November 4, 5, 6 | Romanian Cultural Institute

moving cities - DANCE FILM WORKSHOP with Jevan Chowdhury

A unique creative workshop with Jevan Chowdhury, Creative Director of Moving Cities and Wind & Foster.

 You will have the opportunity to interact in a small group learning the technical and philosophical approach that Jevan takes to explore ideas, emotions and stories through movement. Together with Jevan you will investigate different approaches to shooting dance film: structured vs. improvised.  The workshop interweave practicals and theory analysing audiences, exhibition and some of the common and not so common approaches to making dance for film.

Jevan is the founder of film and advertising studio Wind & Foster. He has 15 years experience in managing and creating broadcast and digital advertising. He is a board member for Visiting Arts and currently Creative Director of Moving Cities, a film project that has since 2013, captured the vibrancy of world cities through dance. Jevan presents world cultures headfirst in a thoroughly dynamic, engaging, surprising style. His work in London, Paris, Prague and Athens has earned accolades with nominations in Sweden, Spain, the US and the UK. His stories rely on capturing improvised and raw moments in time and is currently featured in cinema and media publications including LenCulture, Yatzer and Cinedans Festival.

SHEDULE: November 4, 5 (7:00 pm - 10:00 pm), November 6 (10:00 am - 1:00 pm)

See Jevan's films.

MOVING YEREVAN by Jevan Chowdhury

November 6 | Cinemateca Union

1896, New York, Edison exhibits the first vitascope with which he projects the umbrella dance of the Leigh sisters.  Ever since then, body movement has been a constant inspiration for filmmakers, while the camera became a strong creative tool for coreographers. Dance film was born and has developed along other film genres. It was always present, dedicated to evolution and documentation and has always remained open to collaborations between artistic fields. In 2015 dance film is a phenomenon that conquers all continents. It’s time for Bucharest to take part in this movement. 

54 films, 27 countries, 3 festival days. 

Bucharest International Dance Film Festival is dedicated to films that tell their story on several layers, to bodies that defy the laws of gravity, to hallucinating images. It’s dedicated to recent history and technological evolution. From the 350 films submitted in the festival competition, we selected stirring productions that ask questions about politics, social life, human relations, hidden dreams and memories. They are tied by a cryptical, playful and exciting structure, almost like a treasure hunt through images filled with meaning. We live with one foot in the future so we break yesterday’s frames and enjoy a rollercoaster of sensations as we learn to live with less words and more action.

— 7pm —

FESTIVAL OPENING & guests

— 8PM —

DOCUMENTARY LONG (OFF COMPETITION)

NOVEMBER 7 | CINEMATECA UNION

— 2 PM —

ACTION & [RE]ACTIon _ international SHORT FILM COMPETITION

A collection of smart films, in which the movement of the body and of the camera come together to tell stories about losing memories, moral values and sexuality. The body becomes a medium of deep emotions and drama seen on a personal level or as a common state of a society. Every action that we take has a reaction in time and space, changes our life in one second, like an accident of faith, altering our bodies and filling them up with unspoken states.

EDIFICE

13' | Turkey | 2014

D: Irmak Karasu

C: Hazal Kiziltoprak

A dance film that tells the story of a woman's revolt against the moral values imposed by society. In the film, all the characters question the social trauma inflicted upon their bodily memory.

VECINAS

11:17' | Belgium | 2015

D: Natalia Sardi

C: Natalia Sardi

Partly autobiographical , ” Vecinas” is a story of two solitudes that will approach by the laws of magnetism.

MISTER Y

6:53' | France | 2013

D: Joris Favraud

C: Joris Favraud

Driven to the hospital in a critical state, a man will progressively fall into odd dreams in which the body is an obsession. Plunged into a world of rhythms, movements, a world were dance is the centerpiece, he will try to overcome his frustrations. But caught up by reality, his universe becomes more and more strange, dark, disturbing and on the brink of malfunction. Mister Y: that is his name.

SONS DU SERPENT

11:15' | The Netherlands | 2015

D: Tami Ravid

C: Feri de Geus

Son du Serpent tells the story of the feverish quest of a modern African man to find his lost wife.

