Fine Arts Film Festival 2023_revised catalog

Welcome to 2023

FAFF

The Venice Institute of Contemporary Art (ViCA) is proud to present the 10th annual FINE ARTS FILM FESTIVAL (FAFF), June 10 in person at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, and June 15-22, streaming on Vimeo. FAFF – the world’s largest art film festival – will present over 40 films from across the globe.

All Official Selections of FAFF 2023 will be offered a distribution deal through the ViCAFilms/Big Pieces Company partnership. This partnership has created the Art/World Collection, viewable now on Vimeo. Over the past two years, some films from this collection have been licensed to one of the most popular national streamers, Tubi.

SPONSORED BY

of films about art, artists, and the art world

"It's hard to believe we're in our 10th year at FAFF. We've worked hard to bring the best films from around the art world to Los Angeles, and now to the rest of the world online. It never ceases to amaze us, the love and respect these filmmakers have for their subjects, and it shows in every frame."

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page 2 Ten years of FAFF

Page 2 FAFF Leadership

Page 4-5 IN-PERSON SCREENING Info and schedule

Page 6-13 COMPLETE ONLINE FILM GUIDE 40+ films viewing/ticket info

Page 13 Thank you

Page 14 Our sponsors

CHRISTY ADDIS-GUTIERREZ FAFF Festival Program Director

Photo @rosecefalu

IOANA MATEI FAFF Virtual Reality Series Director

JURI KOLL FAFF Festival Director

Image from Light, Colour, and Imagination: Pipilotti Rist at Qatar Museums

IN-PERSON SCREENINGS

THE EXCEPTION OF HISTORY

Director: Yo-Wen Mao (Taiwan)

Experimental Film, 25 minutes

FRIENDLY FIRE

Director: Tom Koryto Blumen (Israel)

Animated Film, 6 minutes

CHILDHOOD/ADULTHOOD

Director: Jagoda Turlik (Poland)

Music/Performance Video, 6 minutes

NIEBOSCIAN. FREEDOM LIVES IN A HEAD.

Director: Jagoda Turlik (Poland) Music/Performance Video, 5 minutes

For film descriptions, see the starting on page 6

COMPLETE FILM GUIDE

12:45pm

HOMING INSTINCT

STANDING STRONG: ELIZABETH CATLETT

1:15pm

1:20pm

2:10pm

Director: Lydia Dean Pilcher (United States) Short Narrative, 30 minutes

BEYOND BAROQUE

681 Venice Boulveard, Venice CA

Free public parking behind SPARC Building next door

60 SECOND THOUGHTS: VOLUME TWO

Director: David Baeumler (United States) Experimental Film, 4 minutes

Public transportation from DTLA: MTA Bus 33 or 733 or Metro Expo Line to Culver City

MABOUNGOU: BEING IN THE WORLD

Directors: Marlene Millar and Philip Szporer (Canada) Feature Documentary, 48 minutes

THE BLOOM

Director: Jody Xiong (China)

Experimental/Short Doc, 5 minutes

Director: Kevin J. Kelley (United States) Feature Documentary, 56 minutes

BAD CHILD

Director: Nicole Emilíana Mendez (United States) Student Film, 13 minutes

LIGHT, COLOUR AND IMAGINATION: PIPILOTTI RIST AT QATAR MUSEUMS

Director: Erin Fleming (Qatar) Short Documentary, 7 minutes

THE VOYAGE

Director: Itamar Wexler (Israel) Feature Documentary, 71 minutes

CARLOS GÓMEZ CENTURIÓN: I SAY MERCEDARIO

Directors: Raphael Castoriano and Gustavo Travieso (United States) Experimental Film, 12 minutes

VICTORIA

Director: Dulcinea Langfelder (Canada) Feature Narrative, 75 minutes

TATSUMI ORIMOTO: A COSMIC CHAOS

Director: David Bickerstaff (United Kingdom) Short Documentary, 30 minutes

MARCEL DUCHAMP COMES TO PASADENA

Director: David Grabias (United States) Feature Documentary, 56 minutes

TAYSIR BATNIJI: NO CONDITION IS PERMANENT

Director: Aimen Jan (Qatar) Short Documentary, 9 minutes

HOPPER—AN AMERICAN LOVE STORY

Director: Phil Grabsky (United Kingdom) Feature Documentary, 90 minutes

Times are approximate. Foreign language flms have English subtitles. Program subject to change.

