Unseen Skies di Yaara Bou Melhem, 2021
The first previews of the programme
The Focus of the 15th edition of the Festival is dedicated to Rosa Barba.
Opening night with Insurrection, Andres Serrano's film about the assault on Capitol Hill.
International art meets cinema in new productions by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Éric Baudelaire, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Mitra Farahni, Theaster Gates, Assaf Gruber, Jumana Manna, Gerard Ortín Castellvi, and Philippe Parreno.
The protagonists of the documentary films are Jesse Krimes, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hammons, the encounter between Marina Abramović and Ulay, the architecture of Leonardo Ricci, the aerospace art of Trevor Paglen and the investigation between art and politics by Juul Hondius.
VISIO Production Fund is launched
€40.000 to produce new works by young artists
Lo schermo dell’arte announces its 15th edition, renewing the annual appointment dedicated to the best and most recent international production of artists’ films and documentaries on contemporary art.
The Festival will take place at the Cinema La Compagnia in Florence and other venues in the city, offering a programme of over 30 films produced between 2021 and 2022, including international and Italian premieres accompanied by in-theatre encounters, with the participation of over 40 artists, authors and curators. This edition will also expand online, with streaming programming on Più Compagnia, in collaboration with MYmovies (until 27 November 2022).
Lo schermo dell’arte turns 15. We are happy to celebrate the next festival by announcing the titles of the programme, the Focus dedicated to Rosa Barba with screenings and an installation, and some novelties concerning production in support of the emerging generation. At our side in this journey are the public institutions and the Fondazione CR Firenze, whom I would like to thank for their ever-renewed trust in our work. Just as our gratitude goes to the private partners who have supported us for years.
At a time like this, Lo schermo dell’arte firmly believes in the social, collective and beneficial role of culture.
Silvia Lucchesi, Director
On November 15, will be inaugurated at CANGO Cantieri Goldonetta, headquarters of the National Production Center directed by choreographer Virgilio Sieni, the installation Inside the Outset: Evoking a Space of Passage (2021) by Rosa Barba. The work, presented for the first time in Italy, is produced by the Point Center for Contemporary Art of Nicosia (Cyprus) with the support of the third edition of the Italian Council.
The Italian artist is the protagonist of this edition of the Focus On that Lo schermo dell’arte dedicates every year to an artistic figure who has distinguished himself or herself in the innovative and experimental use of cinematographic language. In Rosa Barba’s case, film is a powerful means of expression to give life to cinematic sculptures that expand into the installation dimension. Her research touches on environmental, political, and social issues, in an ongoing exploration of the relationship between the landscape and human intervention. The exhibition will present five works created by her between 2010 and 2021.
On 17 November, the artist will hold a conversation with Roberta Tenconi, curator of Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan at the Aula del Cenacolo of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.
In addition to hosting national and international protagonists of art in Florence, Lo schermo dell’arte relaunches its commitment to support a new generation of talents. Among the next edition’s new features, VISIO-European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images, project curated by Leonardo Bigazzi dedicated to artists under 35 who use moving images, now in its 11th edition, changes and further develops its formula by presenting the VISIO Production Fund, worth 40,000 euros and developed in partnership with Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Prato), In Between Art Film Foundation (Rome), FRAC Bretagne (Rennes) and Seven Gravity Collection. An open call, followed by a residency aimed at Italian and international artists, will lead to the selection of four new works that will be produced through the VISIO Production Fund and presented in 2023 at Lo schermo dell’arte.
The beginning of this new path will also be accompanied by the release of the publication dedicated to the first ten years of VISIO. The book traces the history of the project and promotes the research of the 128 artists who took part in the programme and in the exhibitions organized between 2012 and 2021. The volume investigates the fundamental themes that animate the international debate in the field of moving images through texts commissioned for the occasion and conversations with artists, curators, researchers, collectors and producers involved in the project in recent years.
LINE UP
45th Parallel
by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, UK, 2022, 15’
The Jordanian artist poses the theme of the relationship between free movement and freedom of thought through a symbolic place: one of the few cross-border theatres in the world, the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, on the US-Canadian border.
A Clay Sermon
by Theaster Gates, US, 2021, 17’
With this film, the Chicago-based artist reveals the meanings of the use of ceramics in his work. Part of a larger project presented at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the film is accompanied by a soundtrack created by the artist with the collective The Black Monks.
A Flower in the Mouth
by Éric Baudelaire, France, 2022, 67’
Presented at the Berlinale 2022, it is a two-act film between documentary and fiction that starts with images of the largest flower market in the world, in Holland, and ends with a dialogue set in a Parisian café and inspired by Pirandello’s L’uomo dal fiore in bocca.