HYDRA

2:35' | Germany | 2015

D: Florence Freitag

C: Alexandre Munz

The HYDRA plays with what is, what was and what could be. The HYDRA is the forgotten high-lines, meandering and moving like dead through the houses and streets of Paris; it is the nature that conquers the city and goes there where humans don’t anymore, because they forgot and the HYDRA is a Human who, like the others too, tries to find a way out, but never can.

TONIGHT

10:01' | Romania | 2015

D: Lara Ionescu

C: Ioana Marchidan

"Tonight" follows the story of a woman in search of her freedom. By unleashing her past and the misjudgement of her own identity, shaped either by society or by personal relationships, she decides to discover her own path way. "Tonight" is a moment of reverie, a moment of decision, a jump cut to a new, honest version of her own femininity. Through the quest for a passion we all seek within ourself, the character peels off all layers and takes a closer look at who she really is. 

METUBE

04' | Austria | 2013

D: Daniel Moshel

MeTube, a homage to thousands of ambitious YouTube users and video bloggers, gifted and less gifted self-promoters on the Internet, has attracted international attention. No less than George Bizet’s Habanera from “Carmen” has been reinterpreted for MeTube and enhanced with electronic sounds. Behind the cross-over of musical styles are director Daniel Moshel as well as opera and oratorio tenor August Schram. 

SALT

12' | Norway | 2014

D: Maria Lloyd

When you shatter your fantasies the pain may be crippling or transformative. You will want to go back to the fantasies because you will never be sure whether you have really broken free. The film mixes stop frame animation with dance, puppetry and live action. It is filmed in the amazing underworld of Wieliczka salt mines outside Krakow in Poland. 

INTRINSIC MORAL EVIL

10:45' | The Netherlands | 2013

D: Harm Weistra

C: Fernando Domínguez Rincón

Intrinsic Moral Evil seems to be a tale of identity and coming of age. But above all, the three dancers play with the viewer’s perception and expectations. The layered story gradually develops, revealing its last secrets just before the end credits start, inviting the audience to make their own interpretation. 

SU MISURA

1:10' | Italy | 2014

D: Augenblick

C: Augenblick

A tailor, his wife. A day like any other: old and new customers, one after another. Then she enters. Suddenly a glimpse, a mistake... and there’s already a stitch to remove: one more word and the elbows will lightly touch. The rhythmic, repetitive gestures of the craft become a dance, now. The motif sewed on the dress takes the form of a movement, of a fantasy that are tailor-made. But this glimpse of desire springing from the line of the mountains falls down after only one minute, like a pin on the floor. It’s the effect of a short choreography, the dancing effects of a memory. 

KINTSUGI

4:30' | Italy | 2014

D: Apotropia

C: Apotropia

Scars are links to the events that caused them. Very often these events are traumatic. Kintsugi, which means "golden joinery", is the Japanese technique of mending broken ceramics with gold filled resin. Every repaired ceramics has a unique and irreplicable pattern of golden lines due to randomness of the crushing. This technique has its roots in the belief that the object is more valuable and beautiful with its history revealed. Bodies also tell us their story. Some of them say it loud. 

SINK OR SWIM

10' | The Netherlands | 2014

D: Michiel Vaanhold

C: Jaakko Toivonen

In an otherwise deserted swimming pool, a group of boys play a game with its own rules and hierarchy. The boys continually goad one another into going another step further. Newcomers Yinka and Glenn first need to prove themselves. How far will they go to gain a position? Will they lose sight of themselves and their friendship? In Sink or Swim they dance like their life depends on it. 

TAMPOPO REDUX

8:20' | Canada | 2015

D: Alan Kohl

C: Mistaya Hemingway

Welcome to the kitchen of Tampopo Redux- an alternate reality where movement and taste collide. Dancers explore the sensuality of food in a discovery of the kitchen and the senses. 

LAY ME LOW

8' | Canada | 2015

D: Marlene Millar 

C: Sandy Silva 

Lay me low opens a communal space of experience through mourning by bringing people together in song and movement: individual voices are woven together to make one song, steps are taken in rhythm to make one walk. Lay me low is a traditional Shaker song performed by 10 dancers, musicians and singers and it cuts right to the heart to communicate a universal feeling of loss while evoking a paradoxical sense of intimacy. 