ONLINE SCREENINGS

ONLINE SCREENINGS

THURSDAY, JUNE 15–

60 SECOND THOUGHTS: VOLUME TWO

Director: David Baeumler (United States)

Experimental Film, 4 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 1:15pm

This experimental short is a collection of anti-commercials created to question the answers. It has three parts:“Last Lie”, a warning about what you should believe; “True Predictions”, a look at what to expect in ten years; and “Ubik”, a solution for simulated worlds. Each “advertisement” makes audiences feel less assured and more uncertain. By grouping these micro-shorts into an anthology, they simulate a commercial break with tones that range from funny to disturbing to profound.

CANAL

Director: Will Rahilly (United States)

Experimental Film, 16 minutes

CANAL presents a surreal journey through a Man Ray-like world. A woman crossing a bridge feels a sudden impulse to peer over at the river below. An otherworldly disturbance transports her through a watery portal into uncanny territory. She emerges to the laughter of a self-populated audience demanding entertainment. Perplexed at her new surroundings, she flees in panic, seeking exit through a labyrinthian course. But can she evade the force that drew her into this grim domain?

Films also included in the In-Person screening marked in yellow.

ALGORITHMS OF BEAUTY

Director: Miléna Trivier (Belgium)

Short Documentary, 20 minutes

Can a picture contain all the beauty of a flower? This short film creates a link between flower images made 300 years ago by English botanist Mary Delany to those made by Artificial Intelligence. Between technology and emotions, ALGORITHMS OF BEAUTY questions the limits of our gaze when faced with AI images.

ANTHROPOCENE SKETCHBOOK (VERSION 2)

Director: Katy Shepherd (United Kingdom)

Experimental Film, 4 minutes

A sketchbook comes to life, with animated versions of drawings and paintings from sketchbooks that the director created over several years. Many were drawn in those pauses in the studio when the mind wanders, leading to both catharsis and anxiety.

BAD CHILD

Director: Nicole Emilíana Mendez (United States) Student Film, 13 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 3:15pm

BAD CHILD is a short documentary about childhood sexual abuse. This poetic film focuses on the less visible outcomes of one survivor. The film remembers the past through a child’s eyes, but also has elements of a more traditional form with expert interviews that underscore the importance of parental support. Multiple layers of images, sounds, and animation overstimulate the viewer, effectively conveying the complexity of living with trauma.

CARA ROMERO: FOLLOWING THE LIGHT

Director: Kaela Waldstein (United States)

Short Documentary, 27 minutes

Cara Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, CA, and the urban sprawl of Houston, TX. This short doc explores how Romero’s identity informs her work, a blend of fine art and editorial photography, which is shaped by years of study and a visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from a Native American female perspective.

CARLOS GÓMEZ CENTURIÓN: I SAY MERCEDARIO

Directors: Raphael Castoriano and Gustavo Travieso (US) Experimental Film, 12 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 4:55pm

Gómez Centurión has been painting mountains on site for over 40 years. The film covers his latest expedition, as he travels by horses and mules, to the base of el Mercedario, one of the largest glaciers in the region, which has been rapidly receding due to climate change. Set against the hypnotic landscape of the Andes Mountains, the audience follows Gómez Centurión as he secures its true essence onto canvas, before the glacier disappears all together.

BEING STONES (ÊTRE PIERRES)

Director: Olivier Loubières (United States)

Short Documentary, 20 minutes

Somewhere, in the south west of France, Roger Rousseau bought a piece of land. He acquired a few tools: a shovel, a pickaxe, buckets, and other instruments. Then he started digging. He continued for twenty-five years. This film is about his unique work of stone, and the discoveries he made along the way.

