Program II: NIRVANA

Or, If Heaven Is So Much Better Than Hell, Why Is It So Much Harder to Describe?
(85.30' TRT)

Cul en Air / My Levitating Butt

Pierre Yves Clouin,
3.30', BETA, 1999, France

The magic of cinema enables the humblest of body parts to realize its dizzy dreams of flight.
Clouin's prize-winning videos have been broadcast on ARTE and exhibited in venues such as the Sao Paulo Museum of Image and Sound, British Film Institute, Los Angeles MoCA, Guggenheim Bilbao, and Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC.

The Color of Love

Peggy Ahwesh,
14', 16mm, 1994, USA

Peggy Ahwesh operates on the deteriorating surface of a hopelessly inept '70s porn film and will not stop until desire and eroticism decay to the point of the sublime.

Peggy Ahwesh came of age with 70's feminism and the experimental film underground. She works in film, video and digital media and teaches college for a living. In 1997, Ahwesh had a mid-career retrospective ("Girls Beware!") at the Whitney Museum, NY.

Teekond Nirvanasse / The Way to Nirvana

Mait Laas,
16', 16mm, 2001, Estonia

Trains, TVs, assorted gurus and a giant poppy reveal to us detours on the road to nowhere, in an eternal and feverish feedback loop back to somewhere.

Mait Laas (1970) studied design and animation at Tallinn University and at the Vienna Advanced School for Fine Arts. Way to Nirvana received the first prize at the Oberhausen Int. Short Film Festival and was nominated for Best Estonian Film.

Pommes d' Amour / Apples of Love

Nicolas Provost,
5', BETA, 2002, Belgium.

Cut in half and mirrored, images by Alain Resnais and Ingmar Bergman blossom into Freudian palindromes of narcissism in which attraction increases, the closer you come to disappearing up your own body.

Born in Renaix, Belgium (1969), Nicolas Provost studied at the Saint-Lucas Academy and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Gent. He now lives and works in Oslo and Ghent. His work ranges from video installations to experimental fiction films.

plan-c

by plan-c,
5', BETA, 2001, Austria

The production line is presented as a possible venue for ritualized work processes. A repetitious, almost tormenting soundtrack reinforces the monotony of the action. (Dietmar Schwarzler)

plan-c = Harald Holba (1977), Manuel Maxl (1976), Elke Mayr (1977), Ines Weber (1975). They are all students of Visual Media, at the University for Applied Arts, in Vienna.

Exposed

Siegfried Fruhauf,
9', 16mm, 2002, Austria

The action unfolds not in between, but through the film strip's perforations. Roaming, multiplying peepholes caress the flesh of both voyeur and the object of his gaze, bringing them together in a double-exposed ecstasy.

Siegfried A. Fruhauf (1976) was born in Grieskirchen, Austria. Since 1995, he is a student at the School of Design, in Linz. His film "Blow Up" played at last year's Orgasmic Cinema.

In Order Not to Be Here

Deborah Stratman,
33', 16mm, 2002, USA.

A suburban nocturne symphony in which empty spaces bottle up the potential for crime and punishment, building pressure to an inevitable escape. Gorgeous photography probes the romance of safety only to reveal the dangers in romance.

Deborah Stratman is a filmmaker and artist from Chicago who has recently been hanging out with tightrope walkers and attempting to erect free public radio towers.