Maciej J. Drygas, great Polish documentalist and father of found footage, meaning method of creating new stuff from existing movie materials, during this year's Etiuda&Anima presents his own choice of ten movies found footage. In retrospective there three movies by Bill Morrison, unquestionable master of this technique.
Bill Morrison is American artist, director and producer of experimental an documental movies, who consequently uses method found footage. On festival Etiuda&Anima we will see his three movies found footage:
„Decasia” – Bill Morrison created DECASIA entirely out of decaying, old found footage, melded to the music of Bang on a Can’s Michael Gordon, performed by the 55 piece basel sinfonietta. The result is a delirium of deteriorated film stock, a moving avant-garde masterpiece that leaves its meaning open to interpretation and, most importantly, your imagination.
Photo from the film "Decasia"
„Light Is Calling” – In Light Is Calling, a scene from James Young’s The Bells (1926) was optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon’s seven minute composition whose aesthetic fascinated Bill Morrison. We watch a decomposing film reel of a soldier who meets a mysterious woman in the woods. A state of meditation on the random and fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of an ancient film is being achieved. In Light is calling Morrison has reshooted decomposing black and white film, and the result is a dreamy, melting, light-drenched material.
Photo from the film "The Great Flood"
„The Great Flood” – The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in American history. In the spring of 1927, the river broke out of its earthen embankments and flooded 27,000 square miles. Part of its legacy was the forced exodus of displaced sharecroppers, who left plantation life and migrated to Northern cities, adapting to an industrial society with its own set of challenges. Musically, the Great Migration fueled the evolution of acoustic blues to electric blues bands that thrived in cities like Memphis, Detroit and Chicago becoming the wellspring for R&B and rock as well as developing jazz styles. The Great flood has been created as a result of the collaboration between filmmaker and multimedia artist Bill Morrison and guitarist and composer Bill Frisell. In the film, the bubbles and washes of decaying footage are associated with the destructive force of rising water, the filmstock seeming to have been bathed in the same water as the images depicted on it.
In programme we will see documentaries from Soviet Union – „The Beginning”, „The Inhabitants” and „Our Century” by Artavazd Peleshian, and „Blocade” by Siergiej Loznica from 2006. We will screen also Dutch found footage: „Mother Dao, The Turtlelike” by Vincent Monnikendam and “Maelstrom – A Family Chronicle” by Péter Forgács.
10 found footage of five authors in choice of Maciej J. Drygas
Małopolski Ogród Sztuki – Small Screnning Room
November 25th (Friday), 19.15 – „Blocade”
November 25th (Friday), 20.30 – „Light is Calling”, „The Great Flood”
November 26th (Saturday), 18.00 – „The Beginning”, „The Inhabitants”, „Our Century”
November 26th (Saturday), 21.00 – „The Maelstrom” – A Family Chronicle”
Kijów Centrum – Large Screening Room
November 26th (Saturday), 16.00 – „Decasia”
November 27th (Sunday) 14.00 – „Mother Dao, the Turtlelike”
