Do you think it is harder for women artists to have their projects green lit today? According to an article of Julio Talavera about facts published in the study of the European Audiovisual Observatory out of all films made between 1996 and 2012, only 18.4% of the total were made by women film directors, the Cannes Festival has recorded only one case of a female film director to have won the Grand Prix – the “Golden Palm”: Jane Campion for the film “”The piano”. Throughout the long history of the “Oscar” awards which began in 1939, it was only in 2010 that a woman won for the first time the “Oscar” award for best film director: Catherine Bigelow for the film "The Hurt Locker." In the history of the Bulgarian national cinema festival, dating

since 1961 throughout all its editions to this day, only four women have won the highest "Golden Rose" award. The statistics is really sad, I personally haven’t experienced something like this, because of the distance I am keeping. I think that discrimination and financing difficulties shouldn’t stop the younger generation because the ways to express ourselves are more and more available. I strongly believe in the power women have in the cinema and I think that in the future we will hear more and more new names of women authors. It is true that women have been an object of admiration in the cinema, or muses, but now is the century in which we are on the other side of the camera. In Bulgaria, we still have some great examples that you can see at http://jeni-bg-kino.com/en/ Which is dedicated to Bulgarian women directors. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing

poster by Lada Yankova

Women Cinemakers your thoughts, Katelina. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am planning to shoot another short film in 2019, and the working title is VULTURE. It is going to be about the good in our lives, how it is completely impossible and how in the end we can only be ashamed of ourselves because of that. I also think that low budget cinema is a great opportunity and we shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t count it as a tragedy. Also, it was the dream of many world renown authors. In the future, many films made by small crews will be made and the competition will be about ideas, not moneyâ&#x20AC;Ś And gender will not matter.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Madeleine Smith Lives and works in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. Driven by a passion for people and stories, I work in mediums ranging from spoken-word poetry to film. I began making music videos with my siblings in high school, and my love of editing and storytelling expanded into a way for me to speak on social issues. For my first major project, I produced a short documentary titled The Only Black Person in the Room, featuring the stories of African-American students from my school. I am currently a student at Oregon State University studying anthropology and economics. I see film as a hands-on way to practice anthropology, expressing my love of learning about people and cultures. Since coming to university, I have explored more narrative film. My favorite type of narrative film dives into the awkward and mundane moments of everyday life. The short film Fort began as a script for a one act play, and I later adapted it to film. With this story I wanted to capture more nuance in sibling and family relationships than I usually see in media, where brothers and sisters are often seen as either bitter enemies or best friends. The title Fort speaks to the physical blanket-chair structure in the living room, but moreover to the strength shared between the family members who imperfectly try to support each other. Since Fort, I have produced a documentary titled Unabandoned, where a team of students and I explored small towns in the rural part of my state. We met with local community members who shared about their love for their towns, while providing the historical and economic context of those places through interviews with economists and a historian. Our film seeks to encourage relationships and understanding between rural and urban areas. I am also a senior producer at Golden Pride Productions, through which I co-produced a film The Unidentified. This coming-of-age story follows three young boys on a quest to find the identity of a dead body, driven by an uncertainty of their own identities. It was selected as an audience award in the online LGBTQ Short Film Festival, and was an official selection in the Oregon Independent Film Festival and in the San Francisco International New Concept Film Festival. My latest project is another narrative film I directed and co-wrote, telling the story of a girl who, on a lonely birthday, finds a phone with which she can call her future self. This film, titled In Time, is intended to encourage young people who feel stuck that they will find opportunities beyond what they experience in their current circumstances. While film is not central to my studies, I continue to produce film because I find it is an excellent way to synthesize and share complex ideas and untold stories. The Only Black Person in the Room can be found on my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUHfDUJPRDc&t=10s Unabandoned was produced through Orange Media Network at Oregon State University and can be found on the KBVR TV youtube channel https://youtu.be/DXtIBEUSfM. More information on my work with Golden Pride Productions can be found at https://goldenprideproductions.com/

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Madeleine and welcome to : to start this interview we

would like to ask you a couple of questions about your background. You are currently student at Oregon State University, where you are studying Anthropology and Economics, and it's important to remark that you started your

creative journey in filmmaking at a very young age, during high school. How do you consider the role of filmmaking playing within your exploration of anthropological themes? In particular, how does you cultural substradum due to your previous experiences as the director of a TV show at the Orange Media Network, as well as you recent semester in France direct the trajectory of your artistic research? It’s interesting that you say I started at a young age, because I always felt like I was getting into it late. Now I see that I began early compared to many filmmakers, but it’s easy to see your peers who have more experience and feel like you’re behind the curve. I consider film to be an expression of my fascination for people, which relfects my pursuit of anthropology. With film I can explore how people deal with different challenges and pursue different passions. I see my experiences from TV to travel as varying manifestations of the same drive. My artistic research has always been motivated by a desire to give a voice and a platform to people who are underrepresented. At Orange Media Network I learned more deeply about collaboration, and saw the fruit of hard work of people coming together around a common goal. While I started as someone who always wanted to do a whole project by myself, working on projects at the TV station has shown me the expansion of opportunities made possible when working on a team. In traveling, I have been able to meet people from a wide range of places, which humbles and inspires me. I always seek to

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Women Cinemakers learn from the person in front of me. I listen and observe, continually dreaming about my next possible project. For this special edition of we , an interesting short film that our have selected readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . What has at once captured our attention of your insightful is inquiry into the way it provides the viewers with such . While walking our readers through the genesis of , could you tell us what did attract you to this particular theme? At its conception, Fort was intended to be a play. I envisioned a simple set on a stage, centered around the â&#x20AC;&#x153;fortâ&#x20AC;? made of chairs and blankets. I wanted to look at simple, uncomfortable, and sweet everyday interactions between siblings. I have three siblings, and am close to all three of them. However, we all go through phases of affection and frustration, choosing kindness sometimes and maliciousness other times. I hoped to capture this nuance in my story, which has a brother and sister, and has an association with their older cousin. The word the meaning of strength, and I also wanted to depict the ways the characters tried to have strength. Ultimately, their strength comes from their relationships with each other, in the ways that they support each other imperfectly. I felt the story translated to the screen well, although I had to cut a lot of dialogue to make it more

produceable. I chose to use the visuals of film to develop the story rather than more dialogue. Elegantly shot,

features stunning

cinematography and from a visual point, we have been fascinated with your clear and effective approach to narrative: what were your when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens?

For the cinematography, I collaborated with my good friend Polly Lisicak, who is a brilliant cinematographer and editor. We used a LUMIX G7 with a 14-42mm lens, which we chose simply because it was the highest quality camera we had access to. I wanted to play with different angles to bring the audience into the story. I think particularly of the shot when Tiara enters the scene, and the camera follows her as she enters and then proceeds to kick down the fort. This moment shows how she

takes power upon entering a space, shaking up the other characters. I also worked to make the shots feel intimate, translating the closeness and uncomfortable moments through the screen. We like the way you created entire scenarious out of , to invite the viewers to : in you seem to leave the floor to your

characters, finding effective ways between their epiphanic jurney and the viewers' emotional sphere. What are you hoping will trigger in the audience? I hope that the audience will think of the people closest to them in their lives, those people who are there for them in all situations. This film shows the beauty of this type of relationship, be it sibling,

cousin, neighbor, roommate, where simply being there for one another is a comfort. Rather than propelling the audience to action, I see this film as more nostalgic, prompting reflection and gratitude for the quiet moments of companionship. Featuring brilliant storytelling, escapes the boundaries of traditional narrative patterns, to inquire into an ever shifting internal struggle: would you tell how did you develop the script and the structure of your film? In particular, what was your preparation with actors in terms of ? Do you like or do you prefer to every details of your shooting process? As I mentioned, the script began as a play, so the script itself went through many iterations. This process mostly consisted of continual refinement until I had the bare essentials of my story. For the actors, the process was quite disjointed. The first time everyone was together was the day of shooting. I sent the cast their scripts a few weeks in advance so they could practice their lines and become familiar with the story. Because we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meet for rehearsal, I relied on the spontenaity of the actors to make the story believable. For this story, I think this approach worked well, because I wanted the interactions to feel like unprepared, everyday moments. I am a very organized filmmaker as well, however, and relied on a schedule due to a constraint of shooting in one day. It is a delicate balance to spend enough time

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers

on each scene to get the quality I want while staying on schedule. As is common in film, we went late shooting in order to ensure we captured the best of each moment. We have particularly appreciated the way your film gives to the viewers the sense they are watching , as well as the way you tell stories of people who are often underrepresented in media. As you have remarked once, your favorite type of narrative film dives into the awkward and mundane moments of everyday life: how does your fuel your creative process to address your choices regarding the stories you tell in your films?

I am constantly entertained and inspired by people around me. Sometimes, I am intrigued to the point of wanting to make a documentary about someone or someplace I find particularly gripping. Other times, I see an interaction or a behavior that I think would work well in a narrative film. I am known for saying that I think my life is a movie, and I constantly imagine how I would put certain interactions into a script or a shot. One example is from a time I was babysitting two girls, and I saw them have an extremely tense and emotional conversation about the sexuality of one of them. Their vulnerability, combined with the awkwardness of my presence and their fear of saying too much in front of me, made for a beautiful and

tense moment. This sort of authentic human interaction, with everyone trying to do her best and still afraid of doing something wrong, represents the type of moment I want to capture on film. This experience has inspired another script that I am working on. Your artistic inquiry is also committed to and we have appreciated the way , â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a documentary that you produced and that is available on at â&#x20AC;&#x201D; unveils the elusive still ubiquitous bond between urban and rural areas. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, " ". How do you consider the relationship between a political system and an artist's creative process? Moreover, what could be in your opinion in making aware people of a variety of issues that affect our unstable and everchanging societies? I think context is absolutely inseperable from art. While art can be timeless, I believe that it is made richer with an understanding of the political system and situation in which the art was made. These contexts help to determine which issues are the most relevant or pressing in an artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life. For me, was

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Women Cinemakers the project I needed to do following the 2016 election, a devastating moment that revealed dramatic geographically-based divisions in U.S. society. Filmmaking is always a process of discovery, especially in documentary film. As I got to learn about people and places in rural parts of my state, I knew that I had a responsibility to share these stories with people who could not make the same trip that I did. Film is one of the easiest and most engaging ways to share information. It engages multiple senses, it is easy to send over long-distances, and it combines action with graphics to enhance the information presented. I believe filmmakers have a responsibilty to represent what they see in society, as well as to push society to be better. There are a variety of ways to do this, including documentary and narrative work, be it explicitly acitivist or simply raising an issue in a nuanced way. Another interesting film that we would like to introduce to our readers is entitled and , a coming-of-age story, centered on the theme of identity. We want to take a closer look at the genesis of your film: in particular, what was your writing process like? How did you develop the script and the structure of your film? Moreover, did you aim to provide your story with ? I was not the primary writer on this film, although I edited it through many versions. My co-producer on the

film, Pearson Kunz wrote and directed the film. He and I wanted to develop a coming-of-age story that struggles with identity without centering on sex or drugs and alcohol, as we often see in teenage coming-of-age stories. The original vision for the story was inspired by , showing three friends (one cowardly, one unintelligent, one heartless) seeking something concrete about who they were. The unidentified dead body they search for represents the uncertainty about their own indenties. Over the past few years you films have been premiered at important festivals, and in particular, was selected as an audience award in the online LGBTQ Short Film Festival, and was an official selection in the Oregon Independent Film Festival and in the San Francisco International New Concept Film Festival: how importance has for you that you receive in the festival circuit? And how do you feel previewing a film before an audience? Initially, our film was rejected by many film festivals. During this period, we reflected critically on our film, recognizing the limitations of our production and technical skill at the time. However, we found premiering a film to an audience to be extremely gratifying. At the first premiere, it felt electric to watch people enjoy the filmâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;hearing people laugh and watching them wonder at how the story would resolve.

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Women Cinemakers Pearson and I also love facilitating talk-backs, where we can hear peoples’ questions and observations. We have appreciated the originality of your artistic research and especially the way you seem to use cinema as a tool for in-depth inquiries into anthroposociological themes, so before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in cinema. For more than half a century women have from getting behind the camera, been however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on ? I believe there is no better time for women in cinema. Over the past few years, we’ve seen more and more women directing and acting in lead roles. I think the future of women in cinema depends on every person in film seeking out women to include on their teams and in their stories. Since men have dominated the film industry for so long, it’s incredibly easy to find a man to work on your film. It’s probably easier to find a man who has more experience than another woman in film. Unless we actively include and lift up women in cinema, these disparities will persist. As women become more visible in film, younger artists like me are encouraged that there is room for me in the field. Education is also a huge part of making a change, and providing opportunities to young women in film is imperative. I plan to continue to be an

active women in film, lifting up other women in the industry. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Madeleine. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thank you, Women Cinemakers, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m so happy to be featured with you. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m currently in the editing phase for , which is being produced through my next film, Golden Pride Productions, the production company under which I work with my friend Pearson Kunz. features a young girl who is dissatisfied with her life, but has the opportunity to call her future self with a magical phone. We are privately premiering the film in January, after which we will send it on to festivals. Golden Pride Productions is also currently collaborating with a local director to write a piece on the experiences of African Americans in our hometown of Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. These projects both focus on the stories of women of color, tying back to my passion to give a voice to people underrepresented in media. I see myself continuing to use narrative film as a tool to represent and advocate for oppressed groups, telling everyday stories of hope. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

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Women Cinemakers

Women Cinemakers meets

Christine Vandemoortele Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

On a journey through the night and into the day, a single monologue follows the speaker's exploration of some of the obstacles and burdens in his path. Eventually he learns to recognize them, before joyfully casting them aside as he gives himself up to the bliss of dawn. The anxieties and comfort of the night resolve into acceptance as dawn arrives and washes away any lingering fears. The primordial image of a cave lies at the root of human experience, and provides us with two conflicting realizations. The unyielding rock traps us in place, unable to progress. Yet it also protects us from outside forces and distractions. We are free to grapple with difficult truths and to confront our true selves.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Christine and welcome to : before starting to elaborate about your film we would invite our readers to visit in order to get a wider idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you graduated from the in Brussels: how does your cultural substratum due to your training as a visual artist direct the trajectory of your artistic research? Moreover, what did direct you to explore the field of filmmaking? It's probably important to begin by explaining that although I trained in the visual arts, my personal experience of the world is

mainly through the sense of sound. My memories of places and people are, and have always been, very rooted in sound. I remember people's voices rather than their faces, and naturally this has colored the way I interpret the world. The result was that I had a natural inclination towards the aural which was supplemented by training in the visual arts. My training was in the early seventies in Belgium, and at the time students were pretty much free to do anything. We could develop projects into the most conventional or unconventional directions, with the support of our teachers. It gave me an excellent grounding in structure and scheduling. I also learned that the best approach for developing a new piece was finding something I personally wanted to explore, and then listening to the experiences of other people on the same subject. My first experience conceiving and producing a short film was " in 1998. This began as a series of " recorded interviews â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no visuals. I was familiar with sound

Women Cinemakers recordings because I had used them previously in different works, projects, and installations that involved the use of recorded sound and voices. In 1986, as I completed the installation of the sculptures for " " at an exhibition space in Ghent, I felt that each of the pieces were emanating the sound of silenceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a very strong, yet silent, statement. After this experience I began to think in terms of sound and started to shape my new projects as sound pieces. This helped me focus on what I felt were the essentials. I was especially interested in the human voice which reveals so much of the emotions behind words. With " " in 1988, which featured the sound of whispering children, I'd found a new direction but then wanted to make the audio more mobile. " ", a performance piece from 1990, used colored cylinders that played recorded words. The cylinders were thrown back and forth by dancers, always creating new and random combinations. The next major step towards work involving sound and voices came when I moved to London in the early 90s. I'd moved from rural Italy and began walking in the city parks. I was delighted by the cosmopolitan nature of London, and when walking I enjoyed hearing bits and pieces of conversations, often in different accents. We were all walking, but each of us had a different experience of that walk. I began to develop a project in which I interviewed people about their walking habits, why they walked, and their thoughts about this activity. The result was " " where performers walked around with speakers inside a belt. The speakers played recorded monologues shaped around my interviews. My aim was for gallery visitors to have random encounters with these sentences. Eventually all of these projects culminated in my first short film "Preparing for Bed". When it comes to making films, "I'm not a

writer" is my constant refrain. So after a personal experience I want to explore in depth, I gather material by interviewing other people about this topic. This has led to the most enriching experiences. To hear what people have to say about their own feelings and experiences is far more profound â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and alive - than information gathered from written research or books. Learning how generous and vulnerable interviewees can be as they share their feelings and fears has made me aware of how deeply moving

and inspiring human beings can be. I feel honored that people chose to share these intimate moments with me. While I was shaping the interviews for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Preparing for Bedâ&#x20AC;? into a series of monologues, I realized that I needed to explore the field of filmmaking. The project required visual support to capture the audience's attention. I thought contemplative imagery would help people to concentrate on the content of the recorded words. While searching for appropriate imagery to sustain the monologues I thought reflections of threes into still water would be appropriate. I wanted calm, quiet visuals

which would almost hypnotize an audience into staying still and listening properly to the monologues. They were essentially created to sustain the soundtrack. Another aspect of this change was that I entered a world of collaboration. Having trained as a visual artist working on her own, I now began working with a DoP, and most importantly, I began to understand the importance of working with a very good editor.

