Lo schermo dell’arte Film Festival 11th edition

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13

Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea
6.00 pm
EXHIBITION OPENING
European Identities. New Geographies in Artists’ Film and Video
The exhibition aims to show the variety of cultures and nationalities through works by artists based in Europe. The selection reflects a new European artistic identity developed in recent years by institutions that have arranged travel and residencies for young artists.

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER, 14

Palazzo Strozzi, Sala Ferri
11.00 am – 1.00 pm / 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
VISIO Artists’ Presentation
The participating artists introduce the fundamental themes of their artistic practice in a 15-minute presentation at in Florence.

Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea
11.00 am – 7.30 pm
EXHIBITION
European Identities. New Geographies in Artists’ Film and Video

Cinema La Compagnia
7.00 pm
FESTIVAL TALK
Lecture Peter Greenaway. The Open Air
British director Peter Greenaway, author of The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), The Belly of an Architect (1987), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Nightwatching (2007) present the project of his next movie, Walking to Paris, the story of twenty-seven-year-old Costantin Brancusi’s 1903-1904 journey on foot from his native Romania to Paris, where he became a major figure in twentieth century art.

9.00 pm
100 Piper. Breve storia del Piper di Torino (1966-1969) in 100 frammenti  by Rä di Martino, Italy, 20’
Preview in the presence of the artist
100 Piper is Rä di Martino’s new experimental documentary about Turin’s legendary Piper Club. The artist interprets the atmosphere of the famous disco in a personal key, through a reactivation of archival materials and a collection of unique memorabilia from those who experienced the club first-hand.
The film was produced as part of the project Artissima 2017 PIPER. Learning at the Discotheque, by Paola Nicolin for The Classroom.

9.40 pm
Zeus Machine  by Zapruder, 2018, 77’
Preview in the presence of the artists
This film began as a multi-channel installation project divided into 12 episodes dedicated to Hercules. In invoking the multifaceted surface of his myth, each episode opens a glimpse into new territory: an ever-changing undertaking that celebrates the hero’s legendary labors, in unusual and current declensions. The characters are mainly ordinary people who connect with Hercules, in amusement and seriously, and want to go all the way. They’re authentic interpreters of the heroic call, in constant tension between the summit of Olympus and the earthly sphere.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15

Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea
11.00 am – 7.30 pm
EXHIBITION
European Identities. New Geographies in Artists’ Film and Video

Cango Cantieri Goldonetta
3.45 pm
FESTIVAL TALK
Rä di Martino
Italian artist Rä di Martino speaks about her artistic practice that revolves around the investigation of the relationship between cinema and visual arts.

Cinema La Compagnia
6.00 pm
Witkin & Witkin by Trisha Ziff, Messico, 2017, 93’
Italian premiere
The Witkin twins describe each other before Trisha Ziff’s camera. One is a painter, the other a photographer, but their work is united by an obscure style and a shared interest in themes such as death and sickness. Their works were exhibited together for the first time at the Cuatro Caminos museum in Mexico City in 2016, when this film full of intimate and reflective tones was shot.

7.40 pm
FOCUS ON Rä di Martino
in the presence of the artist
Film programme:
Between, 2001, 6’
La camera, 2006, 10’46’’
August 2008, 2009, 5’14’
Copies récentes des paysages anciennes, 2012, 8’20’’
Authentic News of Invisible Thing, 2014, 5’24’’
Poor Poor Jerry, 2017, 7’

9.00 pm
Ceremony by Phil Collins, UK, 2018, 67’
Italian premiere in the presence of the artist
Phil Collins, a British artist nominated for the Turner Prize in 2006, digs into the history of Manchester, and embarks on a journey in search of German philosopher Friedrich Engels, who co-authored the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx in 1848. When an intact statue of the thinker is found in a small town in Ukraine, Collins decides to transport it across Europe for placement in the centre of Manchester, where Engels lived and where his political thinking matured.