I WANT

4' | Greece | 2014

D: Aliki Chiotaki 

C: Virginia Alizioti 

“хочу” – “I want” in Russian - is that element, the call of soul that, when concealed deep within us, becomes a ghost and then asks for our attention ... intimately. It is energy flow in the wrong direction, will without a duty to our authentic self. 

KNOCK

5:15' | Australia | 2013

D: Thomas Pollard and Nathan Smith 

C: Alisdair Macindoe 

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room as three boys spend a sleep over telling each other scary stories. A cross over occurs between a fictional man's life in solitude and the future of one of the boy's very own reality. 

CRUSHING WEIGHT

3:38' | Brazil | 2014

D: Vinícius Cardoso 

C: Irupé Sarmiento 

This is a visual poem that goes from decay to light. It's a soul that walks this abandoned place. A spirit that passes and is no longer there. It is the transcendence represented by ballet in the chaos. Even in the moments when she is very powerful, all moves have an ambiguity. This film talks about rawness, whereas this is about doubt. 

— 4:30 PM —

MIXED MEDIA _ international short film competition

Dance may be the most versatile art of all. It lets itself influenced by so many other art forms. This group of films is all about experimentation and sincretism: animation, drawing, fashion, technology. The screen multiplies, changes shape, splits in smaller screens, contains questions about what dance may be, develops abstract concepts and plays with rhythm and shapes.

SO DO YOU THINK YOU CAN UNDERSTAND CONTEMPORARY DANCE?

2:30' | U.S.A. | 2013

D: Gabrielle Revlock

C: Gabrielle Revlock

An informative and humorous contemporary dance primer. 

HANG ON, CARRY ON

1:06' | The Netherlands | 2015

D: Michiel Vaanhold 

C: Erik Kaiel 

Finding a soulmate is the one thing you need to remain sane. 

DANCING CITY

4:47' | UK | 2014

D: Dougie Irvine 

Dancing City brings together professional artists, communities of people and everyday occurrences and interactions to create an alternative perspective of themselves, their City and of dance.

YOU CAN TAKE THE STREETS AND RULE THEM BECAUSE WE ARE OF THE SKY

13' | Canada | 2015

D: Eduardo Menz 

C: Patrick Lloyd Brennan 

“If I can’t dance, I do not want to be part of your revolution”, Emma Goldman’s 1931 radical statement silently hovers over these streets as nameless revolutions stir. A dancer’s interpretation and ode to the several civilian uprisings of recent years past. 

DEVIL MAY CARE

2:10' | Germany | 2014

D: Volker Heymann 

The USA are easily willing to solve political conflicts by military means. But when its own people are threatened by increasing weather disasters like Katrina, no effort is made to change that. The global warming is being driven further on. This is the statement of this ironical music clip. 

YUKI

3' | Germany | 2014

D: Johan Planefeldt 

C: Yuki Tanji 

A sensorial journey somewhere between Tai Chi and Kung Fu.

STAFF

6:26' | 2015 | Germany

Staff is a filmed version of a set of choreographed movements. Elements are the exchanging of wooden staffs and appropriated fragments of folk dance and minimal dance. 

SINGLE # DOUBLE # TRIPLE

8:53' | Italy | 2013

D: Apotropia

C: Apotropia

"Single # Double # Triple" is a Dance Video Art project about triplicity, perception and human nature. The concept of the triad or trinity has existed over immeasurable time and throughout the world. It appears as a widespread symbol in several philosophical, religious and scientific systems and it can be interpreted as a key to the integrity and interdependence of all existence. 

SAMBA #2

2:40' | U.S.A. | 2014

D: Rosane Chamecki and Andrea Lerner 

C: Rosane Chamecki and Andrea Lerner 

In SAMBA #2, chameckilerner chose to have one samba dancer filmed in extreme slow motion, dissecting this iconic Brazilian cultural manifestation that reveals Brazil’s most profound physicality, the “samba”.

PAS

3:11' | U.S.A. | 2013

D: Charli Brissey and Courtney Harris

C:  Charli Brissey and Courtney Harris

This short parody extends on ballet's tendency to embody animal imagery. 

CRITICAL MASS

4:50' | Germany | 2015

D: Peter William Holden 

C: Peter William Holden

Robotic hats Choreographed to dance to Wagner's "Ride Of The Valkyries".