CHILDHOOD/ADULTHOOD

Director: Jagoda Turlik (Poland)

Music/Performance Video, 6 min, In-Person 6/1O, 12:30pm

This short dance film explores how our childhoods, represented here as fun, colorful, cheerful, and carefree, will inevitably have to end. The turning point comes when we enter adulthood with the inescapable changes it brings. Regardless of how we live as adults, the director wants to remind us that our childhoods are part of us and we can always refer to this land of joy.

DARWIN NIX

Director: Brice Goldberg (United States) Feature Documentary, 88 minutes

Darwin Nix is an artist living in the small town of Evergreen, Alabama where he grew up. He returns there after living in Memphis, Philadelphia, and Santa Fe as an accomplished fine art painter. His current work subverts the overt Confederate sentimentality he has witnessed since returning to the south. Living alone with very few funds, Nix has created a series of radical protest artworks that reflect and antagonize what he deems to be a cultural inbreeding of ignorance and stupidity.

DOUGLAS SIRK — HOPE AS IN DESPAIR

Director: Roman Hüben (Switzerland)

Feature Documentary, 76 minutes

This documentary film is an investigative portrait of the renowned master of cinematic melodrama, Douglas Sirk. His own life was the ultimate melodrama, from which all of his films were inspired. Through the testimonies of those closest to him and the unpublished accounts in his wife's diary, we get closer to this man who was surrounded by mystery. We discover his world and his story, marked by hope and disillusionment, by death and, of course, by love.

DU FIL À LA TRAME (FROM WARP TO WEFT)

Director: Julien Devaux (France)

Feature Documentary, 86 minutes

FROM WARP TO WEFT delves into the survival of the art of tapestry, an age-old tradition, and how it has adapted to the innovative ideas of contemporary artists. It also shows us the link between the looms in Paris and in Guadalajara, and reveals a relevant dialogue between art and technique, between yesterday and today, and between the French and Mexican cultures.

FAIRY TALE (presentation of VR films is TBD)

Directors: Oleg Nikolaenko and Agnija Leonova (Lithuania) Virtual Reality Film, 26 minutes

One evening, a renowned artist narrates a fairy tale he's crafting to his daughter, based on his own life. This VR experience depicts his journey of finding true love with his wife and overcoming poverty and obscurity to achieve success and recognition. However, the line between fantasy and reality is exceedingly delicate, and it is up to the viewer to determine the conclusion of this story – either to remain in a whimsical fairy tale or confront the harsh realities of life.

FORMIDABLE BOCCIONI

Director: Franco M. Rado (Italy)

Short Documentary, 54 minutes

Visionary, brilliant, and restless, the Italian artist Umberto Boccioni revolutionized modern sculpture. He wanted to subvert the rules of traditionalist art, but he needed the fuse to set off the bomb. He found it in 1910 at Milan Central Station when he shook the hand of poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. From that moment on, Boccioni translated poetry into art, giving shape and matter to Europe’s most important artistic avant-garde movement of the early twentieth century, Futurism.

FRIENDLY FIRE

Director: Tom Koryto Blumen (Israel)

Animated Film, 6 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 12:25pm

A friendly soccer game between an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian boy that takes place on the West Bank barrier starts to escalate into an uneven battle. This animated film was painted frame by frame on the wall, becoming part of the ongoing conflict by staining the wall with over a hundred liters of paint. A unique technique that tells a startling story.

HEADING AWAY FROM THE LEDGE

Director: Henry A. Hopkins (United States) Feature Documentary, 70 minutes

The filmmaker tells the story of his brother’s difficult struggle with mental illness, drug addiction, and the dramatic effects it has had on his family. HEADING AWAY FROM THE LEDGE is an intimate and poignant look into a world that many families can relate to, and from which we all can learn.

HOMING INSTINCT

Director: Lydia Dean Pilcher (United States)

Short Narrative, 30 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 12:45pm

This imaginatively told sci-fi story set in the not-too-distant future follows Raven, a political psychologist and Paloma, a marine biologist. When they encounter a time traveler at a desperate point in the changing climate, existential questions around government authority and the individual are explored, using the language of dance to reimagine our relationship with nature.