10.20 pm
White City by Dani Gal, Germany, 2018, 25’
Italian premiere in the presence of the artist
Israeli artist Dani Gal questions how the memorization of personal and collective history originates. White City centers on Arthur Ruppin, a found- ing father of Zionist thought, whose interest in the science of race explains an early 1930s visit, staged by the director, to German anthropologist Hans F.K. Günther, who later influenced Nazi racial thought.

11.00 pm
Jaar, Lament of the Images  by Paula Rodríguez Sickert, Chile, 2017, 77’
Alfredo Jaar, who presented his film Le Ceneri di Pasolini at Lo schermo dell’arte in 2009, returns as the protagonist and narrating voice in this beautiful film by director Paula Rodriguez. The documentary uses archival materials and footage from the Chilean artist’s studio and home, spanning over 40 years of his career. He talks about the modalities of his work, focusing on some of his best-known projects.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16

Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea
11.00 am – 7.30 pm
EXHIBITION
European Identities. New Geographies in Artists’ Film and Video

Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Sala Pistelli
3.45 pm
FESTIVAL TALK
Feature Expanded: Touching the Real. Documentary in Contemporary Art Practice
In collaboration with In Between Art Film and Città Metropolitana di Firenze
The panel reflects on how contemporary artists use documentary cinema as a privileged medium to explore and narrate the world around us. Some of the artists attending the Festival will participate in the discussion: Gabrielle Brady, Phil Collins, and Jumana Manna, the talk will be chaired by Sarah Perks.

Cinema La Compagnia
6.00 pm
SuperDesign. Italian​ ​Radical​ ​Design​ ​1965-1975 by Francesca​ ​Molteni​ and Maria Cristina Didero, Italy, 2017, ​63’​ ​
in the presence of Maria Cristina Didero
SuperDesign traces the history of the Italian radical movement, which revolutionized the concept of design and architecture. Through interviews with its protagonists, including Archizoom Associates, Piero Gilardi, Studio 65, Lapo Binazzi, Superstudio, Gianni Pettena, and archival materials, the film reconstructs a season of artistic turbulence and critical utopia in which architecture and design were reinterpreted, and became instruments of social criticism.

7.20 pm
Wild Relatives by Jumana Manna, Germany, Lebanon, Norway, 2018, 69’
Italian premiere in the presence of the artist
Young Syrian girls in refugee camps in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, work as seed pickers in wheat fields belonging to ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas). In 2013 ICARDA transferred its global seed bank in Longyearbyen, Norway. The American artist’s film addresses the debated environmental issue and opens a space for reflection on biodiversity, resilience and climate change.

9.00 pm
Kusama-Infinity  by Heather Lenz, USA, 2018, 76’
Italian premiere
Yayoi Kusama is almost 90 years old. After 30 years in a psychiatric institution in Japan – she suffered from hallucinations, obsessive-compulsive obsessions and depression as a child – and after at least two decades of anonymity, the Japanese artist is now considered one of the greatest figures in the contemporary art scene. The film consists of interviews with friends, collaborators, scholars and colleagues in the art world, and contains numerous excerpts from her diary and letters, including those she sent to American artist Georgia O’Keeffe when she was very young.

10.30 pm
Moriyama-San  by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, France, 2017, 63’
in the presence of Ila Bêka
Yasuo Moriyama, Tokyo urban hermit, has never left his native city. He lives in an important example of contemporary Japanese architecture, by architect Ryūe Nishizawa. The film chronicles the time spent by Ila, one of the film’s two authors, in Yasuo’s company. In his small world, far from the idea of Western comfort, Mr. Moriyama devotedly performs his daily rituals.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17

Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea
11.00 am – 7.30 pm
EXHIBITION
European Identities. New Geographies in Artists’ Film and Video

Cinema La Compagnia
6.00 pm
The End of Fear by Barbara Visser, The Netherlands, 2018, 70’
Italian premiere in the presence of the producer Bart Haensel
One of the worst crimes in contemporary art history was the destruction of Who is Afraid of Red, and Yellow and Blue III, a painting by American abstractionist Barnett Newman. In 1986, a man entered the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam with a knife and slashed the large canvas to shreds. More than twenty-five years later, Barbara Visser reconstructs the story through archival materials, Newman’s voice, period interviews with the museum’s then-director, as well as critics, art historians, museum employees, and the vandal himself.

