The river, an autonomous, natural creature, a living world composed of billions of micro and macro- organisms who are sensitive and yet exposed with no protection against the human economy.
Somewhere in the waters of equatorial Asia, shrouded in a veil of timelessness occasionally pierced by the intrusions of modernity, an ascetic has set forth on a dawn-to-dusk process imbued with sacred ritual—the hunting of a shark. But is it the animal’s flesh he seeks to consume, or its soul? With sublime music and a striking graphic sensibility, Zhou Qian’s vivid, hypnotic short film introduces a director to keep an eye on.
Through an opening between reality and subtle forms of poetry, surreal scenes and disturbing paradoxes reveal infinite loops of existence. An attempt to capture the schizophrenic beauty of human existence, in which rationality is merely a subjective anomaly at the edges of consciousness. A film that rather than giving answers is inspired by questions.
In a room (a mental prison): the only way out is to enter oneself. Normal Lithium is inspired by bipolar disorder, the loss of self and hope, and the inner search for salvation. Symbols accumulate in a journey to find balance, even as those same symbols wildly invade the image.
A man, trapped in a white sheet, struggles on a bed as if drowning in a nightmare. In front of a similar sheet, in an empty movie theater, a mother breastfeeds her baby, immersed in deep silence. A silent film tells the story of a cow, marked with the number “432,” who wanders on a beach desperately searching for her missing calf. When the cow finds the dead calf, marked by the number “433,” the film dies with it: the sheet on which the film is projected falls onto the stage, enveloping the entire room in an even deeper silence. The number “433” evokes John Cage's famous silence, but here silence takes on a tragic meaning, representing the stillness of death. The same fate befalls the man on the bed, the embodiment of life within the film, whose movements cease simultaneously at the end of the film.
The video, presented as a degree thesis project, was born from the need to enhance the Pirandello Mines, a place rich in history, in Aragona, Agrigento, linked to sulfur and the figure of Luigi Pirandello, of which the family was the owner. The video is therefore born from the poetics of Pirandello’s works, combined with the suggestions of the place. There is no linear narrative but it presents itself as a dreamlike journey, also conducted following the music of Lero Lero, a band from Palermo that takes up the popular songs of Sicily.
Inspired by the writings of Jean Baudrillard, this film - shot entirely within the videogame Red Dead Redemption 2 - examines people's perception of history, in this case the Wild West period, and how it has been influenced by media representation and recreation, or perhaps how it has been entirely replaced by it.
After nearly dying in a shootout, an old sheriff is forced into retirement by his young deputy. Desperate to prove his worth a nd keep his badge, he sets out to arrest the notorious thief that almost killed him - no matter the cost.
Some dolls take to dancing. But they have obvious flaws, harmless if they did not affect their characters more than symbolically. In fact to dance are princesses, prototypes of beauty.
The film is about ordinary, everyday actions that gradually become catastrophic. Seasoned by the intense compositions of Camille Saint-Saëns, it is a reflection on symbols, emancipation, and freedom of expression.
What does it mean to leave one's home and head for unknown destinations? What does it feel like to be swept away by an uncontrollable current? Every year, millions of people in Africa leave their homes in search of a better future. Often they settle in neighboring countries; all too often they reach Libyan shores and attempt the sea crossing. But at that point there is no return; there is only moving on.
An introspective journey into troubled thoughts. A sleep always interrupted in search of a breath of peace, a whisper to life that has the eyes of death in front of a mirror. A struggle between anxiety, restlessness and calm, evoked by music composed by Claudia Ferretti and Piero Modena. The mix of animation techniques remains consistent with the idea of the uncertainty of dreams
There's a music band there that does "mouth music". Here, the mouth occupies all sound space, as much through the music as through the words of an invented language.