Jerusalem Film Festival, Jerusalem Cinematheque 2
The Israeli Video Art and Experimental Film Competition has become a tradition at the Jerusalem International Film Festival. Held for the eighth consecutive year, the competition continues to be one of the central platforms in Israel for the presentation of contemporary video-art and experimental film. The international framework of the Festival is an extraordinary occasion for the exposure of new developments in this field to international audiences. The collaboration between the Jerusalem Foundation, the Ostrovsky Family Fund, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, and Mamuta at the Daniela Passal Art & Media Center is an indication of the great interest the competition has aroused—not only in the artistic community, but among the many institutions and individuals who have committed themselves to its success. The response to the call for submissions was overwhelming—nearly one hundred submissions from veteran and new artists. Seen in their entirety, the nine works chosen constitute an intriguing and finely-executed corpus whose technical and aesthetical aspects are even more refined than in previous years. This year two prizes will be awarded: a first prize in the amount of 6,000 NIS from the Jerusalem Foundation, and a second prize of 4,000 NIS from the Ostrovsky Family Fund. We would like to thank all of our partners—the selection committee, members of the jury, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Ostrovsky Family Fund, the Jerusalem Foundation, and the staff of Mamuta, for their support in the development and production of the Competition and the exhibit opening, and to all of the artists who submitted their works. We wish the best of luck to all the artists whose works will be screened in the competition.
Lea and Diego – Sala-Manca Group (Directors of Mamuta at the Daniela Passal Art and Media Center)
The Program:
A FREE MOMENT • Nir Evron • 2010 • 4’
The work was filmed in Tel al-Ful, an 840-meter-high mountain north of Jerusalem, where stands an unfinished structure: the summer palace of King Hussein, whose construction was halted during the ’67 war. The film is an investigation of forms and substance that consolidate in the noting of a single act in a single location.
MORDECHAI & ME • Tamar Nissim • 2010 • 4’20”
The sculpture of Mordechai Anielewicz is at the center of the film, while a woman with hair up and wearing a robe scrubs and soaps him. Under her hand it is not clear whether he is a man or a child.
3 FEARFUL DAYS • Dafna Shalom • 2010 • 12’56”
Dancers in a series of movements whose iconography alternates between combat and sacred dance, a dialectic of perpetual, iterative proximity and distance. Through the circular camera movements, the martial art resembles a secular rite establishing a connection with nature.
ABDUCTION • Ohad Fishof • 2010 • 8’34”
“Based on an eponymous sci-fi story. Here, it is man who abducts the alien, and not vice versa.” The film and the story are a second part in a series of works, “Hoon,” which describes characters, sites, and events in the imaginary town of Hoon.
6853-NGC • Keren Yeala-Golan • 2010 • 10’
A clinical investigation conducted on mechanical and organic hybrid creatures. A meticulous operation generating combinations and transformations of substance and form in a species that is not of its own kind. A grotesque futuristic laboratory feeling.
RED SCARF • Nadav Bin-Nun • 2010 • 8’
A girl sweetly sings a song in Portuguese. When she asks to stop singing, the director replies that she must keep on singing for the film.
BLACK AND WHITE RULE • Maya Zack • 2011 • 15’
The film is about humankind’s attempt to impose order and form on reality through processes of domestication and discipline. Poodles on a giant chess board obey orders while their movement is supervised.
GOLD DIAMONDS • Shahar Marcus • 2010 • 7’11”
Raw diamonds undergo a process of polishing during which they are transformed, through chemical means, into gold diamonds. The process of sacrificing the diamond to produce gold is contrary to economic logic but is an important stage in the artist’s journey.
GRAY BLACK WHITE • Yifat Bezalel • 2011 • 2’45”
A place that nobody owns. I believe that physical and metaphysical places exist within us and that we operate on an axis between conscious and unconscious worlds. I have decided to research ancient places (that are nonexistent) and the idea behind them.
Length of program: approx. 75 minutes