HANDS

3:37' | Portugal / Greece | 2015

D: Stelios Mavriogiannis 

C: Sara Toscano 

5 arts, 4 countries, 3 minutes, 2 hands and 1 message against intolerance were put together to create “HANDS”, a poetic dance-video about the struggles of the victims of exclusion. Here, the hands – tokens of our actions - reflect the loneliness of the victims of hate, the struggle for a better life and the hope in a society where gestures can support our dreams instead of shredding them. 

SKIZM

4:25' | Hungary | 2013

D: Marcell Andristyak 

C: Ida Szűcs Dóra 

Skizm is an experimental dance film. Its central topic is the exploration of the rhythm, possibilities and changes of those emotions and processes which happen in the human mind. 

KID BIRDS FOR CAMERA

11:16' | France | 2015

D: David Daurier and Eric Minh Cuong Castaing 

C: Dylan Crossman and Eric Minh Cuong Castaing 

The children from this school don't speak the same language, so they dance. How does dance by Merce Cunningham, choreographer of abstraction, comes into confrontation with the instability of the childish body today? From school playground to the black box, from day-to-day to pure sensory movement, Eric Minh Cuong Castaing and David Daurier are crossing dance & motion capture, to capture the essence of the movement of the children as it turns into pure light particles. 

TRACCE NASCOSTE

15:17' | Italy | 2014

D: Filomena Rusciano

C: Filomena Rusciano

Signs at the border caught only by a careful look waiting. Footprints left by silence emerge on the surface of the body to form an imaginary map; an echo of the emotional past . Weaving gesture reveals the physical permeability and seeks suspended traces that cloak the daily life. Imperceptible sedimented noise. 

DRAWING BLANK

6' | Canada | 2013

D: Stefan Verna 

C: Emily Honegger 

Drawing Blank is a dream-like story of impermanence told through dance and stop- motion painting. The main character, performed by dancer and choreographer Emily Honegger, discovers a magical property inside a discarded ink sketch. A miniature dance partner comes to life and inspires movement in the paper and ink world around her.

CARBOGRAMA

5:58' | Columbia | 2015

D: Damián Alquichire 

C: Alejangra Gissler 

Carbograma is the result of an experiment in which multiple arts converge: music, dance, drawing and video. The starting point is the continual movement of Alejandrei Gissler, an improvisation within which her body becomes the means to convey the sensations of every minute. Her movements are recorded by Damián Alquichire and processed instantly, at first as photographs, then as drawings, attempting to reveal the material passing of time- the central theme of the work.

TWITCH

5' | Canada | 2015

D: Jules de Niverville 

C: Michael Watts 

Twitch chronicles the life-pulse of a creature in conflict: its stirrings/twitching/convulsions, its agonizing missteps and battle with demons; an ode to overcoming dark energies that lie within. 

CIRCLE

4:25' | Turkey | 2015

D: Ozgur Can Alkan 

C: Ziya Azazii

Repetition, division, reproduction; the circle of life. Birth, life and death is represented by the whirling of a dervish, contemporary dance and videography. 

* to be confirmed

— 7 PM —

[In]side and [Out]side the Body _ international short film competition

We all come from a place that defines us as human beings with consciousness. This last group of films are related to the concept of space, seen as a place to live in, a virtual meeting point, a metaphor or a psychological trigger. These stories come with different layers of poetry and irony about the inner and the outer self.

THIRST

10' | Canada | 2015

D: Franie Éléonore Bernier 

C: Franie Éléonore Bernier 

In the desert, beneath the beating sun, this woman wanders exhausted and bruised. Her path is littered with various psychological and physical challenges. This will lead to what will eventually be her emancipation or her demise. 

ECHO

1:21' | The Netherlands | 2014

D: Nicola Balhuizen Hepp 

C: Nicola Balhuizen Hepp 

An older man confronted with his ageing body. He loses himself in dancing and, by doing so, he once again feels young. 

NORMAL DAY

20:40' | Greece | 2015

D: Andi Xhuma 

C: Andi Xhuma 

In this short film we are looking at the life of White, a young man who comes back from work. Frustrated by his everyday life, he keeps commenting on everything that is happening to him. When he enters the house we meet his 3 colors or personalities that are always there to visualize his thoughts, feelings but also the external inputs that he experiences and receives. 