HOPPER — AN AMERICAN LOVE STORY

Director: Phil Grabsky (United Kingdom)

Feature Documentary, 90 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 8:10pm

Hopper’s work is the most recognizable and influential art in America – popular, praised, and mysterious. But who was he, and how did a struggling illustrator create such a bounty of notable work? HOPPER takes a deep look into his art, his life, and his relationships. From his early career as an illustrator; his wife giving up her own promising art career to be his manager; his critical and commercial acclaim; and in his own words –this film explores the enigmatic personality behind the brush.

LIGHT, COLOUR AND IMAGINATION: PIPILOTTI

RIST AT QATAR MUSEUMS Director: Erin Fleming (Qatar) Short Documentary, 7 min, In-Person 6/1O, 3:35pm

In an interview from her Zürich studio, Swiss media artist Pipilotti Rist describes the inspiration and meaning behind her work Your Brain to Me, My Brain to You and the National Museum of Qatar’s presentation of her first installation in the Middle East.

LIMINAL

Director: Gabriel Vallecillo Márquez (Germany)

Experimental Film, 25 minutes

LIMINAL is a dance/performance based art film experience that uses Berlin’s architecture as the backdrop for an innovative choreography exploring the liminality between here and there, and between then and now.The project stems from a dialogue between individual post-pandemic experiences of confinement and site specific locations in Berlin that have their own symbolic weight.

MABOUNGOU: BEING IN THE WORLD

Directors: Marlene Millar and Philip Szporer (Canada) Feature Documentary, 48 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 1:20pm

For over thirty years, Montréal-based dancer, choreographer, and philosopher Zab Maboungou has galvanized the contemporary dance scene. Tapping into her Franco-Congolese origin, she masterfully transforms dance with her radically regrounded conception of time, the body, and the self. Her personal and political history, her artistry, and her pioneering research of rhythm-cultures are acts of empowerment that have created a sense of place for other African dancers in Canada and abroad.

MARCEL DUCHAMP COMES TO PASADENA

Director: David Grabias (United States) Feature Documentary, 56 minutes, , In-Person 6/1O, 7pm

In 1963, Marcel Duchamp, considered to be the father of conceptual art, was photographed in a tiny museum playing chess with a nude female model. This film tells the story behind this iconic image: How Duchamp agreed to hold his first-ever career retrospective in Pasadena at a time when the city was considered a remote artistic wasteland. And how the opening night party became a defining moment for generations of Southern California artists who would go on to change the world of art.

NIEBOSCIAN. FREEDOM LIVES IN A HEAD.

Director: Jagoda Turlik (Poland)

Music/Performance Video, 5 min, In-Person 6/1O, 12:35pm

This film is a short story about actual imprisonment and a mental sense of freedom. About enduring daily routine and finding the courage to decide to escape from it. About the fact that the boundless sky lives in our head. We just have to allow ourselves to see it.

OF SIGHT AND SOUND

Director: Maia Wechsler (United States)

Short Documentary, 34 minutes

OF SIGHT AND SOUND reveals the remarkable collaboration between painter Ford Crull and composer Brandon Ross. We see the creation process of these two artists whose work together unfolds at a pace and with an intention that is unfamiliar to most of us. Crull and Ross set out to explore what happens when they harness the power of the present moment in a live performance setting to connect more deeply to one another—and to their own sense of wonder and imagination.

PERMISSION TO LAND

Director: Martin Gerigk (Australia)

Experimental Film, 3 minutes

This is an experimental film which uses a nervous, disquieting, yet beautiful approach to explore its concepts: War. Fragility. Conformity. Intuition. Digitalization. Dichotomous decision paths. What would we do if we were given the freedom to direct possibilities?

PHOTO CENTER

Director: David Kelly Anderson (United States) Student Film, 9 minutes

PHOTO CENTER is a profile of the Filipino-American film photographer Rey Cayetano, Jr., and the Harvey Milk Photo Center in San Francisco, California.

