August 11–12
MIEFF film festival presents the works of filmmakers and video artists who work at the junction of artistic practices. The festival's objective is to contribute to the development of experimental cinema as a space for interaction between cinema, music, theater and contemporary art.
Curated by Vladimir Nadein, Rita Sokolovskaya.
Admission is free of charge. The films are screened in their original languages with russian subtitles.
August 11, 7:30 PM, Temporary Pavilion
A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness
From pagan re-enactors to failed communes, black metal festivals to Arctic hermits, and the forever Golden Hour to the Northern Lights, A Spell to Ward off the Darkness is an inquiry into the possibilities of a spiritual existence within an increasingly secular Western culture. A participatory ethnography in the best possible sense, the film choreographs the actions of non-actors within existing Scandinavian landscapes in an effort to arrive at a hybrid document of the past, present, and future; it is a record of experience that proposes belief in transcendence as a viable outcome of living in the now. A Spell to Ward off the Darkness is the first collaboration of British artist Ben Rivers and American film director Ben Russell. The world premiere took place at the 2013 Locarno Film Festival.
Directed by Ben Russel, Ben Rivers. France, Estonia, Germany, 2015, 98 min.
August 12, 4:30 PM, Temporary Pavilion
Five shorts by Ben Rivers present a series of portraits of unconventional lives – of people existing, to varying degrees, in wilderness or isolation. Rivers’ films are compassionate and elliptical, ambiguous documents of both the reality of life outside urban norms and our own Romantic preconceptions of a life beyond bounds. The programme includes This Is My Land, Rivers’ first portrait of Jake Williams, later the subject of Two Years At Sea.
The Coming Race
A hand processed film in which thousands of people climb a rocky mountain terrain. The destination and purpose of their ascension remains unclear. A vague, mysterious and unsettling pilgrimage fraught with unknown intentions. The title The Coming Race is after a Victorian novel by E.G.E. Bulwer-Lytton , about a race of people who live under a mountain.
UK, 2006, 5 min.
This Is My Land
A portrait of Jake Williams – who lives alone within miles of forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jake always has many jobs on at any one time, rarely throws anything away, is an expert mandolin player, and has compost heaps going back many years. He has a different sense of time to most people in the 21st Century, which is explicitly expressed in his idea for creating hedges by putting up bird feeders. It struck me straight away that there were parallels between our ways of working – I have tried to be as self-reliant as possible and be apart from the idea of industry – Jake’s life and garden are much the same – he can sustain himself from what he grows and so needs little from others. To Jake this isn’t about nostalgia for some treasured pre-electric past, but more, a very real future.
UK, 2006, 14 min.
A World Rattled of Habit
A day trip to Suffolk, to see Ben and his dad Oleg.
UK, 2008, 10 min.
Origin of the Species
A film begun as a portrait of S, a 75 year old man living in a remote part of Inverness-shire. S has been obsessed with Darwin’s works for much of his life. Since a child he has wondered at life on Earth and, though he never became an academic, found in Darwin many answers to his questions. The film images concentrate on the mysterious geography of his world; his garden – from the microcosmic to the grand; the contraptions and inventions he’s made; his isolated patch of land where he has built his house after a life of travelling and working around the world. The soundtrack has S heard discussing his take on life on Earth and humans place upon it. The film attempts to span from the beginnings of the world up to an uncertain future.
UK, 2008, 16 min.
Ah, Liberty
A family’s place in the wilderness – living, working, playing on a farm throughout the seasons; free-range animals and children, junk and nature, all within the most sublime landscape. The work aims at a sense of freedom, the scale of which is reflected in the hand-processed Scope format. There’s no particular story; beginning, middle or end, just fragments of lives lived.
UK, 2008, 20 min.