For this special edition of we have selected , an extremely interesting experimental film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . What has at once captured our attention of your insightful exploration of is the way it provides the viewers with such

: when walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? For decades I have wanted to film an archetypal cave, a primordial space at the root of human experience. I found the perfect place to film in Argentina, where I was living at the time. My work on the project came at a time when I was very aware of insomnia and how it was affecting loved ones and friends. It

Women Cinemakers

My process was image-driven but I soon began to focus on this night-time journey toward the dawn. A monologue seemed the most appropriate way to illustrate this and I'd already used a similar concept in previous works such as "Preparing for Bed" and "A Powerful Presence". So I asked several interviewees the same series of questions about darkness and dawn. Despite the limited topic, the answers revealed unexpected twists and new directions. Many male interviewees spoke of sleep deprivation caused by anxieties and a constant pressure to prove themselves. Another person spoke of their complete ease with darkness. As I read, and reread these varying responses, my protagonist slowly emerged from these disparate voices. I wanted the monologue to explore the journey of recognising and releasing the obstacles and burdens that seemed to bar the way. They resolve into acceptance with the arrival of dawn and the shots of the river wash away any lingering fears.

seemed only natural to entwine my ideas of the cave with a journey through the night, and into the bliss of dawn. It led me to reconcile two conflicting ideas. The cave encapsulates the sensation of being trapped, of being unable to progress. The enclosing rock is an unyielding, physical obstruction. At the same time, caves have been a symbol of renewal and transformation for millennia. While we are inside we are protected from outside forces and distractions, free to grapple with difficult truths and to confront our true selves.

Another key factor was finding the right music and sound effects. While some sound effects were captured on location in Argentina, others came from sound libraries. I knew early on that I wanted traditional Japanese court music for the cave. Daniel Goddard, my editor who is also a composer, designed an entire journey using taiko drums, tibetan bells and singing bowls, including a ryuteki flute that captured the nuances I wanted to convey. Using refined editing and well-orchestrated camera work, "Everybody is Quiet" has drawn heavily from specific details of the environment you filmed. We really liked the way you created such insightful resonance with the landscapes. How did you select the locations, and how did they affect your shooting process? In particular, what were your choices about cameras and lenses?

Women Cinemakers s I knew before I began looking for a location exactly which type of cave I was looking for. It was extremely clear in my mind. I also needed a very wide river for the end of the film. I was living in Argentina at the time â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a huge country that offers vast landscapes. I reached out to a small production company in Buenos Aires which picked out a large number of images of accessible caves and rivers. This helped me find the exact sites I was looking for. The same company arranged the scouting and a location manager near the site. Three months before the actual shoot I, my DoP Pablo Galarza, and the production manager did an exhausting scouting trip in two provinces in the south of the country. Pablo and I had worked together before, he is open to experimentation on a shoot, and generous in giving you that extra shot you might need. We talked a lot about what I wanted to achieve during and after the scouting, and the specific images that I wanted to capture.

As you can imagine the locations were not easy to reach or shoot in, especially the two caves! In addition there was always a risk of rain in the region, and we had only two and a half days for the shoot, with an extra day for contingencies. The production house and Pablo planned out the smoothest possible schedule that covered all three locations. Pablo explains: "With different shooting conditions, I would have taken the regular set plus some extra lenses, such as the 14 and the 20 mm. But this shoot was complicated by the locations which were, most of the time, far away from any road. The gear had to be carried by hand, on mountain trails, and crawling on a tunnel less than half a meter wide to get into one of the caves. I reduced our gear to the bare minimum since the lenses and camera gear all had to fit into a couple of backpacks."

Pablo translated my requirements into technical solutions and discussed the necessary gear and lenses with the production house. He knew I wanted a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. I've found that it's very important to build a team you can trust and who you can work with. When Pablo is shooting, I am always attached to his camera, I control every single shot through the monitor linked by a cable to the camera. That cable is like an umbilical cord! I try to sit

comfortably on my beloved tripod and keep checking the monitor. I supervised every single shot this way during the actual shoot. While Pablo and I spoke about the images I wanted to achieve, he picked out the actual gear so I will quote him regarding the technical minutiae. "We used a Red Epic Camera with an 8K Helium sensor, with Carl Zeiss Arri Ultraprime lenses. Instead of a standard set, which usually includes 16, 25, 35, 50, 75, and 100 mm, we had 14, 20, 40, 65, 100 and 135 mm. I added the 14mm

because I knew we needed very wide angle lenses for some really wide shots. "The locations also had advantages: deformation produced by the use of very wide-angle lenses wasn't noticeable while shooting the caves, because of their peculiar shapes. The 8K resolution of the Helium sensor provided enough room to reframe in case we needed a closer shot. That also helped to reduce the number of lenses in our backpacks. "The caves are very large, so, I used the 14 mm on the few shots we wanted to see as much as possible, for example, when we leave the interior of the cave (min 16:15), or when

we framed the whole mountain containing the cave (min 01:15). The rest of the time, on the moving shots, we used a 20 or a 40 mm. "We used the 65 and the 100 mm mostly when we wanted shallow depth of field such in min 8:30, and the 135 mm for the close up of moving water. One reason to select the Red Helium Camera, was the high speed capability which was needed for the slow-motion water shots. "For every traveling shot we used a dji Ronin gimbal. I'm not a fan of most handheld gimbals in most situations, but in this case, due to the reduced space we knew we were having in

A still from

the cave, and needing to keep our light, I thought a gimbal was the best choice. "It did the job, but one problem was that the camera was too heavy for the gimbal. So we had a couple of takes ruined by the gimbal when it got overloaded and lost its stability. We had to reset the shot and start over. That was no fun, but at the end, I think we got the takes we needed anyway." We have particularly appreciated the way brings the nature of our relationship with our surroundings to a new level of significance, unveiling the

Women Cinemakers unsettling due to their 'silence', their total lack of any human traces. It's important to note that some of the more complex ideas presented in the film sometimes emerge after its completion. When I am actually in the middle of development, production, or post production, I mainly follow my instincts. I almost always know where I want to go, but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always know why. I can tell that I am shaping something important out of my material but I can't always articulate what that is while I'm working on it. The pieces often fall into place a few months after I have completed the film. For me, it's important not to overthink a decision while in the middle of a project. If it feels right then I pursue it. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what emotional reaction the film will elicit from the audience, but there might be two layers of reaction: an immediate one that connects to their own experience of nights and darkness. This is a normal response to the monologue and its reflections on sleep. The second layer might take longer to emerge, and might lead to them thinking or reconsidering their relationship with, or reaction to, death. And then, to the sunlight, dawn and possibly rebirth.

ubiquitous bond between the individual and outside reality, to question what do you hope your film will trigger in your audience?

For me, my projects are a way to explore personal questions; in the second stage of development this expands into the responses of my interviewees. When a film reaches an audience, I am certainly deeply curious about their reaction, but I have no interest in shaping it. :

I believe that the natural images and landscapes presented in "Everybody is Quiet" are essentially 'safe' places for the audience. They are a starting point for the viewer to confront their own emotional reactions to darkness, night anxieties, and so on. Yet these kinds of images can also be a bit

The title of the film comes from the monologue and it reveals an undercurrent of love. To be quiet is to be at peace, free from anxieties and burdens. I can only hope that the extraordinary healing power of dawn comes across in the film. is rich of symbolically and emotionally charged elements and as you have remarked in your director's statement, . In this sense, we daresay that

Women Cinemakers responds to German photographer Andreas Gursky when he stated that : in particular, you seem to urge your spectatorship to challenge their perceptual categories to create : how important is for you to trigger the viewers' perceptual categories in order to ? In address them to elaborate particular, how would you consider the role of symbols playing within your artistic production? With "Everybody is Quiet" I knew I wanted to capture the process of sleep, dreaming, and waking as a metaphor for death, an intermediate state, and rebirth. When filming in a location, each place must appear as an archetype. I cancel every human trace in the images we shot, which often requires extra work during post-production, such as removing graffiti on the rocks. The cave must be a universal, not a specific, cave. Any hint of human activity would tell a totally different story, which I didn’t want. The cave had to stand for all caves. The same decision drove the shots of the river whose flowing water played an equally important symbolic role. I didn’t want any 'distractions' there, either; no animals like cows, electric poles, or distant houses. This also required post-production work! On the other hand, I didn’t have the same strict requirements for the sounds we hear in the film. On the contrary, I needed them: they give depth, and a sense of space. The sounds are telling the story, like the birdsong at the beginning. The personal narrative that emerges through the final monologue was unplanned. It is the result of unique material I gathered during the interviews I used to develop the script. My projects are always prompted by a personal question that I want to explore. So a key part of finding a script that

resonates with me is to hold interviews with other people about the project's core topic. This work is an extremely delicate balance. Every interviewee is asked exactly the same questions, in the same order. So each question must be carefully shaped: they must be clear, easy to understand, and with enough scope for different reactions, without being too open-ended. Writing these questions is actually where my first deep creative work begins.

The corollary to this is that as soon as my interviewee begins to talk, I listen very closely. If their response isn't useful to my work, it's absolutely essential to me that I let them talk, even if they drift in different directions from my questions. After all, I am interested in every person who tells me something about themselves. It is an inexpressible honour to listen to people speak about deeply personal matters that leave them vulnerable. Of course the questions I prepared were very closely linked to my personal narrative, aspects I hoped to explore, and

symbols I respond to. But then, the speaker's views on the subject might be a total surpriseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;inspiring and enriching my own view. The final narrator in the film includes different aspects of the responses to the theme of darkness. I deliberately chose the more unexpected and challenging material because these ideas intrigued me. I do hope the audience relates to this film with their own personal narrative. I always thought it would be interesting to interview members of the audience, after they have seen the film. I would love to know how they relate to these simple,

profound symbols that we all carry in our DNA: the cave, the sunlight, and the flowing water. Sound plays a crucial role in your practice and we have appreciated the way the soundtrack provides the footage with such an and a bit :. According to media theorist Marshall McLuhan there is a ' ' that affects Western societies favoring visual logic, that occurred with the advent of modern alphabet as the eye

became more essential than ear. How do you consider the role of sound within your artistic research? I feel that my interest in voice and sound form the backbone of my films. It's paired with my exploration of human emotion, often set in landscapes which have a resonance for the theme each film explores. Perhaps the best response I can give to this question comes from "The Voice in Cinema" by Michel Chion, translated by Claudia Gorbman. It's a lengthy

Women Cinemakers maintain the mother's presence when she can no longer be seen. This dialectic of appearance and disappearance is known to be dramatic for the child. "The cinema transposes or crystallizes it into certain ways of mobilizing off-screen space (e.g., masking characters but keeping their presence perceivable through sound). In some ways, film editing has to do with the appearancedisappearance of the motherâ&#x20AC;Ś "The sense of hearing is as subtle as it is archaic. We most often relegate it to the limbo of the unnamed; something you hear causes you to feel X, but you can't put exact words to it." For as long as I remember, my memory of past events has revolved around sound, especially voices. So in my personal experience the ear is more essential than the eye. Certainly in any film, the viewers' attention is inevitably directed to the dialogue or monologue. I've also found the writings and films of Marguerite Duras most inspiring in the development of some of my projects. To quote Michel Dion: "The filmwork of Marguerite Duras puts the voice front and center. It is a voice that appears first as a voice without a body, with no image of the speaker. In short, an acousmatic voice

quotation but I feel it offers an excellent view of why sound forms such an integral part of my work. "The foetus takes in the mother's voice, and will recognize it after birth. Sight comes to play only after birth, but at least in our culture, it becomes the most highly structured sense. "In the infant's experience, the mother ceaselessly plays hide-and-seek with the visual field, whether she goes behind him, or is hidden from him by something, or if he's right up against her body and cannot see her. But the olfactory and vocal continuum, and frequently tactile contact as well,

Directing actorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; voices while recording different takes of their lines has become a core facet of my work: human voice is inextricably linked to the production of emotion. I often consider this task to be the most important, and the most rewarding experience of a project. With regard to sound outside the realm of speech, I often discover what I need while I'm at the location of the shoot. With " " the entire project was sparked when I was walking in the landscape. I knew that I needed an invisible presence, a voice. A voice that would blend with the elements,

Women Cinemakers the wind and earth. I asked soprano vocalist Francesca Della Monica to create pieces to 'fill the landscape'. For "Everybody is Quiet", I told my DoP as we left the main cave during our scouting trip that I knew exactly which music I wanted to play over images of the cave because I could hear it very distinctly. I don't know how to explain this rationally but I knew that the music I was hearing was a flute, and specifically a Japanese flute. The moment I returned home I began to comb through musical websites looking for classical Japanese music. I eventually found just what I was looking for in a video of traditional court music. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I asked my editor Daniel Goddard to find a ryuteki flute as well as a specific Japanese drum. We were able to trace the flute, although the drum remained impossible to find, even in Japan. While I miss the subtlety of that small, double-headed drum, I am delighted with Goddard's sound design for "Everybody is Quiet". It contributes to the deeply ethereal atmosphere in the cave. You are an established artist and you exhibited installation works in group and solo shows throughout Ein the 1970s and 1980s: how would you consider ? In particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process? When I'm putting together a project I don't think about the audience. Each new piece begins with something I want to explore, usually sparked by my own experiences. That leads me to wanting to hear about other people's ideas and experiences of the same topic. I create characters out of these different responses, and the possible reaction of an audience is immaterial at that stage, and during production.

These characters are shaped by the aspects of the material which interests me; it's an entirely subjective process. Nevertheless, as I begin the work of post-production I sometimes have an 'ideal' audience in mind for a particular project. As an intensely curious child and adult who now lives, very happily, in isolation, I relate strongly to other people in a similar situation. I have always thought of us isolated individuals scattered across the globe as a kind of community.

Post production is where you start to see the results of a lot of decisions that were made instinctively. As the film begins to take shape, I can feel a subtle pull towards my ideas of this community in my mind. I become excited about the idea of sharing my work with these people. I worked on "Preparing for Bed" in 1997, at a time when the internet and global connection was in its infancy. But I vividly recall that I pictured my audience to be somebody like a farmer in Australia, a person in the middle of nowhere, on the other side of the planet in a place I could only imagine. I hoped that I

could somehow connect to that person through my work, a person who would relate to the theme of my film. I felt that I could offer access to other people's experiences in a format that had a different perspective from a TV documentary. As an extra aside, I think that perhaps my early training and experiences as a visual artist means my approach is different from someone who started out in film. I consider a work to only be complete when the film is presented in a context appropriate to its theme. The film per se isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the artwork, even though I am

thrilled to have it shown at film festivals! To give some examples of presentation spaces "The Omega Centauri Project" would ideally be projected in a dark, labyrinthine space underground. Each of the three films would play simultaneously in separate, but connected, caverns. Echoes of fragments from the other films would reach each space as visitors move between all three areas. Scattered seating to be provided.

"Everybody is Quiet" has resonance in a social context. Viewing it on screen could be an immersive experience around our basic need for sleep and renewal. It deals with male stress, hyper-vigilance and other issues, therefore might be presented at a centre that deals with sleep disorders and mental stress. Or in the reception area of a company in a business district where employees have problems with sleep. "Preparing for Bed" is a contemplative film and would require comfortable seating, probably in a more traditional setting.

