Paradocs
Moments of Silence Mats Bigert, Lars Bergström
Sweden, 2014 DCP, color / black-and-white, 14 min Director: Mats Bigert, Lars Bergström Editing: Dino Jonsäter Production: Mats Bigert for Bigert & Bergström Screening Copy: Swedish Film Institute Involved TV Channel: SVT
Mats Bigert & Lars Bergström: Last Supper (2005) Life Extended (2008) The Mouse (2011) The Weather War (2012)
The world isn’t always in motion. There are times when the chaos disappears, times that usually last only minutes. Pedestrians stand still, road traffic stops at the side of the road and everyone turns their attention to a single thought: remembrance of the dead. Out of respect for the lives of others, the living pause their own lives for a moment. Moments of Silence gathers together a series of these moments to create a memorial to collective memory. In Central Park following the murder of John Lennon in 1980, in Stockholm after the murder of Olaf Palme in 1986, in Istanbul at the remembrance of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and in Japan after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe in 2011, we witness the shared moments of silence that transcend culture and era. These moments serve the collective need for a shared memory of tragedies affecting humankind, so that loss and grief can be acknowledged and digested. But these scenes of almost ritualistic behavior of silent crowds also show that, when faced with adversity, we are indomitable – we have no choice but to carry on.
RekonGrodek
Devin Horan, Margherita Malerba WORLD PREMIERE
Germany, Poland, 2014 DCP, color / black-and-white, 18 min
Devin Horan:
Director: Devin Horan, Margherita Malerba Cinematography: Devin Horan, Margherita Malerba Editing: Devin Horan, Margherita Malerba Sound: Margherita Malerba Production: Devin Horan Screening Copy: Devin Horan
devinhoran.carbonmade.com Margherita Malerba:
Boundary (2009) Late and Deep (2011) directing debut
RekonGrodek is the first in a series of experimental films about Austrian expressionist poet and pharmacist Georg Trakl, who died at 27 amidst the horrors of war in 1914. A pulsating soundtrack intensifies a maelstrom of images, suddenly accelerating, then interrupted. Images of love and pain flash past as in a trance: a face as a screaming landscape that appears and disappears in sequences combining archive footage with excerpts from stories. The Grodek of the title was the place in Ukraine where Trakl was stationed during World War I, when he was driven into an exceptionally severe depression by the misery surrounding him and attempted suicide. Initially he was unsuccessful, but shortly afterwards he died of a self-administered cocaine overdose in a hospital in Krakow. “Grodek” is also one of Trakl’s last poems, written in Krakow.
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