PULSAR (presentation of VR films is TBD)

Director: Gabriella Hoffman (United States) Virtual Reality Film, 35 minutes

PULSAR is a VR experience, a symphonic space journey in three parts which invites visitors to affect the flow of time and create their own narrative while witnessing galactic events, co-creating solar systems based on the rhythms, textures, and colors of universal frequencies.

SANCTUARY OF HER

Director: Geoff Poister (United States) Short Documentary, 26 minutes

Two identical twin sisters from Iran create mesmerizing paintings that reflect a major conflict in their lives. Physically, they are two people. But psychologically, they feel they are inseparably interconnected. So the sisters invented a single persona in an imaginary space created within their paintings. This imaginary persona cannot exist in the real world, yet has taken on a life of her own, and appears to be guiding the future of the twins in real life.

SELF-PORTRAIT ARTIST

Director: Curtis Whitear (United States) Short Documentary, 12 minutes

Jim Williams is a reclusive artist with a singular obsession: recreating himself, in all mediums. Now nearing the end of his life, he begins to disassemble his ultimate self-portrait, the home where he has lived alone for the past twenty-five years. As Jim removes his likenesses, which have been painted, plastered and carved into every corner of the house, the film explores the delicate boundary between an artist’s work and himself.

STANDING STRONG: ELIZABETH CATLETT

Director: Kevin J. Kelley (United States)

Feature Documentary, 56 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 2:15pm

This standout film reveals the struggles and triumphs of Elizabeth Catlett, an influential Mexican/American artist and political activist who was a pioneer in the Black Arts movement.

STATIC (presentation of VR films is TBD)

Directors: Annis Joslin and Sarah Cole (United Kingdom) Virtual Reality Film, 12 minutes

STATIC is a short VR experience film that takes the viewer into different emotive spaces; a lonely home, a frantic woodland, and an ominous landscape of pylons, floating memories, and dancing bears. The central character, a woman isolated and confined in her home, seeks to get out. A sense of voyeurism creates an ambivalent experience that poses questions of agency and complicity.

SUMMER WITH HOPE

Director: Sadaf Foroughi (Canada)

Feature Narrative, 100 minutes

This film examines the pressure-filled expectations put on a new generation, as they explore newly discovered freedoms. The story follows a young swimmer, Omid, his mother and his uncle; the fate of each rests on one vital upcoming swimming competition. The stakes are high and the consequences of failure are heavy. Set against the backdrop of a traditional patriarchal society where things that contradict accepted norms are met with fierce-yet-cloaked resistance, this is a classic tragedy of real-world proportions.

TATSUMI ORIMOTO: A COSMIC CHAOS

Director: David Bickerstaff (United Kingdom)

Short Documentary, 30 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 6:25pm

Controversial Japanese artist Tatsumi Orimoto is famous for his 'Breadman' performances and a series of deeply intimate works made with his elderly mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's. Told in his own voice and through his many sculptures, drawings, and performances, Tatsumi's extraordinary story raises difficult questions about what art can be and how we respond to it. Through his highly individual and provocative work, he challenges the fine line between private life and public action.

TAYSIR

BATNIJI: NO CONDITION IS PERMANENT

Director: Aimen Jan (Qatar)

Short Documentary, 9 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 7:55pm

Titled after an Arabic proverb used to describe the ever-changing nature of circumstance, NO CONDITION IS PERMANENT is both an archive of Batniji's multi-disciplinary work, and a testament to the ways art can serve as resistance to the destruction of war. A contemporary exploration of the Palestinian condition, Batniji tells us about the journey that culminated in his solo exhibition at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar.

THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR WORLD

(presentation of VR films is TBD)

Director: Yu Sakudo (Japan) Virtual Reality Film, 30 minutes

THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR WORLD is a VR experience film about Takashi, who lost his eyesight in grade school. Though he can recreate the world in his mind, he is losing interest with fewer things to enjoy. One day while at an event together, Takashi gets into a fight with his friend Shinji, and they become separated. Takashi looks for him, falling into a darker state of mind. Takashi finally finds Shinji and eventually learns how to enjoy the world with his imagination.