N87HP PRIORY ROAD

6:25' | UK | 2014

D: Léa Tirabasso and Jesus Ubera 

C: Léa Tirabasso 

N87HP Priory Road is a ride on the merry‐go-round of love and habits, a crumbling nest, a story on the decline, a place where lovers hold onto their fantasies to survive. We are left with ourselves and our ongoing rituals. Bodies and minds crash into each other revealing the primary impulses of human beings, exploring the hidden sides of our mind and the predominance of unconscious patterns in our life.

GONE

15:59' | Iceland | 2014

D: Helena Jonsdottir and Vera Sölvaldóttir 

C: Helena Jonsdottir 

Who is living your life when you are not there?
Gone is a humorous little thriller that gives us an unusual insight into one man’s journey into the dance of life. 

ZELE

6:16' | UK | 2015

D: Marine Besnard and Danilo Moroni 

C: Marine Besnard 

How being driven, passionate and open to new circumstances or events, such as approaching someone, can help fulfil one’s potential. An encounter can provide an individual with new strengths and perspectives to overcoming various challenges or opening up to unforeseen possibilities. 

GLOBE TROT

4:35' | U.S.A. + 22 countries | 2014

D: Mitchell Rose 

C: Bebe Miller

An international crowd-sourced dance-film project, as 50 filmmakers on all seven continents each shoot two seconds of dance by choreographer Bebe Miller. 

5 DAYS OF MY LIFE

8:57' | Greece | 2015

D: Sioras Deligiannis Giorgos 

C: Sioras Deligiannis Giorgos and Papadopoulou Maria 

The main characters of the film interact in a symbolic way with each other, starting from their childhood dealing with their sexuality and driven to the inevitable fate of their existance. 

SOLARLIOD

8:15' | Germany | 2015

D: Torsten Lippstock and Julia Maria Koch 

C: Julia Maria Koch 

Solarliod is inspired by a poem of the Eddas, an important collection of Nordic mythology from the 13th century, which is mainly about society, faith and nature. Solarliod creates images for the apocalyptic allusions of the correspondent poem and reinterpretes them into a contemporary understanding and context. 

THERE

3:42' | Ireland | 2015

D: Ciarán Maginn 

C: Olwyn Lyons

A journey of exploration of our ever changing landscape through movement. The film was shot in several locations in Dublin city and shooting finished in Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland.

ICE, CREVASSE AND DRIFT

9:43' | Canada | 2013

D: Chantal Caron 

C: Chantal Caron

This choreographic work presents a metaphor in which ice takes on the allure of death by its coldness and resemblance to giant sea monsters floating on a mass of moving liquid, symbolising the timeline. 

A'MAR

5' | Portugal | 2013

D: Luis Fernandes 

Minding our unconscious desire to touch, the film puts into question, in a sublime way, how human beings understand the meaning of love and how they deal with separation. 

UATH LOCHANS

6:30' | UK | 2015

D: Simon Fildes and Katrina McPherson

C: Marc Brew

A video dance by Katrina McPherson, Simon Fildes and Marc Brew. A solo dancer and a physical and visceral dissection of place. Shot on location at Uath Lochans, Glen Feshie, Invernessshire Scotland and commissioned through the Water & Glass project produced by Peter Royston.

WHAT IF...?

2:39' | India / Belgium | 2014

D: Yentl de Werdt 

C: The Disha school for Deaf & Shivaji Lions School for Deaf in Mumbai 

This short movie is about communication with innocence and body language. The story focuses on slum kids born with hearing impairments. They share a little part of them filled with aspiration, hope and perseverance, which pierces through their eyes to the tip of their fingers.

LITTLE GREEN MAN

10:21' | France | 2014

D: Mathieu Lee

C: Tatanka Gombaud

Inspired by the novel written by Stig Dagerman "Our need for consolation is insatiable", Little Green Man is the inner turmoil of a man. It exhibits a revolution caused inside him. The destructive but liberating journey. This is not a dark or a bright path. It is an irrepressible desire to live. "An unpredictable journey between places that do not exist" S.Dagerman. 