A vendredi, Robinson
by Mitra Farahani, France, 2022, 96’
Probably Jean-Luc Godard’s last appearance on the big screen, this feature film by Iranian artist and collaborator Mitra Farahani is a tribute to cinema through a long-distance dialogue between Godard and another great master of Iranian cinema, Ebrahim Golestan.
Adoration (censored version)
by Pauline Curnier Jardin, Italy, 2022, 8’56’’
It was realised on the occasion of the presentation of the LIAF – Lofoten International Art Festival at the Venice Biennale at the invitation of Francesco Urbano Ragazzi. A collaborative project by the French artist with the inmates of the Giudecca Women’s Prison.
Agrilogistics
by Gerard Ortín Castellví, Spain, UK, 2022, 21’
The film analyses the transformations of contemporary industrial agriculture by following the life of a greenhouse that during the day is an automated set optimised for production, but at night welcomes unexpected presences.
Art & Krimes by Krimes
by Alysa Nahmias, US, 2021, 84’
Artist Jesse Krimes’ personal story of redemption, from his years in prison to his recognition by the international art system and his commitment to supporting other imprisoned artists.
Back to Basquiat
by Pierre-Paul Puljiz, France, 2022, 52’
A new look at the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat through a journey in search of the identity of the legendary African-American artist, who died prematurely, between his Caribbean origins and the American scene of his time.
Foragers. Al-Yad Al-Khadra
by Jumana Manna, Palestine, 2022, 65’
This latest film by the Palestinian-born American artist highlights the contradictions of the conflict between the Israeli authorities responsible for the nature reserves in the Golan Heights and the Palestinian people who traditionally gather edible plants in those fields.
Ίκαρος (Icarus)
by Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Netherlands, Italy, 2021, 30’ 23”
The Italian artist’s first medium-length film, the work starts from the myth of Daedalus and Icarus to stage a symbolic and performative act inside the former Butterfly Pavilion in Emmem’s Rensenpark.
La Quinta del sordo
by Philippe Parreno, 2021, 40’
The French artist has created a “sci-fi” and immersive work that brings to life the house where Goya created the Pinturas negras. Made for the recent exhibition dedicated to the Spanish painter at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, the film simulates the sound that permeated the rooms of the house, in a kind of speculative architecture, and is accompanied by the live performance of an original score for cello.
Insurrection
by Andres Serrano, US, 2022, 75’
The film debut of the famous American artist and photographer, who with this film produced by a/political, continues his critical exploration of the Trump propaganda machine. In an unfiltered reconstruction of the storming of Capitol Hill, at the centre of a commission of enquiry whose results are now awaited, the author combines live footage taken from social media and found on the net with snippets of news, archive material and historical footage at a relentless pace.
Marina Abramović & Ulay. No Predicted End
by Kasper Bech Dyg, Denmark, 2022, 95′
The historic meeting between Marina Abramović and Ulay, 30 years after the end of their iconic collaboration, filmed shortly before the German artist’s death by a crew from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Ogni mattina si nasce di nuovo. Vedute poetiche tratte dall’Anonimo del XX secolo di Leonardo Ricci
by Maurizio Sazio, Italy, 2021, 37’
Film that was created in the framework of the centenary celebrations of the Florentine architect Leonardo Ricci to recount his figure and thought.
The Melt Goes On Forever: The Art and Times of David Hammons
by Harold Crooks and Judd Tully, US, 2022, 100’
It tells the story of another great African-American artist, David Hammons. The film traces his journey that began in the 1960s in Los Angeles as a student of Charles White to his arrival in New York in the 1980s and his international fame.
To Unveil A Star
by Juul Hondius, Netherlands, 2021, 53’59’’
The film revolves around the large star-shaped steel sculpture that has stood in front of NATO headquarters in Brussels since 1971: an iconic monument that opens up a reflection on the media power of images in determining our collective lives.
Transient Witness
by Assaf Gruber, Germany, 2021, 47’
It reflects on the power relations that regulate the collecting and possession of works of art, documenting both a donation, that of Eugenio Marzona’s 20th century avant-garde archive to the State Museums of Dresden, and a theft, the theft of the Saxon Treasure in the Green Vault in the city’s castle.
Unseen Skies
by Yaara Bou Melhem, US, Australia, 2021, 98’
The tale of Trevor Paglen’s research: the American artist shows how, thanks to technology, art can go so far as to explore the dimension of the sky and thus also reveal the structures of power and surveillance that dominate it.