Women Cinemakers We really appreciate the originality of your multifaceted artistic practice and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something ' ', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view on the future of women in this field? I am not sure if my answer will be what you are looking for! My sole interest for the last twenty years has been producing and directing short films. There are rules an artist has to follow to be integrated in the artistic scene, and I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been following them. I've chosen to live in different countries, often in rural settings. I have always been drawn to a solitary lifestyle and living in nature for several months a year is what gives me much of my inspiration.

Ideally this would be somewhere in London, in a place that has a connection to the teachings and philosophies of Carl

Unfortunately, this isolationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which I enjoyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;means that I have little awareness about the current status or future of women in this field. I have always chosen to follow my instincts on projects and simply been happy to discover the result, whether or not that result is unconventional. Working in this largely solitary setting means that I haven't had to argue with larger organizations in order to get funding or permission to create my films.

Gustave Jung. In "A Powerful Presence" the letters that are read aloud deal with bereavement and loss. I would love to see it presented at a counselling centre or other place that provides mental health services, or perhaps an organization that helps with bereavement issues.

While in retrospect my work and career seem to have followed a clear path, it is not always easy to see or understand why we are drawn to particular themes or ideas at the time. For me, following my instincts without trying to conform to other people's ideas of what I 'should' be doing has been a constant. I would certainly encourage other creative artists to do the same.

Women Cinemakers

As for the future in a larger sense, I read Prof. Stephen Hawking's prediction that genetic editing techniques will give rise to a breed of 'superhumans': "a race of self-designing beings who are improving at an ever-increasing rate". I suppose it will be a totally different reality when there are 'superwomen' around. This image is very different indeed from the reality we are living in, made of vulnerability, mistakes, fear, love, and joy. If any ordinary human survives into such an era, I suspect they might feel a great longing for the organic, messy, and challenging aspects of the period we live in now! Whatever one thinks of the deep cultural connection between women and childbirth, it has a particular resonance for women who are also creators. Women have a unique and important role in filmmaking, and I look forward to seeing more of them in the field, and also more collaborations. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Christine. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? My main interest during the last few years has revolved around two subjects: the art of haiku, and the extraordinary quantity of knowledge astrophysicists are sharing with ordinary people like me, through podcasts and books. How could Haiku translate into a short film? I suspect that question may be more like a Japanese kĹ?an, a succinct and paradoxical question! In more general terms as I look at the world, I feel that humanity seems quite lost. These are very interesting, and very messy times and I do wonder if they will eventually give way to artificial intelligence. Perhaps Prof. Hawking is right about "a new form of life that will outperform humans". I take comfort

from the idea that we will continue, no matter what happens to our physical forms. I personally feel quite lost as well, but happily so. This might well be the subject of my next project. But as I have found, one simply never knows. There might be a sudden inspiration or experience ahead that will guide me elsewhere; or a sound will move me, and set up an echo in my head that takes my future work in a new direction.

However, I think it is important to note that there is another element to add to this picture. My future projects depend on the choices I make on how and where to spend my energy and time, since I am not so young anymore. I would like to keep a quiet routine, spending time far from crowds, and allowing a new film or project to emerge slowly at its own pace. Then I could enjoy new adventures with my DoP and editor. That may mean I no longer have the energy needed to present my older films in their appropriate social context. But I might find a

strong, young team who I hope will help me achieve both of these goals. In retrospect I can see a key thread runs throughout my work. I have returned over and over again to the questions of where we are in the universe, what stuff we are made of, and what lies beyond the atmosphere of the planet on which we live. The earliest threads probably lie in two series of works from the 1970s (" de Rencontre" and "

") in which I proposed spaces where visitors are placed below the ground while staying in the open air. These designs provide roots that embrace the earth, while keeping a connection to the sky and larger universe beyond. There are no distractions from outside, just that link between earth and sky. Whatever this instinctive direction meant for me in the seventies, I could not have guessed my later interest in what lies far beyond Earth's atmosphere. We, and our planet, are all

the result of billions of years of star evolution. It hardly seems surprising that I feel such a deep and instinctive connection with the earth. The work which addresses this most openly is probably " " which is comprised of three films about a cluster of stars in our galaxy. For decades before its development, I was fascinated by a single photograph of a skeleton found in an Ogden burial mound in IL, USA.

Women Cinemakers "The Omega Centauri Project" is a deeply organic creation that evolved over time from a single, auditory inspiration. It involved a thousand sentence fragments, each with a distinct emotional line, and an astronomical simulation of a thousand stars in a globular cluster. Random encounters between the stars are translated into a series of three short films that explore speech, emotion, and the movement of stars. Throughout decades, I have returned so many times to my fundamental belief that we are somehow most closely connected to the larger cosmos when standing deep inside the Earth. I think the cave in "Everybody is Quiet" somehow represents this idea. As our planet formed, elements collided and bound to one another. Dense material sank to the center, with lighter ones forming the crust. The deeper I go, the closer I feel connected to the heart of the universe. I would like to finish with an excerpt from "A Powerful Presence". "Even in the worst of my grief, I remember that our friend's About 2,000 years old, the body was buried in a cape that's since vanished, leaving only its decorative shells that seem to mirror the stars above it, like a cluster of stars. The figure

atoms were once part of distant stars. One day they will be part of some new planet. It helps me to remember that matter can never disappear. The universe wastes nothing."

seems utterly at peace, gazing up at the stars from which we came, and to which we will, eventually, return. I privately

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

named the image "The Way Back Home" and saw in it a decision to surrender oneself to the cosmos and the stars of which we are made.

and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Yu Jiang Lives and works in Singapore

The film was originally developed by me and dance artist Cai Ying. We wanted to explore women’s experience of their body and thoughts in changing environments. Therefore in an immigrant country like Singapore, we invited a few women from different regions with different backgrounds, to share their experiences and unique memories of their body during their migration. The film has 2 storylines of reality and fiction. In the first one, Cai Ying is looking for a wooden board that can support her own body weight, on the wet rooftop of somewhere in the city centre after some rain. The board in the water is like an island she found for herself, which represents what most immigrants have gone through - they are all looking for a tiny piece of land to live. The second fictional storyline shows 5 ladies using their bodies to “communicate” with each other in a gentle manner. Their bodies have different ways to communicate, but follow the general trend from “unrelated”, to “gathering”, then “separated”. In the fictional storyline, I purposely used a top-down perspective, to shoot them moving in a black background, as if we are observing some creatures in the deep sea. This scene emphasizes the fluidity, unstableness, and insecurity of the female immigrants through the movements and the colour tones. It is also why we decided to use “jellyfish” to represent them. Jellyfish is soft, moves elegantly in water, and the Chinese name of “jellyfish”, Shui Mu, literally means the mother of water. We interviewed 5 immigrants to share their body-related memories in their own language and dialect. I used some complete stories from these sound materials and edited them as the background voice-over. The evolving background from silence, to whispering then to loud speeches is like how the immigrants adapt to the new environments. The 2 breath sounds in between however, are like short getaways from reality. Editing the fictional sounds into the real conversations from the interviews is consistent with the 2 storylines of reality and fiction, making the film more three-dimensional.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

before starting to elaborate about your artistic

and Dora S. Tennant

production we would like to ask you a couple

womencinemaker@berlin.com

of questions about your background. Are there

Hello Yu and welcome to

any experiences that did particularly influenced

Women Cinemakers your artistic evolution? did these experiences influence the evolution of your dance practice? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your artistic research? Hello! Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m glad to have this conversation. I studied digital design and media during my undergraduate in China. From there I studied a variety of art formats. It lays foundation for me on how to view things. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m now working as a commercial photographer and filmmaker in Singapore. As someone who was born and grew up in the dramatically changing era of 1990s in China and went through the changes to work in a different and totally strange country, I am particularly interested in topics of self identity and anything related to female, including their sexuality, social status, bodies,etc. Nanyang Jellyfish is the first art indie film I made. I have no dance foundation. The dance part in this film was designed by dance artist Cai Ying. I appreciate the way she expresses her thinking using bodies, and that is why we work together on this film. we For this special edition of have selected , an extremely interesting dance video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . Centered on , this stimulating film has at once

Women Cinemakers impressed us of for the way you have been capable of providing the results of your artistic research with such , inviting the viewers to such a experience: when walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? Initially both Cai Ying and I wanted to make a film about the body movements of females. During the production of the film, I feel the film might be too simple if it’s only about body movements. So after discussing with producer Mei Mei and dance artist Cai Ying, we wanted to include our own experiences, as we are all immigrants that moved to Singapore from different places. How we feel about this city and our connections to others during the migration process are worth being researched and discussed. So eventually we changed the focus to use body movements to represent what female immigrants go through when they move around. features Elegantly shot, stunning camera work and each shot is carefully orchestrated to work within the overall structure: when what were your shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? There are 2 storylines of “reality” and “fiction” that were intercut into the film. For both of the 2 storylines, I used full shots with some close-up shots.

Women Cinemakers

When shooting the movements, I chose to do handheld shots, so that the movements of shots would make the viewers feel as if they were there, and there would’ve been a sense of un-choreographed spontaneity. For the “fiction” storyline, I also used high angle shots to shoot the movements of the 5 ladies. When they moved in the black background, it makes us feel as if we are observing some animals in the deep ocean. And the god’s eye view remains the same from beginning to the end for this scene. I wanted the audience to notice the contrast between this and the close-ups. I mainly used Canon 5D Mark III and 100mm, 50mm and 16-24mm lenses for this short film. The 50mm and 100mm lenses are mainly used to capture the details of each performer’s movements. The 1624mm lens was used for the high angle shots. We have appreciated the way you have sapiently mixed reality with fiction, to provide your film with a powerful : how did you structure your editing process in order to achieve such brilliant results? I wanted to use the ripple at the beginning of the film as some kind metaphor, as in, anything that has moved would leave some trace. This is true in water and in all other situations.

I intercut the 2 storylines in high speed, so that the audience is following the rhythm to be in different scenes of reality and fiction. I wanted to use the rhythm to represent the relationship of the immigrants and the city. The audience is forced to follow the rhythm to see the 2 storylines and might feel confused on which scene they’re in. Sometimes they’re on the rooftop of a building in Singapore’s CBD, and sometimes they seem to be in the fictional deep sea, just like the performers in the film. Featuring well orchestrated camera work, has drawn heavily from and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such insightful between urban environment and dance: how did you select the location and how did it affect the performing and shooting process? There are 2 locations to shoot the film. For the “reality” storyline, we chose the rooftop of a building in the downtown of Singapore. It is a rundown building in the Chinatown area which is quite an old district itself, and it has a great view of the modern CBD buildings from the rooftop. There was some pouring rain before we started to shoot, which was perfect. Because the wooden board in water surrounded by the urban cities perfectly depicts the feeling of a “lonely island” that I was looking for. As for the “fiction” scene, I set it up in our photography studio. I used the black background paper to create the

Women Cinemakers â&#x20AC;&#x153;deep seaâ&#x20AC;? in which the female performers move their bodies. Sound and visual are crucial in your practice and as you have remarked in your director's statement,

: how would you consider the role of sound within your practice and how do you see playing within your filmmaking style? I think sound is definitely a very important format of expression in films. It not only complements the visual elements, but also helps me (and hopefully audience) to stay inside or out of the story. Sounds serve as a way to distinguish and summarize the story and the emotions. I like to use sound to contradict the visual images. For example, when the pictures are telling a slow and peaceful story, I might use a very fast song to make the video more vivid, but of course this should be designed based on the contents. I prefer to make sounds and visual images impactful. And I find it interesting to use sounds to narrate the story inconsistent with the visual narrative, therefore I like to try out different sounds in films. It's no doubt that collaborations as the one that you have established with Cai Ying are today ever growing forces in Contemporary Art and that the

Women Cinemakers most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project: could you tell us something about this proficient ? Moreover, do you think provides your artistic research with some ? I find it very interesting to collaborate with Cai Ying. Working with artists from other fields adds different angles to view the work and even how we view the world. I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good sign that more and more works are the results of collaboration, and I look forward to working with different artists. I find that being a woman is helpful for my artistic research as my interest lies in female-related topics and there is a natural bonding for me. The social status of different genders in Asia still makes women more vulnerable. It makes me more sensitive to the minorities, especially some female marginal groups, who are not always accepted by the society, or even the minority groups they should belong to. Most people might not have the opportunity to go through or not be able to comprehend what they have gone through, so I feel privileged to get to know such people and I want to focus on the female minorities, to let more people know their existence and status. Your approach conveys sense of freedom and reflects rigorous approach to

: how do you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of your performative gestures and ? How much importance does play in your process? I feel this question would be better answered by Cai Ying. Below is her answer. Cai Ying: To me both the scheduling of performative details and spontaneity are indispensable, as I view performance as a way to inspire, discover and question further. As a choreographer, I look at choreography as creating a series of situations to trigger body movements or even human behaviours. In this work, I designed several specific situations for performers. This not only invited them to make the situation happen, but also creates a space to allow everyone to spontaneously bring out their own uniqueness physically and mentally. This space (which is improvisation) is very important to me during the process of performance, as it allows the individual uniqueness to develop further and explores what it could bring or/and become. Sometimes it brings surprises, sometimes it becomes an inspiration that guides me to create the next situation, sometimes it turns out to be a question that challenges both Yu and me not only conceptually but also technically.

Women Cinemakers Therefore, I would think the relationship is like planting seeds into soil. The design of the situation is the seed, and the improvisation helps the seed to grow in an organic environment. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes: how do you consider the relation between of the ideas you aim to of creating communicate and your artworks? While my role in the creation of this film most of the time is a director who observes everyone and everything from a distance, I did try as a performer and got into one of the situations Cai Ying created (I showed up for like 2 seconds together with Cai Ying at 0:28) to interact with a feather so that I could understand her choreography processes and the spontaneity in performance better. To me, “female body” is a curious concept that I always use in my works, as it is complicated, and can be powerful and soft at the same time. When I create visual artworks using bodies, similarly to Cai Ying’s creation of “choreographic situations”, I like to give the models/actresses some scenario or situations they can get into, and capture the expressions of their bodies. It is like raising some open questions, and their reactions will provide the actual answers.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Yu. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Thank you! Down the road I plan to make a documentary film about lesbians in a 2nd- or 3rd-tier city in China. I grew up in Chengdu (a so called second-tier city in China) and I know some friends of mine had to “make a choice” out of their own will. Under the pressure of society, some of them chose to go into a heterosexual marriage or are forced to go through some psychological therapy. Personal compromise makes up the social harmony. When it comes to China, a lot of people may think about Shanghai or Beijing, but China is so big and each city is quite different. I want more people to get to know the female sexual minorities in China. My work in the future will continue to focus on female marginal people and I’m hoping to use different formats on this topic, including photography, film and perhaps through some collaboration with other artists. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

PINION&CROWN An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory. Oxymorons appear in a variety of contexts, including inadvertent errors and literary oxymorons crafted to reveal a paradox.

Concept, directing, choreography and performance: PINION & CROWN ensemble Dancers: Sara Marin & Griet Vanden Houden Video recording and editing: Arne von Nostitz-Rieneck Photography: Christa Gaigg Composition, synthesizer: Lucas Rabe Composition, vocals: Elsa GrĂŠgoire Curator: Jessica White Text revision: Hannah Timbrell Graphic design: Authentic.co.at

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

order to get a wider idea about your artistic

and Dora S. Tennant

production and we would start this interview

womencinemaker@berlin.com

with a couple of questions regarding your backgrounds: are there any experiences of formal

Hello Sara and Griet and welcome to

training that did particularly influence your

: we would like to invite our readers to visit

evolution as artists and creatives? Moreover, how does your cultural substratums direct the

Women Cinemakers trajectory of your artistic research? Sara Marin (Italy) and Griet Vanden Houden (Belgium) both come from Academic backgrounds as well as having studied at the National Academy of Dance Rome (IT) and de!Kunsthumaniora Antwerpen (BE). They first met at SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance) (AT) 20082011. They have been working for choreographers such as: Roberto Olivan, Todd Williams, Quan Bui Ngoc, Jelka Milic, Ori Flomin and many others. After graduating, they completed a one year Pilates Training in mat and equipment, at the Academy of Modern Pilates International (AT). During and after school Sara and Griet spent a lot of time together, working, sharing ideas, moments of growth, tastes and traditions; influencing and enriching each other. Being friends and professionally working together in different fields (such as: dance, teaching, performing, choreographing, art directing, casting in live events, photo and video productions) they have built a special connection that is reflected in their own work. It's no doubt that artistic collaborations as the one that you have established together are today ever growing forces in Contemporary Art and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields meet and collaborate on a project: could you tell us something about the collaborative nature of your work? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between two artists?

