High Winds & Slippery Surfaces (UK) by Pernille Spence, Corinne Jola, Zoë Irvine

 

Synopsis: A fleeting body fights to maintain control of their movement as they find themselves in an unstable and unpredictable environment. The film experiments with the friction between physical action, sound and space to awaken the kinaesthetic sense of the viewer. Repeated disruption in the flow of action and sound together with the abrupt changes between involuntary and choreographed movements creates a dark, unsettling viewing experience as the sonically immersive environment takes the viewer beyond the screen supporting a greater sense of awareness of the space surrounding them. Running time: 00:01:00.

 

About the director: Corinne Jola is a choreographer and scientist, based in Scotland. Through her comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, her work encourages a meaningful, deep dialogue between dance and science. Pernille Spence is an artist based in Scotland who has been creating performance and moving image works since the mid 1990s. Her work often explores a visual dialogue between the human body (with objects/materials), movement and space, and the body’s physical/psychological limits and constraints with in these parameters. Zoë Irvine is a sound artist and sound designer, and a lecturer for sound in film on MA and BA film courses at Edinburgh Napier.

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Once There Was III (USA) by Nina Mcneely

 

Trailer

 

Synopsis: 3 women bound to a shared soul oscillating between the throes of brutality and piety. A visceral display of true sisterhood- they suffer together, thrive together and bleed together. Running time: 00:06:34.

 

Selections/awards: Boston Short FF (Best Music Video), Brussels Independent FF, and more.

 

About the director: Nina McNeely is a storyteller, provocateur, and a creator. She is a choreographer, visual artist, director, creative director, and animator. Nina is madly in love with people, and finds no greater pleasure than studying the human condition. Throughout her career, Nina has been fortunate to work with Björk, Gaspar Noé, The Weeknd, Rihanna, Foo Fighters, Sam Smith, Alicia Keyes and black midi to name a few - all legends in their own right.

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Heart of the Earth (USA) by Lindsay Gilmour

 

Synopsis: A short dance film exploring the natural world through the conduit of the human body Running time: 00:07:36.

 

About the director: Lindsay Gilmour is a performer, choreographer, filmmaker, and educator. Her work explores presence, ritual, and rebellion--fusing text, voice, and the moving body. She combines the mystical, political, and absurd, both honoring and poking fun at the human condition. Her most recent works delve into embodying local landscapes and our need for wild untamed spaces.

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Du sang du singe (Belgium) by Alex Orma

 

Trailer

 

Synopsis: New music video for La Jungle where the ‘dancing plague’ is taking hold of the residents of Brussels. It all starts with a bad cough and turns into uncontrollable, zombie-like spasms. Álex’ reference is the Black Death, a mysterious event in the 16th century. A virus causing people to dance non-stop until they eventually died from a stroke or exhaustion. Much like La Jungle’s track, the rhythm settles very quickly in the brain of the listener and brings them into this frantic state. Running time: 00:04:55.

 

About the director: Born in Burgos (Spain), Alex studied Film Direction in Belgium at the IAD (Institute of the Arts of Broadcasting). He works as a director for TV and film. He has also directed music videos for Stake, Le 77 or Sonic Tides.

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Au Mur de La Mer (Belgium) by Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern

 

Trailer

 

Synopsis: A duet that follows the inevitably intertwined rumblings of two humans. Set against the raw landscape of coarse cliffs and green-algae coated boulders at Pas-de-Calais, France, Au Mur de La Mer imagines regret as a frontier borrowed from our own future. The duo stumbles, soaked and soiled, through fading remnants of Hitler’s terrifying Atlantic Wall at Cap Gris-Nez. They pull and tear at one another, crudely easing the other’s fall and helping each other stand once more. Set to the natural soundscape of the cold ocean tide and howling autumn wind, and featuring the striking and solemn Astrid Sweeney and Jonas Vandekerckhove, Au Mur de La Mer leaves us with one eye full of sea water, the other eye full of sand. Running time: 00:04:18.

 

About the director: Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern is a Berlin-based freelance choreographer and director who emphasizes humanity in his work. Following a seven year tenure creating and performing in NYC with Pilobolus Dance Theatre, he moved to Belgium where he has spent four years as a lead performer and choreographic assistant of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Shawn has been a creative contributor for three Grammy Award nominated dance films and an Academy Award winning motion picture.

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The Blue Knight (Germany) by Gustavo Gomes

 

Synopsis: Dance Film Performance. A young boy, hidden in a room for years, training for a day X. A strange creature by his side. An obscure group around them. And a big plan that shall change everything. This fairy tale is concerned with the topic of right wing terrorist Preppers and the role of the media in information framing. Due to the corona-pandemic 'The Blue Knight' became a hybrid of film and dance performance. Running time: 01:27:30.

 

About the director: Gustavo Gomes is a performer, choreographer and film artist. Nominated with the Ballet of Difference for Der Faust as best dancer in Germany in 2020. He has worked with artists such as William Forsythe, Jacopo Godani, Richard Siegal, Marie Chouinard Roy Assaf and others. His work explores themes of communication, restriction, sexuality and behaviour through movement. Receiver of the NRW Kunststiftung Art Prize for his research project “Frames for Extended Proximities” Gomes' has been interest in developing speech though dance and to incorporate body into social political issues at stake. In the field of cinematography Gomes´ performance for the camera is usually incorporated in his staged works. His films work in the dialog between a framed moving image and the movement in front and in the back of the camera.

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