THE BLOOM

Director: Jody Xiong (China)

Experimental/Short Doc Film, 5 min, In-Person 6/1O, 2:10pm

For the 2022 Winter Paralympic in Beijing, Chinese artist Jody Xiong created a technologically-powered art installation to express the strength of the disabled. For this project, 12 disabled people were outfitted with brainwave-controlling devices that captured their EEG activity. Through a biometric algorithm, this EEG activity was converted to signals that triggered an external detonating device, which exploded paint-filled balloons onto a huge canvas, later displayed at the opening ceremony.

THE COSQUER CAVE: FROM SHADOW TO LIGHT

Director: Jean-Claude Flaccomio (France)

Short Documentary, 52 minutes

In October 2020, an exceptional project started in the heart of Marseille: at the entrance to the port, in the Mediterranean villa, carpenters, construction contractors, and visual artists worked together to build the replica of the Cosquer cave, a major site of Paleolithic cave paintings.

THE EXCEPTION OF HISTORY

Director: Yo-Wen Mao (Taiwan)

Experimental Film, 25 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 12pm

THE EXCEPTION OF HISTORY examines memory, history, and nature through the chronological and fictional constructs of images in a real world setting. This cinematic exploration is a visual and conceptual delight. The perceptions accumulated while walking in nature become the video record, while the narration and subtitles that lead to the construction of the narrative are transformed into various symbols. This haunting and rewarding experience unfolds slowly but remains a mysterious enigma.

THE EYE BEGINS IN THE HAND

Director: Yehuda Sharim (United States)

Short Documentary, 16 minutes

THE EYE BEGINS IN THE HAND (El Ojo Comienza En La Mano) is a tribute to campesino histories in rural California through the artwork of an artist largely absent from critical conversations on Chicanx art, Ruben A. Sanchez. It is also an unsentimental reckoning with the fate of many cultural workers that struggle between paying rent and pursuing creative endeavors.

THE VOYAGE

Director: Itamar Wexler (Israel)

Feature Documentary, 71 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 3:45pm

The Wexler family leaves Germany when the Nazis come to power, but without their mother, Sonia. The director, Sonia’s grandson, aims to find out what really happened to her. As he searches, he learns that his father, grandfather, aunt, and uncle were in on the deception, and he keeps uncovering new and shocking surprises and insights along the way. It begins with his curiosity, full of reluctance and apprehension, and ends with understanding, completion, and a humble attempt for repair.

SPECIAL THANKS

FAFF Partner and screening venue

Beyond Baroque

FAFF Partner and Vimeo tech support

Jim Quan/Big Pieces Company

Trailer editor Waseem Marzouki

Catalog design/social media graphics

True Design @trueartanddesign

Special Jurors Doralisa Meriste

Stu Rapaport

Tracy Windham

And to all our staff, volunteers, jurors, and filmmakers–you’ve helped make a FAFF 2023 one to remember!

VICTORIA

Director: Dulcinea Langfelder (Canada)

Feature Narrative, 75 minutes, In-Person 6/1O, 5:10pm

Victoria, age 90, has lost her memory. For her, time does not exist and memories are as real as the present. A shadow of herself, Victoria is like a stage performer who’s forgotten her role; a kind of puppet, adapting herself to comic, dramatic and poetic situations as they present themselves. Her wheelchair becomes her rocking chair, her prison, her tango partner, and even her flying chariot. This unforgettable journey into the world of the irrepressible Victoria leaves a lasting impression.

WINTERAGE: LAST MILK

Directors: Lucy Cash and Mark Jeffery (United Kingdom) Experimental Film

The 1000-year history of a farm in rural Doveridge, Derbyshire, UK, entangles with the singular life of queer Chicago-based artist, Mark Jeffery. Parsing the vernacular of Mark’s East Midlands childhood—hedge-laying, tending to cattle and land— Mark’s choreography brings forward the mineral and animal in all of us within a film composition that considers connections between place, language, loss and movement.

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FAFF thanks to our PARTNERS and SPONSORS for their strong support, and to everyone that helped make FAFF 2023 happen for our 10th year!