Women Cinemakers We completely agree on the fact that the most exciting contemporary productions are made by the collaborations of creative minds able to share their capacity and combine their differences in original work. The reason we began our company in 2015 was the urge to express our taste in the dance panorama. After dancing for different artists, we developed a strong need to establish and evolve independent work. This meant taking distance from the crazy audition-freelancer world of dance and, instead, putting down roots for more stable collaborations. Why did we search for collaborations? The first reason was the actual technical need of music, photos and videos for our production. The second reason why we developed a sense of an ensemble, of an interdisciplinary community of artists, was out of spontaneity. We have been participating in several art events and playground of ideas and there we found other artists willing to participate and add their own original work to ours. In this beautiful way we found Lukas Rabe (German musician and composer) who made the music for our first piece “SAME same BUT DIFFERENT”. He joined us again together with his partner Elsa Grégoire (Belgian singer and composer) for the music track of “OXYMORON”. When we got selected with our previous dance-video for a short movie festival called FON (Festival of Nations), we had the chance to connect more with Christa Gaigg (Austrian photographer and graphic designer), who at the first stage was just a mate and then became very quickly a strong member of our ensemble as well as a good friend.

Women Cinemakers

At the same festival we met Arne von Nostitz-Rieneck (Austrian cameraman and video-editor) who recorded and rolled with us in to the dark and white side of “OXYMORON”. Just by doing, we discovered that our uniqueness was to express our ideas of dance in different art-ways. We also realized in the past years that sometimes the pure performance of dance can be difficult to some eyes and that with the support of other disciplines we could reach more people and eventually take them closer to dance. In this way we decided to work in a trilogy! The distance between our dreams and reality is called action, and action is key to success. When you are afraid to do something, even if it lives in your mind for a long time, if you don’t actually do it, it will never exist! We believe it is our responsibility to take a risk and create new work. So, inspired by a pinion and crown mechanism, both parts unique in shape, enabling them to fit harmoniously together and coexist by pushing, pulling and supporting each other, we have founded our Ensemble PINION & CROWN. Our ensemble is a unique laboratory for dance combined with theater, music, multi-media and other arts for research and development. Within our projects we are collaborating with dancers, musicians, film producers, and more. We aim to provide a platform for research and education. We aim to create an exchange of experienced artists and “newcomers” so that there is

both mentoring and a creation of a larger network that goes beyond just dance alone, but integrates with other art forms and disciplines, creating interdisciplinary work. In most cases, implicit knowledge and experience are understood, learned and transmitted only through a pictorial description, by observing, imitating and practicing processes. We want to create better conditions and perspectives within the contemporary dance and performance world that goes beyond current limitations. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we have selected OXYMORON, an extremely interesting an experimental project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: when walking our readers through the genesis of OXYMORON, would you tell us (A) how did you develop the initial idea? In particular, how do you consider the relationship between the necessity of (B)scheduling the details of your performances and the need of spontaneity? How importance does improvisation play in your process? Moreover, do you think that your (C)being a women provides your artistic research with some special value? An important characteristic of our creation is to take the environment in big consideration. We want our bodies to melt into the space, not only to match the space but to literally embody the surrounding. It is difficult to explain from where and how the idea came

Women Cinemakers

first. As a creative person you have the urgency to create, there are so many things boiling inside you that you must take them out! Making art is a great way to liberate your inside “demons”. We are fascinated by aesthetics and we work with our instincts to begin with. From that, we make a rough idea of what we want to express and we let it grow through certain visual aesthetics that we like for this precise concept. This is the reason why we always start with the pictures session, then rehearsal will follow. The video will come and from all of this the music together with the choreography for the live piece will be done. One thing will be influenced and made richer from the previous one, like a chain. But first, we start searching, brainstorming and looking for the perfect location that will inspire us. Scheduling is extremely important for us. It is the only way how we can keep our productions going. Without planning every single detail in advance we couldn’t make it, especially because we do not live in the same town, not even in the same country anymore. We meet every week online to keep on track and update us. Then, we work separately on our tasks and we discuss the progresses in the following meeting. Certainly, not all the work can be done separately. So when we meet, we do it for at least 3 days and up to 2 weeks, and because of these circumstances we definitely need to have a very clear idea of what and how to do in order to proceed. So yes, there would not be any room for improvisation without scheduling. We will always need to play with our

A still from

Women Cinemakers spontaneity and use our improvisation skills, both during the process of making and during a live performance. Without improvisation and mistakes there will be no innovation and no possible original creation. However, in order to succeed with that, you have to be very focused on your final goal and indeed organized. As we are running the Ensemble, there will always be a recognizable female aspect in it, a certain look, use of Harmony, sensuality, irony or violence. We do not even have to try or pretend to be or not be female: we are, and we will be recognized by the audience as 2 women-makers or 2 female performers. For the next production, we are actually trying to take this topic to the next level, by creating dialogue around dance rituals, lighting up the figure of the women and mother nature. However, our ensemble is not only made by girls: we love to collaborate with inspiring male artists as well. What has at once impressed us of OXYMORON is the way it brings the nature of relationship between the body and the surroundings to a new level of significance, unveiling the ubiquitous bond between the individual and outside reality, establishing emotional involvement in the viewers: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting and what did you aim at triggering in the spectatorship? We wanted to underline contrast, to recreate a sense of solitude. We wanted to take the space back to life, just like in a dream appearing and disappearing. Dissolving inside the

Women Cinemakers same space by making the observers curious to see more and maybe willing to interrogate themselves about their own contrasts and different aspects of their own personality. We like the idea of interaction. A critical part of interaction for us is a communication with the space. Hence, our location plays a fundamental role in the creative process and the performance. We adapt our material to the environment and through this process the abstract dance can transition to become real and relevant. We work with what the environment offers and our characters have to play, communicate and interact with the scene. We like the way OXYMORON creates entire scenarious out of psychologically charged moments. Austrian historian Ernst Gombrich once remarked the importance of providing a space for the audience to project onto, so that they can actively participate in the creation of the illusion: how much important is for you to trigger the viewer's imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal associations? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? We believe that a piece should have a specific clear topic, but we also love the idea of having an active public who can reinterpret the original themes. We want absolutely to stimulate our audience. We have been receiving many different feedback about OXYMORON, and some of them forced us to change and rework the piece in order to

Women Cinemakers either drop some misunderstood concepts or follow some unforeseen perceptions. Coming to the details of OXYMORON, we have been raising the following questions: “How far can we push our limits?”, “What are our internal and external boundaries?”, “When do we allow someone to enter our space?”, “What happens and what changes when we can enter someone else’s space?”, “When can we put down our defenses?”, “How much do we care?”, “How much can we hold within us or what do we want to share?”, “How much can we ask of others?”. Exploring the theme of space, confines and contrast in relation to ourselves can affect not only other people but also shift the physical environments. By extrapolating these various elements we can reveal the absurd. By revealing the absurd there can be transformation of the status quo. This is how powerful dance can be, as we can reveal what was once familiar into something that is now unfamiliar, strange, absurd and therefore, open to change. Whole structures and societies can change when this is revealed. We would like to explore this in OXYMORON, as then the audience can see how powerful they are to change the status quo in society through dance! You are an eclectic duo and your versatile practice involves a variety of platforms, including live performance, video art and photography installation to pursue multilayered results: would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do

you select a particular language in order to explore a particular aspect of your artist research? In Trilogy Dance Art the pictures are not anymore just reflecting the dance piece but are becoming a section of the whole project, a part of the story, an installation that can stand by itself. The same concepts apply to the video: it is not anymore a record of the dance piece used to promote or remember what is already passed; it is another section of the whole concept, another part of the story, a short film ready to be watched. The music is a common thread and gives vent to the live performance; where the Trilogy ends and completes, where we dance and convey the concept to the people. PINION & CROWN is taking Dance to a whole new level. Trilogy dance art is a set of 3 works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single piece or as three individual pieces. Three pieces that taken together will give you a completely new feeling! Trilogy is a form of art commonly found in literature or cinematography. By applying this tri-logical structure to dance reveals how dance is not separate, but indeed influenced by other art forms. It's important to remark the role of "Trilogy Dance Art" as a way to bring dance to a wide audience. Marina Abramovi once remarked the importance of not just making work but ensuring that it’s seen in the right place by the right people at the

Women Cinemakers right time: how is in your opinion online technopshere affecting the consumption of art by the audience? Do you think that today it is easier to speak to a particular niche of viewers or that online technology will allow artist to extend to a broader number of viewers the interest towards a particular theme? When we are talking about contemporary art, we should be able to speak to the contemporary audience in the contemporary world. For this reason, we think that it is normal to embrace the new technology both for the production of the project, as well as for its promotion. If you would not do that, you would just stay trapped in the past in your own tiny circle. In our opinion, there is no “right” or “wrong” audience when it comes to art. We like the idea that any person could be addressed, positive influenced, touched or opened to art. As for the “right” place, we agree that not every place is appropriate for art. We would never publish our full work online for free. Instead, we would just promote our company online and then invite the people to join us on a suitable place for performance or art -event! We are definitely staying away from show media such as television talent shows. There is nothing bad on enjoying or participating to these kind of events. However, one should be very careful not to confuse the two things: they completely have a different target and purpose behind. To show Art does not make Art a show!

If you are making art, you want to tell something and for that you need time, technique, passion and what some people would call craziness, others talent. You perform not to please, comfort or entertain people, but because you want other people to enter your vision. In order to do that, you need the right time, the right space and the right attitude to fully express yourself. In this respect, we have begun to expand our horizon to go beyond just dance. We have strengthened our collaboration with artists and professionals in other fields, who have been contributing to our growth as an ensemble, either with their art or with their platforms or resources. This has begun to make our work much richer as a result, as we are able to cross several fields and disciplines whilst keeping dance as our core form of art. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": as a multidisciplinary artist deeply involved in dance, how do you consider the relation between the abstract feature of the concepts you explore in your artistic research and the physical aspect of your practice? It is an interesting aspect and question to us. The relation between an abstract concept and the physical

Women Cinemakers aspect in it is in the realization of the movement. When the abstract concept transforms or transfers into a movement it becomes real and loses his abstraction. It is literally a small piece of magic to be able to translate your feelings in something concrete. Either into a dance sequence or into a drawing or into a song and so on... It is what makes us really happy and satisfied and this is maybe the real push to keep on going in such a hard field. We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something 'uncommon', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? Trying to be an artist has never been an easy decision. To be a contemporary woman producer you need to be strong and very motivated. We always knew that and we have to confront every day with this reality. We believe that each artist is dealing with these problems in his own way to try to get a solution, but each of them has for sure experienced a sense of instability, doubts, disorientation and, last but not least, financial difficulties. We managed ourselves being involved in

Women Cinemakers education, as we are both dance and Pilates teachers. We remained centered on the study and use of this amazing instrument which is the human-body. By deepening every year our knowledge, we focused also on pedagogy which we found being a relevant aspect of our lives. Sometimes we feel like a millipede: many people say that it is a special capacity of women to be able to handle a lot of different things at the same time, it is for sure not easy but it is possible to combine disparate elements, this is what we have found and how we see women facing the future. It is not a secret that when women are staying together there is a special vibe going on influencing the surroundings. We see women strong, passionate, pugnacious and, at the same time, still fragile and very mysterious, with their 1000 hands and duties. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Sara and Griet. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? We are working on a new production, which will be released in 2019 with the title “Décadanse”. Also for this project, we will continue applying the Trilogy Dance Art scheme: the fotoshooting is already done and we are getting ready for the following steps. This piece will focus on the female figure inside the concept of ritual. We will explore the elements of mother nature (e.g., fire, air, water, earth) integrating 10 (i.e., “Deca”) components extrapolate from

traditional dances from different countries around the world. This production will be a compilation of dance forms where the purpose is ceremonial or ritualistic with the possible relations between folkloristic and contemporary dance. Ten performers go on to confront these locally rooted dances with elements from worldwide pop dance culture. With this work we aim to touch the primitive instincts of the audience and to bring them in our trip with the support of a hypnotic music-beats and of a raving-bodily rhythm! The theme of Décadanse sounds like: "this dance is for the world and the world is for everyone". We would like to thank you a lot for your challenging and profound questions and also for giving us this space in your magazine. It is a fantastic way to make people curious about art and female power! We wish for more empowering supporting associations/opportunities for the female artistic near future to come! We hope to have satisfied and or stimulated the readers with our answers and we remain open and available for any additional curiosity and discussion. Thanks, Sara Marin & Griet Vanden Houden PINION & CROWN ensemble http://www.pinioncrown.com An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Niurca Márquez My goal as an artist is to create performance experiences that examine the many intersections of tradition and vanguard to create new languages and expressions embedded in flamenco but informed by contemporary practices in dance and theater. My work is based on a deconstruction of traditional flamenco aesthetic and technique, and is constantly informed by collaborations with other artists of various disciplines. It is a flamenco that is syncretic, displaced, infused with cross-cultural underpinnings and is based on a somatic/shamanic approach to movement that although rooted in a style, remains flexible. For this, I draw on my Cuban roots, my experiences growing up in the mélange that is Miami, my experiences living abroad and the very deep and layered roots of flamenco. For me, dance begins where language ends and is open to wider experiential interpretations. If culture is, in the words of Ana Mendieta, “the memory of history,” then dance becomes a way to embody that history’s essence. But what happens when your audience lacks the cultural context necessary to understand some of the subtle nuances? The creative process becomes a constant search that puts an intangible translation of concept and tradition into motion, allowing me to create a world that goes beyond the movement, to a place where my voice can channel that of my ancestors and the richness of this art form. This approach involves a constant negotiation between dance and non-dance, roots and creation, tradition and innovation, stereotypes and essence, that expands physicality beyond the limits of the body to include the space it inhabits and those who share it. It also requires that I constantly reexamine the possible intersections with other disciplines, as flamenco dance does not stand alone. Flamenco is much more than dance, it is music, poetry, history, politics and yes, economics. It is constantly negotiating space and all its implications and I find it impossible to create honest work without considering this nuance: it has been objectified, bastardized and used as a political and economic tool, yet somehow it has never lost its essence as a vehicle for personal expression and a space for social, political and economic commentary. Drawing from this tradition adds depth and context, but as an artist and researcher, I feel obligated to take the process a step further and question the implications of our search for true dialogue in contemporary society from a much more raw, radical and sensual/sensorial place. In my art-making, I return to a place of self-expression where performances are shared experiences, open to all who are willing to step into the fold. My current work includes staged performances, site-specific works, community engagement and advocacy, and dance films that deal with the female body and its links to notions of beauty and cultural memory and how it is passed down. Being in the middle of such diverse experiences and approaches gives me a unique position to bring the flamenco community out of its insular and self-protective spaces and create dialogue with the larger dance community. My aim is to create a situation of equity and inclusivity where a flamenco dancer can feel safe and supported to step out of the “tablao” or nightclub scene and into a more dynamic and experimental space for creation and innovation. Abandoned Transits premiered at the 2015 Screendance Miami Festival