NOVEMBER 8 | CINEMATECA UNION

— 5PM —

POOL PEARLS & SHORT DOCUMENTARY (off competition)

Pool International Dance Film Festival Co-presentation

HOME ALONE

2' | Israel | 2013

D: Adi Halfin

C: Adi Halfin

A sensual exploration of an abandoned space, through planned and improvised work of dancers and camera. 

SPACE NOTHING MORE

21' | Poland | 2015

D: Nikodem Wojciechowski 

C: Katarzyna Król-Woźniak, Małgorzata Werbińska and Piotr Skalski 

Void like any other perfection, is unstable. So unstable that with a little luck it can give birth to something quite substantial – the universe, star, planet or even conscious mind. Void will eventually use this as a tool to find out about its own existence.

NOVACIÉRIES

16:43' | France | 2015

D: Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, Arthur Harel and Celine Signoret 

C: (LA)HORDE 

Novacieries is inspired by the Mainstream Hardcore movement. A singer and dancers wander in an abandoned steel mill. The dancer responds to the lost beat of machinery by executing Hard Jump and Hakken figures while the singer turns a Hardcore anthem “Hardcore to the bone” into a lyrical lament.

EPIPHANY OF RETURNING

9:31' | U.S.A. / Argentina | 2015

D: Richard Shpuntoff and Benedetta Capanna

C: Benedetta Capanna

Solo dance on camera construction portraying the mind-body connection with the aim of embracing the poetry of human fragility and the urgency of its passion. 

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN

8:15' | Taiwan | 2012

D: YunTing Tsai 

C: YunTing Tsai

Betwixt and Between represents sometime in life, undecided, and somewhere between two alternatives, neither here nor there. It is close to the anarchic essence of life, neither one thing nor the other. I was in a midway position, in the middle of a period of time. A bit confused, but I was certain of leaving without any possible explanation. The exposed concrete buildings were used as a metaphor. I felt imprisoned inside a rigid and impregnable construction, not only the system but the limitations of life. It is painful to rebel directly against the walls. In order to travel, I leaned out over the iron railings instead, leveraging the power of those restrictions. With the light that this brought, I was less panicked at least, in spite of the fact of being in an uncertain situation; partly virtual, partly real; seemingly virtual and real at the same time that I could not tell. The shadows cast over my travel become the echo of an ongoing journey. 

DOCUMENTARY SHORT (OFF COMPETITION) 

SIDI LARBI CHERKAOUI

23' | Germany / Belgium | 2014

D: Michael Maurissens

C: SIdi Larbi Cherkaoui

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is a portrait of the sought-after choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, made during concurrent rehearsals for two dance pieces: the tango project Mjlonga ̧ and 4D, which brings together four earlier solos. Growing up in Antwerp, Belgium, Cherkaoui taught himself to dance by watching music videos. His works are theatrical, dynamic, music-driven productions. Cherkaoui discusses his fascinations and his approach to his work. 

BACKWARD GLANCE

7:18' | Canada | 2014

D: Jules de Niverville

C: Tentacle Tribe

BACKWARD GLANCE is a short behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of VANISHING POINTS, a dance film by Marites CARINO, featuring hip-hop dancers TENTACLE TRIBE, shot in December 2013 in Montreal.

LIVING ROOM DANCES * KITCHEN SERIES

14:42' | Canada | 2013

D: Sonya Stefan

C: Sonya Stefan

The kitchen setting is normally where juicy gossip was shared between Italian housewives drinking strong coffee. In Sonya Stefan's kitchen interview series, contemporary dancers from Montreal, Quebec and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, sip on strong coffee and discuss the process of auditioning, preparation for shows, nudity and age.

——— 7:30 PM ———

 FESTIVAL CLOSING: AWARD GALA & GUESTS

— 8 PM —

DOCUMENTARY long (OFF COMPETITION)

BEHIND THE SCENES [FRAGILE]

45:36' | Romania | 2015

D: Cosmin Manolescu and Tania Cucureanu 

C: Cosmin Manolescu 

[Fragile] is a dance performance, a choreographic installation, a performative game, a party or simply an experience created by Cosmin Manolescu based on the sparkling and fragile encounter between the performers and audience. The documentary Behind the Scenes [Fragile] captures the artistic process and the different phases of this European co-production including fragments from workshops, residencies and rehearsals in Bogliasco, Porto, Luxemburg, Riga and Bucharest.