In a time of tampered food and farming, recession scheming and unfathomable technological speeds, appreciation for nature and its untold mysteries is as strong as ever. Tomonari Nishikawa adopts a Buddhist credo in Lumphini 2552, an exhilarating montage of still photographs taken in Bangkok’s inner-city oasis, LumphiniPark. The images were printed onto 35mm film stock to form a densely layered, vigorous and dynamic portrait of plant life, in which its varied species, spectres and silhouettes are rendered in sumptuous chiaroscuro. The invigorating rhythms in Lumphini 2552 are subsumed into a tranquil image whose nightfall metamorphosis illuminates the ecological message in Nicky Hamlyn’s miniature Pro Agri – a time-lapse composition leading the charge toward enviro-enlightenment. Its simple pro-land, pro-agriculture reminder is also perfectly encapsulated in Cordão Verde, by first time filmmakers Hiroatsu Suzuki and Rossana Torres. Part poem and part documentary, the film observes farmers in the greenbelt of Portugal, not only working but living off the land, listening to its needs and rejoicing in its riches. Told with a sentient, non-obtrusive visual style that discovers still lifes at every turn, Cordão Verde exudes a sense of mature knowing and a respect for the artisanal and the authentic.
Chris Kennedy’s serene and painterly Tamalpais was filmed while perched high above San Francisco, where the city can be seen emerging from its ubiquitous fog. The majesty of the landscape materializes in relation to an easel-mounted grid, recalling the tradition of plein air perspective painting but also reversing the spatio-temporal dynamics inherent to cinema. A view through each square of the grid was filmed on 16mm, evolving a filmic structure that abides by the contiguity of space rather than the causality of time. Each shot was then printed as a film still, reconstituting the moment of time into a position in space. Bookending the programme in 35mm black and white is Karl Kels’s Käfig, an awesome archaic burlesque dance of rhinoceroses, out from their cage (käfig) and light in their step. The high-contrast, positive-negative juxtapositions mash up notions of domesticity and wilderness, confinement and freedom, and reality and representation into a grand, mesmerizing phosphorescence.
Andréa Picard
Tomonari Nishikawa was born in Nagoya, Japan, and received a B.A. from SUNY Binghamton. His filmography includes Market Street (05), Into the Mass (07), 16-18-4 (08) and Lumphini 2552 (09).
Nicky Hamlyn studied fine art at the University of Reading and currently teaches at the University for the Creative Arts in Maidstone, England. His recent films include Penumbra (03), Water Water (03), Object Studies (05), Quartet (07) and Pro Agri (09).
Hiroatsu Suzuki is a self-taught cineaste and photographer born in Kyoto, Japan. Cardão Verde (09) is his first film.
Rossana Torres works as a film editor and tutor of photography and video. Cordão Verde (09) is her first film.
Chris Kennedy is an independent filmmaker, programmer and writer currently living in Toronto. His films include Memo to Pic Desk (co-director, 06), the acrobat (07), Tape Film (07) and Tamalpais (09), which all screened at the Festival.
Karl Kels was born in Düsseldorf and currently resides in Berlin. He attended Peter Kubelka’s film class at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. His films include Stare (91), Elefanten (00), Sidewalk (08) and Käfig (09).