Niurca Marquez photo by Claudia Calle

photo by Adam Newby

Women Cinemakers

Assembled with visionary editing and cinematography that makes dance come alive on-screen, Abandoned Transits exploits the widescreen format’s capability to link characters within the frame, creating a complex mise-enscene worth of Darren Aronofsky's cinema. Niurca Marquez sapiently plays with the way that memory structures are embedded in the unconscious, focusing on the tensions between perception, time and subjectivity. In her compelling movie experiment Abandoned Transits, a film that delicately weaves past and present, memory and loss, Niurca revisit the language of flamenco, its fusion of the various cultures of southern Spain. It would be an unexcusable error, though, to reduce a multifaceted work of art like Abandoned Transits only to Spanish folklore: Niurca Marquez's art is an unpredictable journey that careers from anthropology to dance. We are pleased to present Niurca Marquez for this year's CinéWomen Edition. Niurca, tell us about your trajectory as a filmmaker and dancer. What inspired you to express yourself in this medium? My love for film began very early on thanks to my father, but I never imagined it would be a medium I

would use for my choreography. It began as an experiment, really. Abandoned Transits was born out a desire to create an experience that was very real to me in a way that would allow the viewer a space to introduce their own perceptions and experiences into film. I was getting ready to relocate to the US after living in Spain for a number of years and I knew that the cultural context for my work was not going to be the same within this new frame. As such, I needed to find a way to make the work relevant to a broader audience. I knew I wasn’t interested in continuing to tell the same story and I needed a medium other than the stage or the site-specific choreographic work in order to begin to explore the possibilities. Can you introduce our readers to the multifaceted universe of flamenco? That’s a loaded question. I honestly believe it isn’t possible to introduce anyone to the universe of flamenco. I can only introduce you to my own understanding of it. I say this precisely because it is such a multifaceted form that a single definition does not suffice. Flamenco is probably best described as a quilt made up of pieces of other quilts, and its stitching is not uniform or consistent. It is a mélange of various musical forms strained through the culture and aesthetics of Southern Spain. It is not just dance, not just singing, not just music. It is all three and

Women Cinemakers much more. As a poet I know once said, it is soul music. It is precisely because of this that for me it is malleable and lends space to understand our contemporary condition. It is not the romanticized version of a culture that we are often sold. It is much more raw and much more radical in many instances. I think one of the reasons why it appeals to so many is because the tensions and contradictions that come with being human and living in this world are woven into its very fiber: those fibers can be pulled apart to look within. We want to take a closer look at the genesis of your film project: how did you come up with the idea for Abandoned Transits? The idea was initially born of a need to rethink my primary modality; choreography. I was in a moment of transition as I mentioned earlier, and I was really interested in a way to dig deeper into the material I was working with: to try and let the viewer enter the narrative from a different place. The initial project had been a series of guerilla-style site-specific works in Huelva, Spain that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d chosen to do because they seemed urgent and necessary. I had a very direct and immediate reaction to some of these sites, particularly when I discovered how much of their current use or misuse in some cases,

photo by Adam Newby

Women Cinemakers was due to actions from entities in the US. It made me consider human relations and what is given importance as we move forward within this â&#x20AC;&#x153;globalâ&#x20AC;? world. In many cases, as I worked in the sites, I felt like I was embodying two worlds at once: the world of the flamenco I had come to understand while living in Spain, filled with folklore, history and a very contemporary edge, and the harshness of my own displacement as a child of immigrants born and raised in the US with a third-world consciousness. It was this multiplicity that lead me to consider how I might evidence the complexity of space, time, and perception for the viewer, so that it might also allow a space for individual subjectivities to enter the dialogue. We have been deeply fascinated by your original approach to cinematic time and space. How did you develop the structure of the film? Here I have to give credit to my collaborators, Alexey Taran and Carla Forte. The initial project completed in 2010, was so dense that I was having a very hard time pulling the various threads apart to stitch them into something that could take the viewer through the experience created while allowing the narrative that I knew lived in the shots to emerge. The film went through an initial edit that was not capturing the essence for me, so in 2014 I approached Taran and

photo by Adam Newby

A still from A still from Abandoned Transits

Women Cinemakers Forte about the project. They gave me the space to simply express, sometimes in words, sometimes in movement, what I was really after as a director. We approached the project treating the footage as I’d treated the initial site-specific work; allowing each site to speak for itself and create a relationality with the other sites. The distance I gained from the material allowed me space to see what was essential to the work and what was not. Film as a medium provided a platform where time and space could collapse into each other, while simultaneously remaining cyclical. Throughout the film, you exploit the widescreen format’s capability. We have been deeply fascinated by your elegantly composed wide shots. What were some of your aesthetic decisions? Ironically, this was the most problematic portion of the filming. It was the result of my desire to allow the viewer a full sense of the space, while battling the need to dig deeper into the relationship between the two dancers and their relation to the locations. Because of the nature of the work, it was very important that the camera capture the sites as honestly and fully as possible. This was easier in some sites than others. The industrial plant was

particularly problematic because of its vastness and the complexity of its ‘personality’. I wanted to capture the cultural memory of the geography and the wide shots seemed to be the only way to do this. The use of the widescreen format, therefore, was not an initial decision, but a natural progression. A striking work of seemingly improvisational form, Abandoned Transits is in fact a highly layered film, open to several different readings. What was the most challenging thing about making Abandoned Transits? I think the biggest challenge was in how I could allow the viewer into these layers without overwhelming or straight out losing them. I knew I was dealing with a dense cultural context and I knew I did not want to limit its reach to a Spanish audience. I used the concept of improvisation in movement as it is understood in flamenco, where the improvisation is not arising out of thin air, but based on a wealth of gained knowledge and understanding, to design the choreography. We then allowed the space to inform us as much as the dialogue that had emerged between our moving bodies. The final piece of the challenge

photo by Adam Newby

Women Cinemakers came when designing the musical score for the work; it is what I feel really ties the work to the world of flamenco for various reasons. I had the privilege of working with Jose Luis De La Paz (Rodriguez) who grew up in Huelva and understood the crevices of its history well. I needed there to be the possibility for various readings, so the weaving of these pieces was essential. What are you hoping Abandoned Transits will trigger in the audience? Curiosity. It is what drove me, and the artists that I worked with, and I think it is still evident to a large extent. Curiosity to question, to look beyond the surface, the stop and look at the spaces we inhabit, to wonder about who has been there and what has transpired between them: curiosity that might lead to questioning perception, time and space. Abandoned Transits features an original score by Jose Luis Rodriguez. Can you describe your approach to sound? As mentioned earlier, his work was instrumental in moving the film forward. He is a highly accomplished composer working in both traditional flamenco and electronic music. In his sound score, one can hear traditional songs of the region dating back to the

sixteenth Century, as well as electronic manipulations of the natural sounds of the spaces. We considered the many layers of meaning and experience we were trying to address with the film, and worked on the various ways we might do this. The actual composition was approached much like the editing: a consciousness of the need for narrative to emerge and a careful placement of the correlations between certain sounds and certain spaces while simultaneously considering the relationship between the dancers. We have previously mentioned Darren Aronofsky, yet your visual style seems to be closer to dance films like Die Klage de Kaiserin, can you tell us who among international artists influenced your work? It’s interesting that you mention Aronofsky because I remember watching Requiem for a Dream and thinking, “this is how stories should be told…this is how we really process information.” It may have something to do with my upbringing and the consciousness of not belonging anywhere. I think some of that has stuck with me, and I still go back to the fragmentation of narrative when I work. I have to say it is bizarre to be answering this question as related to Abandoned Transits, as it really was an experiment for me.

photo by Adam Newby

Niurca Marquez photo by Neil de la Flor, taken during a performance of La Medea

Women Cinemakers

I think I tend to gravitate towards artists who are looking for new ways to say something with a visually conscious design. The list is long and includes all sorts of artists, both living and dead: Frida Kahlo, Pina Bausch, Krzysztof Kie lowski, Akram Khan, Luis Buñuel, Sakiko Oshima, Milan Kundera, Egon Shiele, Deepa Mehta. Most recently, I’ve been watching the trailer Alvis Hermanis’ direction of “Barishnikov/Brodsky” on a loop. The list goes on. It’s a hard question to answer because much of what influences my work is intrinsically tied to life and what, in this space, would be called “everyday” experiences and people. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from getting behind the camera, however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on the future of women in cinema? I feel it is indeed changing and I feel it has no choice but to change. I think it is one of those lines of tension we continuously walk and must continue to insist on. I always say this is more a question of opportunity and that is the piece that is often missing. It is a conversation I have often with fellow artists Dinorah de Jesus Rodriguez (filmmaker) and Belen Maya (choreographer). We need to make space for a variety of voices and approaches to storytelling,

photo by Adam Newby

Women Cinemakers independently of the medium. I find myself having this conversation in the world of staged dance as well. It is a complex system that has been instituted yes, but it should not be an excuse or hindrance for forward motion. I think the change needs to begin with putting cameras in womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands, encouraging young filmmakers to expand the field, propose alternative narratives and find support for their work. Thanks for your time and thought, Niurca. We wish you all the best with your career. What's next for you? Thank you for offering such a wonderful platform for us. We need more places like this. As is often the case, my curiosity got the better of me and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m working on a couple of concurrent projects. I have been exploring collage as a method for allowing narrative to emerge in experimental works of flamenco for some time now, and currently have three research/creation projects that link these to the experience of the mestiza body. In December I will be premiering a new site-specific work at a historic landmark in Miami; I am in pre-production for a new film that we will begin shooting in the summer; and am expanding a new staged work for alternative spaces with fellow flamenco artist Damaris Ferrer that explores our cultural memories as Caribbean women in that ever-present relationship to the colonizer.

Women Cinemakers meets

Nicola Hepp Lives and works in Wijk bij Duurstede and Amsterdam

Echo is a one minute film created after I had seen the open call for 60secondsdance.com. The challenge of making a film last exactly 60 seconds was added upon when I decided to film and choreograph it as a one-taker. The only edit happens when the boy appears in the mirror. He was filmed in front of a green screen and the visual effects artist tracked the space and composited the young boy into the image. The mirror in the space presented a challenge for the postproduction as the steadicam operator would be seen in the mirror each time she passed behind the dancer. Her image had to be erased frame by frame. Echo is a kinetic, subtle film about aging. My father is the older dancer performing in it. At 86, he is still dancing and finding it difficult to accept that age is catching up on him. The theme of aging, reminiscence and memory is recurring in my work.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Hello Nicola and welcome to we would like to invite our readers to visit in order to get a

wider idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have been trained to be a dancer at the Schweizerische Ballettberufsschule in ZĂźrich and Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in the Netherlands and you graduated from the AHK Modern Dance Department after having

Nicola Hepp photo by Adnan Hasovic

spent your last year as an exchange student at the School for New Dance Development. You later obtained your Master in Choreography and New Media at the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten: how did these experiences influence the trajectory of your artistic research? Moreover what did address you to focus an important part of your artistic research on the intersection between choreography and video? From an early age during my dance training I started to create work in my head, little choreographies that I saw in front of my inner eye. I was always very visually oriented and was incredibly inspired by artists like Bill Viola, Olafur Eliasson and Ingmar Bergman. On the other hand my practice always had a very physical grounding, there was always movement involved. I practically grew up in the dance studio of my father. He was my first dance teacher and in our home we were constantly watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies as well as West Side Story, A Chorus Line and Fame. Dance and Film had a very natural connection for me. My dance training at first was very academic and conventional, up to the age of 16 I dreamed of becoming a classical dancer. Then I got properly introduced to modern dance, in training and in seeing performances and dance films. I still have a VHS tape of a dance film I recorded around that time off the TV, for many years not knowing what it was. This film was so inspiring, focussing on the relationships of three couples in different locations in

interview

Women Cinemakers

Still by Gemma Probst

Women Cinemakers

Still by Gemma Probst

interview

Women Cinemakers one large building. With close-ups and sharp edits, I was amazed at how close the camera could get to the performers. I later found out that the film was â&#x20AC;&#x153;Never Againâ&#x20AC;? by Bob Bentley, featuring dancers from DV8. My quest for learning to express myself with modern dance took me to Amsterdam and the Modern Dance Department at the AHK. Here I trained on a high technical level for three years and then did my last year as an exchange student with the SNDO-School for New Dance Development. At SNDO I was challenged into opening myself up as a maker, learning more about composition and improvisation. I also followed a course on dance and video. After graduating and working as a dancer for a few years, my urge to create work grew. I travelled for a while taking courses and workshops in dance and new media, to Palindrome in Germany and Kelli Dipple/ Charlotte Vincent in Leeds, but video was ever my primary interest. When I returned to study Choreography and New Media at the AHK, my focus was on juxtaposing live dance with video images and audience interaction. I created performances and installations with video projections as an integral part of the dance performance. I am fascinated by being able to direct the eye of the viewer and tell a story with images. Being up close to the performer and wanting to see the movements from a different angle made me embrace the use of the moving camera. The images created by a camera that is choreographed in relation to the choreography of the dancers continue to compel me. In creating dance

Photo by Bram Vleugel

Still by Alessio Reedijk

films, I am able to share my vision and combine a narrative with my movement expertise in attempting to create visceral and engaging work. For this special edition of we have selected Echo, an extremely interesting dance video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . What has at

once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the theme of aging is the way you have provided the results of your artistic research with such refined aesthetics, inviting the viewers to such a multilayered experience: when walking our readers through the genesis of Echo, would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? I think there were two paths that came together. I had worked with my father, who is the performer in

Still by Alessio Reedijk

Echo, on a stage choreography called 23 | 73 a few years earlier. Working together was a very special experience. It was becoming clear to me that the movements he had performed in that piece only a short while ago were becoming increasingly difficult for him to manage. His physical capacity was declining and I felt that I wanted to capture that moment somehow. Then I saw an open call for creating a 60 second dance

film and I immediately had this image of my father looking into the mirror and seeing himself as a young boy. Aging and the fear of aging is a very universal theme, but also for me a very personal one as I am seeing my father having to deal with it on a daily basis and unfortunately only seeming to experience the more negative issues with it. The open call made me jump to action, and it was extra rewarding that Echo won the audience award at the event where it premiered in 2014.

Women Cinemakers Echo features essential, still effectively structured composition: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m very attached to simplicity and a clarity of aesthetics. I initially thought to place the character in a large dance studio, but opted for the void, dark space instead to focus more on the movements that he performs and the emotional void he seems to be in. There is still a performative element in adding the blue lights that come from one side, as if the character is on stage at the same time as it could all be taking place inside his own head. It was clear to me immediately that I wanted to work with a steadicam operator circling the performer. This, together with the fact that I wanted to shoot it as a continuous take gave a very clear choice in form. The steadicam operator had exactly 60 seconds to circle around the performer, following the choreography and both ending up facing the mirror. We filmed the boy in a separate take in front of a green screen and then composited him into the mirror image. The reflection in the mirror of the steadycam operator had to be cleaned away, frame by frame in post. The choice of camera and lenses was decided on following the advice of Gemma Probst, my steadicam operator. We shot on a RED Epic camera with Zeiss Super Speed Lenses. The floating, cinematic images that Steadicam produces are very appealing to me. It gave Echo a sense of being in a

Still by Adnan Hasovic

Women Cinemakers vacuum, the dark, unspecified space and the floating camera adding to that visceral sensation. It's important to remark that your father is the older dancer performing in Echo and that he is still dancing and finding it difficult to accept that age is catching up on him: how important was for you to draw from your personal experience, in order to make a personal film, about a theme that you know a lot about? And how does your daily life's experience fuel your creative process, in general? I think we all draw from personal experiences to some extent. However, it is not always a literal story that I’m telling. For example after seeing my film Songs of the Underworld, people often ask me if my mother died, which is thankfully not the case. If you look at my work and interpret it literally then my guess is that you will think of me differently than people who know me personally, haha. And I think personal experience includes everything, also stories you might have read, your emotional response to music, films you may have seen. This all in view of who you are as a person and what you can imagine. So events don’t need to have happened in my own life for me to be able to make a film about them. I think one of my main interests as a filmmaker is my wish to understand others and what their motivations are. So when I make a film I’m always trying to put myself in my character’s shoes. And sometimes it teaches me something about myself too.