7.30 pm
New Palermo Felicissima  by Jordi Colomer, Italy, 2018, 21’
in the presence of the artist
The artist (who represented Spain in the last Venice Biennale) returns with a new project, commissioned by Manifesta 12: a boat tour of Sant’Erasmo cove, near Palermo. On board, city residents follow a foreign guide, actress Laura Weissmahr, who recites texts by local writer Roberto Alaimo into a microphone. A tongue-in-cheek visit to a part of the city neglected for years, never mentioned by public authorities and omitted in tour-guides.

9.00 pm
Feature Expanded > Award Ceremony

follow by
Island of the Hungry Ghosts  by Gabrielle Brady, Germany, UK, Australia, 2018, 94’
Italian premier in the presence of the artist
Christmas Island is a small Australian protectorate in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Each year 50 million red crabs migrate from its inland jungle to the sea. On the same island, thousands of migrants seeking asylum are held indefinitely in high-security facilities. The director closely observes the trag- edy of people subjugated and made powerless by the authorities, separated from their loved ones by force.

11.15 pm
Art in the XXI Century: Berlin by Rafael Salazar e Ava Wiland, USA, Germany, 2018, 56’’
Berlin has become a reference point and a refuge for artists from all over the world, a free zone where experimentation, individual expression and influences of all kinds converge. In this film we see Swedish artists Hans Berg and Nathalie Djurberg; Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, famous for his projects involving space, light and natural elements; Iraqi artist Hiwa K, whose short film Pre-Image (Blind as The Mother Tongue) was presented by Lo schermo dell’arte in 2017; and Scottish artist Susan Philipsz, winner of the Turner Prize in 2010.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18

Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea
11.00 am – 7.30 pm
EXHIBITION
European Identities. New Geographies in Artists’ Film and Video

Cinema La Compagnia
6.00 pm
The Price of Everything by Nathaniel Kahn, USA, 2018, 99’
Italian premiere
The film investigates the transformation of the art world into a multimillion-dollar market through interviews with artists – including Jeff Koons and Larry Poons, and curators, as well as collectors and art dealers: a superficial world where old and new works are sold at prices ten times higher than they would’ve brought fifteen years ago. But can art really be evaluated with money?

7.45 pm
Monelle by Diego Marcon, Italy, 2017, sound, 16’
in the presence of the artist
Young girls lie asleep in the Casa del Fascio, in Terragni, near Como. Disturbing animated CGI figures are presences intent on mysterious activities. A flash illuminates the surrounding space: images appear until they are cast into darkness again.

10.20 pm
Blue by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France, Thailand, sound, 2018, 12’16’’
Italian premiere
A woman lies awake in the middle of the night. Outside is a set with theatre backdrops that represent two alternating landscapes which depict the state between dream and reality. In this short surreal film, Apichatpong condenses themes of his cinema, simulating a scenario in which the painted landscapes represent the possibility of changing what we see when asleep and awake.

8.35 pm
Who Was the Last to Have Seen the Horizon? by Driant Zeneli, Italy, 2018, sound, 6’15”
in the presence of the artist
Five characters lost on the horizon, afloat in an alien, dark and silent environment. Zeneli’s moving images bring dreams from the collective imagination to life.

9.00 pm
VISIO > Young Talent Acquisition Prize

follow by
Love, Cecil by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, USA, 2017, 98’
Italian premiere in the presence of the director
Oscar-winning photographer-writer Cecil Beaton embodied the most significant cultural and political changes of the 20th century. The director of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict gathered archival materials and photographs for this documentary: a sincere portrait of a complex personality and a unique talent.