Still by Adnan Hasovic

Women Cinemakers

In the case of Echo, my father’s fear of aging and death has become a topic that we talk a lot about. He needs to feel alive, to feel needed in what has always been his life; namely dance. So my making Echo was in a way also a gift to him, he could dance in my film and now Echo is being screened all over the world, so even when he cannot perform the movements anymore, the film is still there for us to see. And he can enjoy being seen. My father is now 86 and is still dancing. In fact next year he will take part in a dance performance by Örjan Andersson for the Skånes Dansteater Contemporary Dance Company in Malmö. We have appreciated the way your approach to dance conveys sense of freedom and reflects rigorous approach to the grammar of body language: how do you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of your performative gestures and the need of spontaneity? How importance does improvisation play in your process? When we created Echo, I was first experimenting with a younger dancer friend of mine, Manuel Ronda, who together with me worked out part of the gestural movements. It was interesting to me to work with someone who had a similar background ( we had both studied at MTD) and I

Photo by Esther Murdock

A still from Photo by Esther Murdock

Women Cinemakers knew his capacity to adapt to different tasks and create an imaginary world with his movement. Due to logistics, my father was only able to arrive in the Netherlands a day or so before the shoot, so I needed to work with another person to initiate the work process for myself. Due to the fact that the film needed to be exactly 60 seconds long, we structured the choreography and set everything in terms of both movements and timing. The relationship between the steadicam operator and the performer was experimented with during rehearsals with my father and then decided on the set. But even though the choreography was set, I find it extremely important to keep an open mind and to use improvisation in some sense even while on set, I love to think on my feet in that kind of situation. Often in my process of making work, the dance movements come out of improvisation relating to tasks and ideas we work on together. I also find the people that I work with to be of utmost importance to what a film or performance becomes. That also means that I usually allow time for myself and the performers to get to know eachother, alternatively I will work with people that I already know well. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, the theme of aging, reminiscence and memory is recurring in your work: do you think that Echo could be considered an allegory of human

Photo by Chris Fawcett

Women Cinemakers experience in our unstable, everchanging age? Moreover, what are you hoping Echo will trigger in the spectatorship? I hope that people first see the film before they read this. I always find that the initial way you see something may later be enhanced by knowing more about it- which may trigger you to have another look. But if the events take place the other way around: sometimes if you have too much information before looking at something the whole experience becomes analytical. My work is visceral, intended to be viewed and experienced, felt. Echo is really about who we are on the insidewhich is not always what is shown on the outside. In Echo, an older man is uneasy in his body and then forgets himself, feels free and sees himself in the mirror as the young boy that he feels like on the inside. I think many of us struggle with the different roles we take on during our lifetimes. Changing between roles as daughter, student, teacher, lover, peer, colleague, mother makes me question- who are you at the core? I would like people to see Echo and to acknowledge that there is more to each one of us than what meets the eye. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by

Still by Nicola Hepp

Women Cinemakers using their own bodies in their creative processes. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": how do you consider the relation between the abstract feature of the ideas you aim to communicate and the physical act of creating your artworks? In relation to making a film, I personally agree with the idea that a film is made three times: once in your head, once on set and once in the editing room. I think it is extremely important to keep an fresh eye as to what the film is becoming at each of these three stages. The outcome will never be exactly like it was in your head due to the experiences and physicality of making the film in the real world. At the same time the physical act of being on set with the people involved influence what the film will be in my opinion. Which again is maybe one reason that I prefer to work with people I know. Moreover, I find the moving camera to be of utmost importance in my work. The cameraperson, whether a steadicam operator or shooting handheld becomes an intricate part of the choreography of the scene. As a choreographer, I find that extremely interesting and I give the utmost value in how I want the camera to move in my films. Decisions I take

Still by Adnan Hasovic

Women Cinemakers with the dancers concerning their movement have implications for how it can be filmed. Vice versa cinematic contemplations that arise from my conversations with the cameraperson give me new ideas to develop dance material with the dancers. In a sense it is a system that keeps feeding on itself. I do not try to separate these processes as I find them intrinsically connected to each other. I believe that as a viewer you are able to see and feel that the movement of the camera is connected to the dancer or performer and that we have placed importance on their connection from the very beginning. During the shoot, the way the dancers are interacting with the camera; how they are relating to it in the way they position themselves is based on this awareness of the interconnection. The relationship between sound and visual is crucial in your practice and we have appreciated the way the minimalistic sound tapestry by Jurriaan Balhuizen provides the footage of Echo with such an ethereal atmosphere: how would you consider the role of sound within your practice and how do you see the relationship between sound and movement? It is a marriage. Literally in this case, because Jurriaan Balhuizen is my husband! Haha! No seriously, I believe that sound and visuals have equal

Still by Nicola Hepp

Women Cinemakers importance into creating a whole. Both sound and images can affect you in such an emotional way. When I work on a film it is important to me that the sound has meaning, that it gives another layer to the experience of watching the film. The music or the sounds can enhance something that is there in the film that I might want to give more weight by using the audio in a specific way. For Echo, Jurriaan and I discussed the idea of sounds from a music box. It adds the connotation of a turning dancer in those old-fashioned jewellery boxes. Here there is also in fact the physical act of creating the artwork: We made the plates for the music box by hand and I sat and played it, while Jurriaan recorded it in sync with the film for it to be timed exactly how we wanted it. While editing I often bounce ideas back and forth with my husband, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great privilege to have him be part of my process in that way and generate ideas together. I use my musicality when editing, which means that the sound and the images can influence each other both ways- if a scene works better musically to be shortened I might have to do that in the image rather than in the sound. Usually I edit the images first, but there is often some rhythmical finetuning once the music has been decided on. And vice versa. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a two-way street in finding the best solution that works as a whole and communicates what I want to say.

Women Cinemakers We have really appreciated the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something 'uncommon', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? I think there is much to be gained by allowing more diverse voices to surface and to encourage them to make artistic work. I’m happy to say that I have not personally encountered any discouragement in this field, maybe because the dance world has always been very populated by women? Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Nicola. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

that I have been working on for a few years. It will be a longer short film, a meditative journey into a very troubled person’s mind. The movement will be very minimal and gestural, in the largest part of the film the protagonist will be walking. The camera will follow her with an intimacy and immediacy to make the viewer part of the experience. I’m interested in making a visually stunning film but filled with anguish and dread. We are currently in the process of applying for means to realise the film. I’d also really like to take this opportunity to thank my past and current collaborators, cast and crew without whom I wouldn’t be able to make my films. It’s wonderful to feel the support they offer so that I can continue to develop my projects and ideas. I intend to continue my investigation into the relationship between movement and the camera, hoping to move a few people along the way. An interview by Francis L. Quettier

I’m working on a few different ideas at the moment, all in different stages of preproduction. The one that is the furthest developed is an idea

and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Photo by Jelena Popadic

Women Cinemakers meets

Molly Lucille Lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

It Never Leaves You is a reaction tumultuous state of our current society. Its purpose is to provide a safe space of understanding and healing for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, seeking to promote connections, dialogue and awareness for these victims. There is a horrifying percentage of people who have experienced these life changing assaults, who know that it truly never leaves you. These experiences can leave you completely altered, and change your perspective and change your personality. They leave scars. They leave pain. They break trust. Though nothing can truly heal the scars left by these experiences, finding a community of people who will listen can help ease the burden these memories impose on the victims. By reaching out, the healing process can begin. We are here for you. There are always people who are there to listen. People who are there to support you. You are not alone. as a filmmaker? Moreover, how does your cultural

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

substratum direct the trajectory of your artistic research

and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

I started my interest in film during my freshman year at Columbia College Chicago. While there studying acting, I

Hello Molly and welcome to

: we

performed in several student films and productions. The

would like to introduce you to our readers with a couple of

more I explored that world, the more I wanted control over

questions about your background. Are there any

my voice and over the stories my body was telling. Being a

experiences that did particularly influence your evolution

vehicle for someone else's words and story made me feel

stifled and inauthentic. I began to explore other outlets and discovered videography during my transfer to Grand Valley State University. During that time, I had some truly incredible professors that encouraged me to delve into my fascination with the relationship between body and screen, and how that could be used to discuss feminine identity. They introduced me to the experimental, visually striking works of Mariko Mori, Marilyn Minter, and so many others. Seeing video and film used as a medium for visual storytelling in that way was liberating and incredibly compelling for me. I began using aesthetics as a visual language to explore themes and ideologies that have formed my relationship to creativity, storytelling, and performance. Particularly, the influence of women in control of their own image and the depiction of their own context drew me to this medium. Representation became the core to most of my work and often involved examining how media affects our perceptions of reality. Yet at its heart, my work remains deeply personal. I intentionally include myself to expose my own complex relationship to femininity and the specific repercussions that are created when these concepts are communicated to a larger audience. Film and video are pervasive throughout modern society and carry a substantial burden in regards to how representation can affect cultural assumptions on a global scale. For this special edition of selected

we have , a captivating experimental film

that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at . What has at once captured our attention of your insightful exploration of

interview

Women Cinemakers

interview

Women Cinemakers is the way your unconventional and powerful narrative provides the viewers with such an intense visual experience. While walking our readers through

, could

you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? It Never Leaves You was my way of articulating, for the first time, my story. As you can hear in the piece, it took my three years to begin to process what had happened to me. The day after it happened, I starkly remember standing in front of the mirror in my tiny dorm apartment in Chicago, staring at the deep bruises that covered me. I hid everything, not wanting to talk to anyone, and not acknowledging to myself what had happened. I convinced myself that no one needed or cared to know- somehow, it was my fault, and if I told anyone, I felt that they would make it worse. I left Chicago, and took a year off of school, and buried it deeper, but it kept itching at me, covering me, consuming me. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d have flashbacks nearly daily- sharp memories that would flash feel like a stab in my chest. This feeling continued, and gnawed at me for three years. During this time, I began my studies at Grand Valley State University, and started to explore video work. Throughout most my work, I used glitter as a hyperbolic, aesthetic symbol of femininity. It became such a staple in my work that it covered my studio space and trickled into all the surrounding spaces. The more I studied the pervasiveness of it, the more it began to resonate as a mental symbol of my trauma. I began to picture those ugly, painful bruises as glitterâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; pervasive and lingering, showing up as a glimmer unannounced, bringing that sharp memory back. Through this analogy, I began to slowly find the language to share my trauma I wanted to use my personal experience and the symbol

of the glitter “bruises” to communicate the lingering scars from

remaining glimmers of purple and black for weeks, trailing into

the trauma associated with sexual assault. It became a way to

our hair, ears and cheeks as a nonverbal call to attention for

ease my earlier fears that if I told anyone I wouldn’t be heard or

those who carried their own invisible glitter bruises.

understood. As I started the process of recording and writing

The piece was created for a gallery showing, which took place

the narration, I knew I wanted to open up the piece beyond my

at Grand Valley State University. The video was projected as a

personal experience. Bringing in actors, who were all my peers,

multi channel installation, each projection filling a wall of the

to personify the symbol of the glitter bruises, expanded the

gallery. In the center of the gallery lay a pedestal of the same

personification and reach of this piece. With each individual, a

glitter that was used during the filming. A sign encouraged

new layer of context was added. We each had a different

viewers to place their hand in the glitter as they listened and

moment of solidarity, of sharing and nonverbally expressing

looked into the eyes of each story. They left the gallery wearing

our own individual contexts. After each filming, we all wore the

the glitter as we did — a physical reminder of context. As the

show completed its week long run, the purple and black glitter

shooting? In particular, what was your choice about

had spread through the hallways of the building, and

camera and lens and how was the filming experience?

remained long after its de-installation as a personification and

The simplicity and straightforward framing of the

visual embodiment of the struggle I myself and other victims

cinematography was intentionally stripped down to showcase

go through daily.

the vulnerability I felt in creating it. By being confronted with the direct gazes of the actors, the viewer is forced to

Featuring essential and elegant cinematography, is brilliantly composed and we have

acknowledge the humanity of each individual. One voice is plays uninterrupted throughout the piece despite the

particularly appreciated the way your sapient use of close

changing faces. It's never designated who is speaking, which

ups allows you to capture

allows all of them to speak, in a way, while they are

moments: what were your

when

confronting the audience visually. Shooting directly and in still

shots allowed each actor to be both part of the collective, representative whole, and personifying their own emotional connection to the process. The piece was shot with the first camera I learned to work with, a Sony A 65. I wanted the piece to be as clear and minimalistic as possible so I opted for a clean, neutral background and tightly framed shots. This worked to emphasize the glitter as it popped out against its fairly monotone surroundings. We have appreciated the way your video conveys sense of freedom and reflects rigorous approach to : how do you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of your film and

? How importance does play in your process?

The process was incredibly raw and vulnerable. Filming took place in a quiet room with just the two of us. I knew that I wanted to create a space where each person would feel safe - myself included - especially if they began to feel overwhelmed. I had a long conversation with each actor before filming began, often taking place while I applied their makeup. Together, we dove into the context of the piece, which allowed them to share their own perspective and experiences if they felt so inclined. In sharing these moments with one another, I found myself altering how I wanted to frame them. The process brought me out from the isolation of myself. It connected my own experience to a broader range of people who deeply understood and lived the visual symbolism of the piece. It became a collaborative effort between myself and each actor so that they would feel validated in their part in making the final

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Women Cinemakers work. As we talked, each actor was able to add a layer of expression in whatever way they were comfortable. They had agency to further embody the work as they saw fit- not just the visual aspects we were trying to communicate but their own personal connection to the core concepts the piece as well. We have really appreciated the way questions the tension between experience and memory, by highlighting the relationship between the real and the artificial. How does everyday life's experience fuel your artistic process? In a way, the process of creating this piece was a way of reclaiming memory. I own my story. I shouldn’t need to explain the painful specifics in order to validate my experiences, which is what originally held me to silence. I realized that communicating the specifics was not conducive to my recovery. Rather finding a way to express my main struggle — the pervasiveness of the trauma and the feeling that the experience formed me and owned me — has helped me on the road to overcoming and growing beyond that one event. The piece is about exploring the

of the memory; the

pervasiveness of that gnawing, ever-constant anxiety, the jolt when someone touches you, the sharpness of a stranger’s gaze. Articulating these visceral recollections through visual syntax gave me the means to decipher my own anxieties and trauma. Using my methodology as a form of representation, as an example of one way to process and to begin to heal, I wanted to ensure I didn't definitively declare my approach was the “right” way to heal. I hope others are able to utilize these moments of solidarity to help process their own personal circumstances.

If anything, I learned that there is no one end to the healing process. As the title states, these experiences truly never leave you, and attempting to erase the trauma of sexual assault is impossible. Acknowledging that fact, and finding a way to express the intrinsic nature of trauma and its way of bending reality was instrumental. For me, I regained the power over my own narrative and memory, giving myself permission to exist within these complexities so I control the way it is communicated and depicted. In this instance, the glitter became a visual metaphor to articulate how the specifics of the memory are not important but rather, what those memories leave behind. The use of glitter was tied specifically, in part, to my existence as a highly femme individual. Femininity is viewed through a lens of triviality, I often find myself filtered through assumptions of vapidity, self-absorption, or dim-wittedness. There is a strong misunderstanding that those who like makeup and pretty things have very little to say. Subsequently, glitter is probably the highest physical representation of the femme. It's is often considered kitschy, a tool for crafters and little girls, and incapable of containing the scope and depth to address issues of assault. There were even times during my use that a few of my professors questioned its use as a medium, believing that I couldn't work it past its own cultural implications. And I didn't. Instead I used those stereotypes to underline the stereotypes I face in my own daily existence. It's also why I still continue to use glitter in my work as a representation of femme ideologies. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, is a reaction tumultuous state of our current society: Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, "

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Women Cinemakers ": what could be in your opinion in our contemporary age? Does your artistic research respond to a particular cultural moment? In the context of artistic expression, I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dangerous to externally impose a specific expectation of what the role of creatives should be. Since we are all coming from different backgrounds, different parts of the world, and expressing them within different mediums, that decision should fall to the individual. They should be able to have the agency to form their work within whatever context they see fit, and not to prescribe to a set role within a global society. That said, an artist should certainly be aware of how their work will come across to any unintended audiences. They also must be open to criticisms from groups that may have been adversely affected by an ignorance of a privileged perspective. Personally, my work uses aesthetics as a visual language to evoke a sense of empathy and connection. I see firmly residing within the context of the current social climate that is moving towards comprehending the depth sexual assault affects modern society. Right now, our collective language surrounding this issue is evolving. Whether it be through the â&#x20AC;&#x153;#metooâ&#x20AC;? movement or other social contexts, sexual assault victims are finding a platform to stand and be heard. As I stressed before, this particular work focuses on empathy and the process of remembering rather than fixating on details. It's meant to reveal the layer of raw human emotion that comes from the comprehension of a personal violation and how one begins to move forward. The work is meant to guide the conversation toward that healing and empathy in this cultural moment. Ultimately, I feel like the common goal of most artists is to create a space for experience. Regardless of concept, execution, or medium, we are collectively exploring methods of communication. Whatever context it explores, art has the power to reveal and to create

connection. In any role an artist is pursuing, recognizing that power and acknowledging oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own context is absolutely key. If the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goal is to respond to a cultural moment, there is great power to contribute to the conversation or movement, to frame experience and language in an intentional, creative perspective. We have been highly fascinated with the way you combine deep realism with captvating surreal atmosphere, to highlight : in this sense, we daresay that responds to German photographer Andreas Gursky when he stated that : in particular, you seem to urge your spectatorship to challenge their perceptual categories to : how important is for you to trigger create the viewers' perceptual categories in order to address them to ? And what do you hope elaborate will trigger in the spectatorship? Watching viewers interact with the installation of this piece touched on this very idea. Creating a space that reveals deep, personal trauma is an electric, intense experience. Opening it to the public eye heightens these emotions. The added layer of representing others beyond myself contributed to this tension. The core of this piece was not to evoke guilt or to prod at the trauma of others, but to rather promote an atmosphere of There is no one correct way to process or handle trauma, but to create a moment for all to stop and consider the hidden traumas many people carry is a powerful moment. This moment touches on the words of Andreas Gursky- rather than forcing specific narratives to prove or secure the validity an individual's trauma, the goal of is to cultivate a shared moment of vulnerability between the viewer and the person on the screen. Beyond the interactive aspects of the

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Women Cinemakers installation, the nature of the film exists to promote a still, reflective representation of the everyday manifestation of trauma, while confronting the real, human side behind these representations. The goal is not to embody statistics, but rather showcase a moment of realization for the viewer to internalize the hidden stories many people carry. The hope of this piece is to provide a unique, accessible frame of reference to intrinsically understand the depth of trauma associated with sexual assault, and to reveal that there is power in empathy, and empowerment in claiming oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own narrative. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that " ": how do you consider the relation between of the concepts that you explore in of your practice? your artistic research and The physical presence, along with representations, of the body have begun to play a more definitive role in my work as my artistic practice has grown and evolved. Having a human element within the work creates a tangible personification of complex concepts. As humans, we intrinsically respond to the figure, we relate to it and immediately can place ourselves within the depicted environment. Film also creates a space for an approachable, immersive experience. Combining my history of performance with video has become interwoven with my work. The personal element allows me to claim responsibility for the concepts Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m embodying. Not only am I creating work, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m living it, breathing it. With any conceptual approach I take, I want it to be clear that it is an experience , within my own story and context that the viewer can then use as a sounding board for their own similar - or contrasting history. We have appreciated the originality of your approach and before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask

you to express your view on the future of women in contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something '., However in the last decades there are signs that ' something is changing. How would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view field? on the future of women in this Representation is the key to subverting the expectations and limitations in the context of gender. Women, specifically, have begun to subvert the previous methodology of exposure through the accessibility of a larger audience online and in current media. Their success no longer hinges on the adherence to the expectations set for women in a male-dominated field. This subversion has not only given them greater recognition but also greater agency to how their work is constructed and distributed. This allows for collaboration, inspiration, and experimentation to be explored and celebrated. It creates spaces and lends supports to more explorative works, and a network of artists that can bolster and champion each other. Upcoming artists who would have otherwise been stifled are now finding a broader spectrum of influences and are able to build a solid network of individuals to assist them in cultivating their ideas. If anything, these new methodologies have proven the old stereotype false; when given the chance women choose to build each other up, rather than tear each other down. Having access to this platform, as well as growing technologies allows the boundaries of creativity continuously grow. Artists such as fashion designer Iris Van Herpen are exploring new technologies, such a 3D printing, and being celebrated for pushing the boundaries of creativity. Bolstering and celebrating such artists, builds a better platform for upcoming artists and inspire more women to create and speak their own creative language. We grow together, and the success of one artist can create a path and

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Women Cinemakers audience for a plethora of creative women that could follow in their footsteps. I’m continuously inspired by the creativity I see in the powerful women that are my contemporaries. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Molly. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? As an individual, I am continuously curious about ways of framing experience, of developing aesthetics to create a common language, exploring the role of the body and representation in performance and film, and in constant experimentation. I am enthralled by the spontaneity and experimentation that film allows, and look forward to continue my practice of exploration and aesthetics. you marked a big step for my artistic voice. As I’ve continued to explore video as a medium, collaboration has become integral to my practice. Recently, my creative partner, Katie Pershon, and I established our own collaborative, titled KML. Together, we’ve further explored video and photography as a visual language to explore the historical frameworks of gender, femininity and representation. We have found collaboration to enrich our creative expression by developing a partnership that explores large concepts through aesthetics. Incorporating video, photography, performance, and sculpture combines our own individual pursuits into a more complex, unified artistic practice. Currently, we are working on a video series that explores the religious representation of women instilled in us throughout our upbringing. These ideologies have shaped our own perceptions of how womanhood is characterized in modern society. Imparting what I've learned through creating

KML's work faces the

subconscious stigmas and self-destructive tendencies that come with the two-dimensional portrayals of women as virgin or whore. We've just finished the third piece within the seven-piece series, and plan to

complete the project over the course of the next two years.Beyond this project, we are fascinated with the process of collaboration within an artistic context as we are often met with surprise and confusion over the means in which we create. We flow between each other, finding connections between our experiences to make the sum parts of a whole. This often leads to an inability for either of us to claim one aspect of the final work as individually ours, both in concept and in physical medium. We've found viewers often become uncomfortable with this, insisting they can only digest our work after finding the answer to

created

. As

our art practice is a bit unorthodox, we're want to explore the expectations that come with a collaborative partnership. Our goal is to continually bring in a wider range of artists to better enrich our own perspectives and creative languages with the hopes that a need for possessing a part of the whole will dissipate within the context of the larger community.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my story.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

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Women Cinemakers meets

Jessye Wdowin-McGregor Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia

Jessye Wdowin-McGregor is an artist whose creative practice incorporates the moving image, performance, photography and collage. Her work explores the relationships between human and natural environments, the psychological resonances of place and notions of interruption, visual rift and image transformation. She has held solo and group exhibitions at a diverse range of independent galleries and artist run initiatives in Australia, and in 2017 presented an open studio and public film screening in London at the culmination of an Associate Artist Residency with Acme Studios. Jessye is currently an artist in residence at Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West and exhibited her residency research at the Living Museum as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2018. Jessye’s studies in Australia include a Master of Fine Art (by Research) (2008) at the Victorian College of the Arts, and a Master of Cultural Material Conservation (2014) at the University of Melbourne. ‘Isle of Grain’ is set at the mouth of the Thames Estuary, where the ancient River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea in the South East of England. The film traces the elemental shifts of the Estuary, where the seamless flowing in and out of powerful tidal waters place the region under a spell at times: container ships glide impossibly across the horizon at low tide, and the shoreline converts into an expanse of open sea upon the tide’s return. In this shape-shifting landscape of mudflats, marshland and water, my own presence is both unfamiliar and elemental, channelling light and wind through the manipulation of reflective objects, as though corresponding to the surrounding estuarine environment. An interview by Francis L. Quettier

a couple of questions regarding your

and Dora S. Tennant

background. You have a solid formal training

womencinemaker@berlin.com

and after having completed a Master of Fine Art

Hello Jessye and welcome to : we would like to introduce you to our readers with

(by Research) at the Victorian College of the Arts, you nurtured your education with a Master

of Cultural Material Conservation, that you received from the University of Melbourne: how did these experiences inform your current practice? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum direct the trajectory of your artistic research? Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to take part in this Biennial Edition. I feel very fortunate for the education I have accessed, and the immensely positive impact it has had on my practice and who I am today. My tertiary fine arts training at the Victorian College of the Arts offered invaluable professional feedback and mentorship from established practicing artists as well as a creative, like-minded community. As students, we were prompted to continually extend our thinking, our approaches to art making and our understanding of what art could be. It was during my honours year that I was urged to turn my attention and research focus toward a photographic series that I had been experimenting with, through which I was beginning to explore early ideas around performance and landscape. At the commencement of the Master of Fine Art program, the photographs had evolved into videos, which pushed me beyond my comfort zone at the time â&#x20AC;&#x201C; video was a medium I had never contemplated prior to this. It was a really exciting period and these shifts in my practice were the catalyst for my current trajectory as an artist and the ideas that I am still working with today. I returned to university to undertake a Master of Cultural Material Conservation as a pathway into the type of

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Women Cinemakers professional employment that had always interested me, alongside my practice as an artist. As well as learning how to care for traditional object-based collections, I undertook research as part of a minor thesis component that examined embodied and non-written documentation strategies for the transmission of a relational performance art practice. This work inspired different ways of thinking about what archives can be, about the transfer of living knowledge and what else can act as a repository outside the official cultural institutions (such as memory and place). While currently working as a practitioner in the conservation field, I also cannot help but be inspired by the collection material I have the privilege of encountering. You are an eclectic artist and your versatile practice embraces video, performance, photography and collage to pursue multilayered visual results: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would invite to our readers to visit in order to get a synoptic idea about your artistic production: would you tell us what does address you to such captivating multidisciplinary approach? How do you select in order to explore a particular aspect of your artistic inquiry? My practice is largely lens-based, and it is through photography and video that I found a way to convey the charged emotional registers of the spaces at the outskirts of cities that I am so drawn to. As a time-based medium,

video especially lends itself to capturing subtle shifts in light, mood, tone and sound that can activate and transform a landscape. It also introduced a space for chance, allowing things to happen before the camera; such as the improbable intervention of a mob of kangaroos bounding through the frame during my film , which is set in a pocket of semi-wilderness in suburban Melbourne, Australia. This is an important part of the way I work, because I am often attracted to a place without knowing why or

having a set idea of what I have come to film. The editing stage is similarly instinctive, permitting further experimentation with time, image and structure in the way I bring together what I have filmed. My own presence in my photographs and films came about intuitively. In the beginning, placing myself within the camera frame was a means to pose a moment of disruption, the insertion of a human form in relation to the sparse architectural structures that inhabit urban peripheries and industrial landscapes.

But more recently performance and video have acted as the key constituents for exploring the qualities of the environment or landscape I am interested in â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a conduit for the invisible undercurrents and energies that are perhaps at the edge of our senses but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t consciously hold our attention. Though a solitary figure in my films, I am yet responsive to my surroundings through simple actions that attempt to channel phenomena that might usually go unnoticed

(such as the force of the wind or the refraction of the sun). The use of collage in my practice echoes the same enquiry as the films in attempting to tease out a hidden dimension. I am interested in the possibilities of collage for creating images that resist being revealed all at once, thus prolonging a moment of looking. The pre-existing images I choose to work with are compelling to me for their inherent imperfections (particularly those that precede digital

reproduction, where instances of misregistration, colour bleed and coarse halftone printing allude to imagery that is breaking down), but equally because of the hint of something beyond surface value alone â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an unseen yet quality. My collages attempt to bring out this underlying sensation through the trace of haptic interventions and layers, prior to undergoing a digital scan and reprint process which promotes varying degrees of removal from the original source image. Although varied, these mediums reinforce each other. My work, in whichever form, is an exploration of the unknowable aspects to images and places, features that could be thought of as beneath consciousness. Of course, I am only touching upon implicit or hidden seams in things; there is always an ambiguity to the landscapes and found imagery I am attracted to and the works I in turn produce. we For this special edition of have selected , a part of an ongoing series of short moving image works, that you have produced during an artist residency in London and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the human relationship to our surroundings, is the way it provides the viewers with such an intense and multilayered experience, balancing emotional and intellectual involvement.

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When walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us what did you attract of the canals and rivers in London and South East England? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens and how was the filming experience? In 2017 I visited a series of waterways in London and South East England as part of an artist residency with Acme Studios. I was drawn to the idea of the canal as a subversive peripheral space, offering alternate passage through the urban landscape. The canals of London in particular also embody the convergence of human endeavor and natural environment that I find so compelling, being artificially constructed and inextricably linked to the history of trade and industry, yet home to remarkable stretches of makeshift wilderness. Neglected and polluted for decades, many canals have since been regenerated, offering city dwellers necessary access to rich arterial green spaces throughout London. But I was most interested in parts of the canal network that have at one time or another been left alone, allowing for the unhindered return of flora and fauna. A conversation with curator, editor and writer Gareth Evans on these interests was the catalyst for my explorations beyond the limits of London, and to the Thames Estuary, where Englandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ancient river meets the waters of the North Sea. With regard to the choice of camera setup used for the films developed during the residency and for

, I must acknowledge the support and expertise of audiovisual artist Polly Stanton, who offered invaluable guidance on a video camera that would suit my requirements. I settled on the Sony A7s ll, for its low light capabilities, 4K video recording and portability, which was particularly important as I prefer the flexibility of setting up quickly and transporting equipment with ease when out in the field. I paired the camera with a lightweight, general purpose Sony FE 28-70mm OSS lens, which worked well for me. While I did encounter some minor technical issues during filming, this combination of equipment allowed me to effectively capture something of the places I experienced. I am always learning with regard to video; I try to strike a balance between knowing enough technically to realise a film project and using the camera as a tool to explore an idea. Using a naturalistic still refined shooting style and well orchestrated camera work, has drawn heavily from and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such insightful between human and natural worlds: how did you select the locations and how did they affect your shooting process? The terrain surrounding the Thames Estuary in South East England is governed by the tide, forever on the verge of dissolving into the sea. It is a place of low horizons and waterlogged surfaces, in which vast

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Women Cinemakers shimmering mudflats and salt marsh are daily flooded by the rush of powerful estuary waters. I was struck by the elemental forces â&#x20AC;&#x201C; water, wind, light â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that transform the estuary from moment to moment and these is phenomena became the basis for my film. titled after its namesake, a remote village on the easternmost point of the Hoo Peninsula in Kent that looks out toward the mouth of the Thames. Like much of the estuary region, Grain features vast tracts of wild marshland interspersed with stark human-made landmarks, including the built remnants of heavy industry and redundant defense structures. I spent an afternoon and the following morning on the foreshore of Grain with my partner and assistant camera operator Adam Downs, filming the textures and sounds of the beach at both high and low tide. My camera remains stationary and observational in feel throughout , as it is in all of my recent film work. Such a technique often emphasises a natural element as the primary source of movement in an otherwise still scene. This way of working was particularly conducive to capturing the potency of my surroundings in Grain, which resonated with subtle chromatic shifts and fluctuations across sky, water and earth. The invisible but tangible force of the wind, especially heightened at the edge of the estuary, further accentuates the contrasting moments of energy and stillness in the film. I think in some ways the Isle of Grain selected me; I could feel it pulling me in like a magnet from the moment I arrived.

Women Cinemakers

We have been highly fascinated with the way you combine realism that comes from outdoor location and dreamlike atmosphere suggested by the specifics of the mouth of the Thames Estuary, to making visible the unseen still ubiquitous . In this sense, we daresay that responds to German photographer Andreas Gursky when he stated that : in particular, you seem to urge your spectatorship to challenge their perceptual categories to create : how important is for you to trigger the viewers' perceptual categories in order to address them to elaborate ? And what do you hope will trigger in the spectatorship? I appreciate the way you describe an ; we cannot help but inhabit landscapes with our bodies and our minds. We always bring to bear our individual interpretations, memories, emotions and imaginings to any encounter with place. My own relationship to landscape is deeply personal, and I hope to convey to others what I have experienced in the places I am drawn to working in. This includes the inherent rhythms, tensions and vibrations that are palpable but otherwise â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;out of sightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;; I try to evoke

the latent atmosphere of a landscape through a combination of directly filming what I see and drawing out what is unseen. I hope that prompts the same feeling I had of being situated within a landscape that is continually transforming. This is a place where the shape of the land changes daily, slipping in and out of view and moving between states, subservient to the force of tidal waters. Neither river proper nor open sea, the estuary exists on a threshold that stimulates a corresponding transitional space within, allowing the mind to wander with the elemental shifts of the surrounding environment. I also wanted to give form to the alternating sense of calm and uneasiness that seemed to infuse the foreshore of Grain, as though one is witnessing the moment before a storm or the eerie sensation of the tide hanging far out to sea, momentarily suspended. Sound plays an important role in your video and we have appreciated the way the ambience provides the footage of with such an : how do you see ? The use of sound is an integral part of my video work, summoning up a sense of place as much as the visual component. I think sound also heightens the presence of the natural world, particularly when it is

hidden from view. I often choose to film at dawn or dusk, when a landscape is in a liminal state and undergoing incremental modulations in tone and hue as the sun rises or sets. It is at this time when the light is low, that the world feels aurally governed, particularly by the sound of birds and insects. Upon approaching the beach in Grain, I was struck foremost by the sound of water lapping against the shore, all but concealed from view by tall swathes of dried cow parsley that eventually gave way to the shimmering expanse of the estuary. The soundscape of the Grain shoreline was rich and heightened, filled with the cries of bickering seabirds, the fizzle of cockles breathing through mud, the whispering of cow parsley in the wind, the squeal of swifts wheeling overhead and the call of foghorns and other echoes of industry on the river. These sounds left an indelible impression on my memory of Grain and form an inseparable part of the film I made in response. Your recent film work responds to the elemental forces and tensions that exist within landscapes that are a composite of suburban development, industry and wilderness: how do you consider the relationship between Nature and the human element in its continuous evolution? I am interested in hybrid landscapes where human and non-human worlds intersect, and the ways in which natural forces can shape human spaces. The

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Women Cinemakers perseverance of flora and fauna in the unlikeliest of environments is extraordinary, particularly in the accidental and mundane parcels of land that remain temporarily undeveloped (the voids between factories, the surrounds of electricity substations, the edges of parking lots, the green corridors bordering railways). These spaces seem rich with potential and offer a sense of co-existence, in which plants and animals retrieve a position within spaces that have been disrupted as result of human activity. This is important at a time when our urban landscapes increasingly encroach upon natural habitats, often with disastrous and irreversible results. I am inspired by the idea that an overlooked edgeland can be remarkably capable of supporting life. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that " ": as a multidisciplinary artist deeply involved in performance, how do you consider the of the concepts relation between that you explore in your artistic research and of your practice? The concepts and ideas I explore in my film work would not be possible without an embodied connection to place. The development of a work usually starts with visiting and exploring a site, even before filming or performative responses take place. Landscape itself is

Women Cinemakers sensory and dynamic, and we experience it as much through sound, touch and smell as we do through vision. I try to find ways to communicate the physical sensation of being in a location through my chosen medium of video. In addition to recording and presenting what I see in situ, it is through the editing process that I am able to heighten an underlying mood or atmosphere, in which sequences are sometimes slowed, reversed or superimposed on one another. Overlaying footage hints at an internal animation within or below the frame of the image, an effect that is echoed at times in my performative gestures â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the use and manipulation of reflective objects in my work is suggestive of a signal of sorts, an enigmatic message from inside the landscape, flickering just beneath the realism of the scene presented. You are an established artist and over the years you have held solo and group exhibitions both in Australia and in London. Women are finding their voices in art: since Artemisia Gentileschi's times to our contemporary scene it has been a long process and it will be a long process but we have already seen lots of original awareness among women artists. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in the contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something ', however in the last decades there are '

Women Cinemakers signs that something is changing. What's your view in this on field? I am excited by the work that has recently gone into recognisng and restoring the visibility of many women artists who have been relegated, under represented or deliberately left out of official art histories. Many of these artists I am encountering for the first time; they did not feature as part of the curriculum during my art education. I was captivated by an exhibition I saw in London during my residency, called at White Cube Bermondsey, exploring the endurance of surrealist elements and influences through the work of over 50 women artists, from the 1930s to today. As someone who has long been drawn to the surrealist movement, it was refreshing to see in these works a subversion of the male surrealist gaze and sexualised representation of women that is so strongly associated with the period. I hope that exhibitions and surveys like this continue, that they are not simply a trend in the wake of a growing awareness of gender disparity, both in the arts and more broadly across society. Recently the momentum for change has resulted in many positive developments, but we have work to do and a long way to go before there is to be any kind of meaningful equality, not only in terms of gender, but also race, privilege and class.

Women Cinemakers Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Jessye. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am currently undertaking an artist residency with Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Living Museum of the West in Australia, combining archival research with filming on location around the Maribyrnong River, which winds through the western suburbs of Melbourne. It is an extension of the research I began in London, similarly focusing on a river environment that has been altered and shaped by the effects of industrial development. The opportunity to work directly with an archive presents a new dimension to my practice that I have long been interested in, and I am looking forward to how it will inform and feature in my work. I recently realised a site-specific project, a large outdoor video projection that offered a momentary connection to the horizon and the setting of the sun; a natural phenomenon that is largely obscured from view in the built environment. This work was a step toward expanding my practice to include temporary projects within the public realm, which I hope to continue to develop alongside presentations of my work in a gallery context. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com

Women Cinemakers meets

Marie Lambin-Gagnon Hannah Schallert Nature Morte is a 7-minute short experimental dance film, created by Marie Lambin-Gagnon and Hannah Schallert, which aims to capture the implicit beauty of flowers and the feminine body by imagining their relationships in different configurations and senses. Both existing as living modes of expression, flowers and the feminine body have played muse to some of the best known artists of our time, and their shapes, textures, and movements continue to animate and inspire. The film draws on this wealth of imagery to evoke the subtleties and the complexities of their relationship in ways which are at once poetic and surreal. A rich and sensual journey through a series of interconnected worlds, Nature Morte is a meditation on ephemerality, on strength and fragility, on stillness and motion- capturing life both without and within us.

An interview by Francis L. Quettier

questions regarding your backgrounds. You

and Dora S. Tennant

have both solid formal trainings: Marie

womencinemaker@berlin.com

graduated from The School of Toronto

Hello Marie and Hannah and welcome to : we would like to introduce you to our readers with a couple of

Dance Theatre and Hannah majored from the Etobicoke School of the Arts: how did these experiences influence of your artistic

Hannah Schallert photo by Allison Schallert

Marie Lambin-Gagnon photo by Jae Yang

evolutions? Moreover, how do your direct the trajectories of your artistic researches? Prior to my dance training at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, I also graduated from college in the fine arts program, and completed an art history course at University of Quebec in Montreal. I call myself first a “choreographer” and “dancer”, but my artistic practice and research are tinted by my education in visual art. I like to play with the boundaries between dance and visual art, creating a unique harmony between those two art mediums. I like those moments where dance and visual become one, creating something that is almost undefinable. - Dance is something I’ve been involved with in various capacities my whole life- my formal training and involvement with the Toronto community have provided spaces in which any ideas, concepts, or problems I’m interested in come to bear. In the past few years, I’ve branched out from working solely as a performer and interpreter to explore other facets of dance and artmaking, from choreography, to administration, to photo and video work and filmmaking, and these have all served to deepen my involvement with the community and change the way I think of myself as a dance professional. I’m also currently completing a BFA in Dance at York University, and have become more and more involved

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Women Cinemakers there with scholarship and academia. My academic research has to do with expanded notions of choreography and movement in relation to media and technology, and these interests meet my creative work in terms of a focus on exploring the formal and conceptual possibilities of dance as a set of techniques and practices. For this special edition of we have selected , an extremely interesting dance short film whose trailer can be viewed at and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. Inquirying into , this captvating video has at once captured our attention for the way it inquiries in the elusive notions of time, urging the viewers to highlight the ubiquitous bonds between past and present, providing the viewers with such a multilayered visual experience: when walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? - The idea for our short film started with my obsession with flowers. I love flowers and I always wanted to make a dance or a work integrating flowers in some way. Hannah and I had many conversations and we came to the idea that it would be interesting to play with images that would reflect how painters and visual artist have been incorporating

flowers into their works through visual art history. In choosing artworks to engage with, we wanted to progress through representations of flowers in Romantic, Modern and Contemporary painting and collages, by artists such as Gustav Klimt, Georgia Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Keeffe and Anne ten Donkelaar. After setting a draft for the choreography, we started to imagine the body framed in a way that would remind us of work of arts from those artists that inspired us.

Whenever Marie and I work together on a film project, we begin by collecting extensive visual references of both still and moving images that allow us to form an inspirational palette to draw from, and get more specific with each other about our personal goals and ideas for the project. In addition to the artworks Marie mentioned, we found images from photography, fashion and design magazines, that staged the body in interesting, playful, and surprising ways.

From here, we were able to start generating a collection of conceptual sketches for different ways we could bring flowers and the female body together on film- as you mention this was one of our central themes. We often work this way, choosing a particular piece of subject matter that intrigues us and has the potential to generate numerous outcomes, assemble some rough variations on that theme, and then start manipulating them formally in a

way that we think will be interesting and engaging. For Nature Morte, we decided to create a series of interlocking studies, each of which would combine flowers and the body in different relationships, scales, and senses. Featuring ravishing and elegant cinematography, is brilliantly composed and we have particularly appreciated the way your sapient use of close ups allows you to capture

moments: what were your when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens and how was the filming experience? The film is shot on my Canon 70D DSLR, just using the 18mm-55mm kit lens. Following the rubric of formal studies and variations, I wanted to move through a range of framing and shooting styles- wide, static shots in deep focus with minimal movement and slow pans or tilts; and on the other hand, close-ups with a very shallow depth of field and intuitive camera movement that had a more intimate and hand-held feel. When we were collecting our initial references, I looked a lot at the recent work of Emmanuel Lubezki (for example in Terrance Malickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ), especially for the close-up moments but also as applicable to all the shots- I wanted to have a naturalistic feeling of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;moving stillnessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in the camera even when I was going for more minimal wide shots, and never used a tripod or rig of any kind. In terms of the filming experience, I would begin with rough sketches and storyboards indicating the approximate framing, focal length, and any notes about movement or key stylistic choices to incorporate. I always had a plan for these parameters in mind, but we were never working set camera movements.

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We have appreciated the way your approach to performance conveys sense of freedom and reflects rigorous approach to : how do you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of your performative ? How gestures and much importance does play in your process? We approached Na t u re Mo r te, as we do all our short films, in terms of “studies”. We have a broad idea and sketch of what we want to accomplish in each scene but also remain open to following what emerges naturally when we actually start working with the camera. We let the props and sets surprise us as we play with them. I did some prior research alone in studio to explore different movement qualities and strategies, but ultimately there are no ‘set movements’ in the film. Through the choreography we wanted to capture feelings, textures and images that were reflective of the natural world- flowers dancing in the wind, the shapes and feel of their petals, the way they root

themselves into the ground and also sprout from it. We have been highly fascinated with of your video allows you to combine realism and dreamlike atmosphere to : in this sense we daresay that you seem to urge your spectatorship to challenge their perceptual categories to create . How important is for you to trigger the viewer's imagination in order to address them to elaborate personal associations? Since our work often involves combining different scenes together, it’s very important to us that we set out thematic and aesthetic ‘clues’ for viewers to follow, without completely connecting all the dots in a linear narrative. The connections are definitely more poetic than literal, and we pay a lot of attention to constructing a sense of surreal or dream-like logic- for example, the progression from an extreme close up of Marie’s hand to an extreme wide shot of her in the middle of an empty room matches the placement of her body in the frame with that of the hand, so that she sort

Women Cinemakers

of grows out of her own hand, or is held inside it, etc. A lot of these connections ultimately show up in the edit, so in the shooting stage we are not necessarily planning and staging the specific links that will be formed, but rather maintain a continuity by moving the same props around differently, re-using iconography of for example the hand, a rose, the colour pink, so that all the possibilities will be there to play with in cutting. The other layer that tends to come in post for us is sound- for example, the presence of water shows up in several different senses: first in the opening shots at the Allen Gardens greenhouse, secondly with the sound of rain falling after the first section ends, and then visually as droplets of water on Marie’s shoulder in the second section. style and well Using a naturalistic orchestrated camera work, has drawn heavily from to question the duality between stillness and motion, and we have highly appreciated the way you have created such insightful between the environment and performative gestures: how did you select the location and how did it affect your shooting process?

We wanted to pick a location that would allow us to create our own world and tableaus. The studio we chose to shoot in formed the perfect ‘blank slate,’ as it has very high walls that are entirely white, and are also flattened into a curving shape with no corners, so that, depending on how you frame a shot, you can create a sense of a sort of ‘non-space’ and play a lot with depth and staging. The studio also has beautiful natural light and a raw, open feel. For our opening and closing shots, we went to a greenhouse in Toronto called the Allen Gardens Conservatory. This location gave us the opportunity to see flowers more in their ‘natural’ environment, or at least a more typical way than we had been showing them throughout the rest of the film. Here, the body was more secondary to the plant life, and we only captured little bits and pieces of Marie, as if she was just a visitor passing through the garden. Again, we knew we would create formal connections in the edit between the two locations (for example when the two worlds start to collide at the end of the last section), but did not have a set plan for how this would happen and merely layed the groundwork in shooting.

Women Cinemakers

A still from

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Women Cinemakers

Sound plays an important role in your video and we have appreciated the way the minimalistic soundtrack by Asa Sexton-Greenberg provides with such an and a bit as well as the way you have sapiently structured the combination between and : how do you see ? The song was commissioned especially for this film. Asa’s music is multi-layered, it has a sense of depth and poetry to it. We thought his work would be the perfect fit for the world we were trying to create, and the soundscape works as a vehicle for the viewer to feel and experienced the film with a deeper sensibility. The sounds have a visceral effect, and are at times intense but also delicate. We also like the idea of juxtaposing the music’s synthetic quality with the natural images in order to bring out its organic and mutable aspects. - Asa’s composition also gave us a lot to work with in the edit- the contrasting sections really supported the variety of images we had come up with in shooting, as by this point especially we had realized that it was more important to let the studies’ differences come out than to try to make everything of the same tone. The first section allows us to build anticipation, or climax at the end when it returns, and then the part in the middle with the vocals

suited the section where Marie is under the pink fabric, etc. They allowed us to characterize the studies’ styles more fully, and were also easy to manipulate and change slightly by moving bits and pieces around in order to get more time or lose some. It's no doubt that collaborations as the one that you have established together are today ever growing forces in Contemporary Art and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields meet and collaborate on a project: could you tell us something about the collaborative nature of your improvisational performances and site-specific events? Can you explain how your work demonstrates ? Both of us come from the ‘world’ of dance, and from there we each have different ways and practices through which we explore ideas around the body, movement, and performance. We feel it’s more like a shared background that branches out in a variety of ways, than a separate set of disciplinary interests that come together. That said, we definitely take the collaborative process between all these modalities to be a way in which we can expand notions of what dance and choreography can be- and this is certainly something you see happening in a lot of contemporary art. Even going back to the beginnings of Postmodernism, the

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers relationship between performance, visual, and media art has been a very generative and interwoven one, and particularly with the current interests in interdisciplinary and technologically mediated performance this is more true than ever. Technology- editing, coding, imagecapture- can be considered a form of choreography and performance, for example. Those are definitely discourses we see ourselves contributing to. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that " ": how do you consider the relation of the ideas you aim to between communicate and of creating your artworks? As Marie was mentioning earlier, the element of improvisation and play is very informative to the way our work comes together. The physical process of bringing all the filmmaking elements together finally in the same roomthe choreography, the camera, the props, etc- almost always generates some unplanned quality or element, something new to work with. We definitely see our process as involving the assembly of a collection of materials and ideas into a single environment, within which we then play and allow things to interact freely. So, although we do a

good deal of planning and conceptualizing beforehand, we always know that physical proximity of inspirational elements together in the moment will be what â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;makesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the film. Women are finding their voices in art: since Artemisia Gentileschi's times to our contemporary scene it has been a long process and it will be a long process but we have already seen lots of original awareness among women artists. Before leaving this conversation we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in the contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing ', however in the last something ' decades there are signs that something is changing. What's your view on in this field? Speaking to our experiences in Toronto, a lot of the exciting collaborations we see between dance and media or visual art do come from women-identifying creators. The interest in selfdefinition and boundary-pushing definitely come together here, especially with emerging artists who are concerned with investigating

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Women Cinemakers

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Women Cinemakers and reshaping what their art form(s) can be and do, often in interdisciplinary ways. Of course there is still work to be done and changes to be made with regards to the status of women in contemporary art, but we feel very inspired by the ideas we see coming out of our community. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Marie and Hannah. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Our new short film Chromatic Variations premiered on November 3rd as part of Screen:Moves in Toronto. We are aiming to go to Berlin in June 2018 for a research residency and will be working on our new short film. We definitely see this collaboration growing since we really enjoy working with one another. We are both evolving as individual artists, but we are also curious to keep exploring our mutual artistic voices. We are planning to follow our inspirations and curiosities and see where our creativity will lead us. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com