21G
Exposition on history and time. Once I was a prophet, now I am a magician. I wear a top hat and a smoking and I’m a professional liar.
Independent China 1
75 minutes
HAFF has special ties with China. During HAFF 2010, Chinese Sun Xun was the festival’s special guest as artist in residence. His impressive films and the exhibitions at CBKU and the Central Museum attracted a great deal of attention. Since then, he has not sat idle and made no fewer than two new films and put together scores of exhibitions home and abroad. After its world première at the Berlin Film Festival, his latest film Some Actions Which Haven't Been Defined Yet in the Revolution participates in the HAFF competition for shorts, and our Independent China programme includes his other recent film, Beyond-ism.
His passionate activity seems exemplary of the tempestuous development China is going through, in the field of art in general and animation in particular. The Independent China programme section shows work by the new generation of single-minded Chinese filmmakers and fine artists, who have been working very hard over the last two decades. They are almost exclusively young filmmakers, born after the Cultural Revolution and some even after the demonstrations on Tiananmen Square. Still, many of them turn out to be notably inspired in their consideration of the nation’s cultural history. Another leitmotif in the programme is the freedom of approach, effortlessly varying between different techniques and the eager inquiry into materials.
The programme was compiled in association with A4, Contemporary Arts Center (Chengdu, China). Various filmmakers will attend the screenings, and it is possible to chat with them afterwards. Apart from the film screenings, this programme section presents installations in the Louis Hartlooper Complex and one on top of the Neude Flat on Vinkenburgstraat: Last Experimental Flying Object by Ye Linghan.
One of the sections was compiled by Haiyang Wang. He won the 2010 Dioraphte Non-Narrative Grand Prix for Freud, Fish and Butterfly and was given carte blanche for this edition to put together a programme of his personal favourites. What drives him and what influenced him as a filmmaker? He selected work by painters, sculptors and installation makers. By the way, the festival also displays art work by Haiyang Wang himself, from Double Fikret, his latest film that has its world première at HAFF in the shorts competition, and there is a meet & greet with the artist.
This program screened as part of HAFF 2012
Showing in this program
Clouds’ Nightmare
Wu Junyong: The film begins with a glance around a square in a long-lens view, and then shows the images of reveling symbols woven together before ending with a view of total solar eclipse. Originating from sources such as allusions, fables and mythologies and using clues from political power, the video goes from illusion to nothingness, just like a tragic epic.
Editor: The film begins with a glance around a square in a long-lens view, and then shows images woven with symbols, before ending with an image symbolizing disillusionment. The work is so emotional that it is like an epic story composed of images. It is a personal imagination towards history and power, or some kind of spell or illusion.
Hululu Honglonglong Hualala
The story is about a small village. One day, the heavy rain break the people's peaceful life,
A brave child swim to the Universe, to save the world.
Ink City
Chen Shaoxiong: The creative method of Ink City is photography-painting-video, using digital recording technology-manual reproducing and filtering-time linear editing and sound. The production process is the retransformation of transformed materials, such as peeling the skin of some object, then getting rid of the flesh until only the skeleton is left. Ghrough these three media, the realities of personal memory are removed, layer after layer, and the understanding of the depth and feeling of objects are extended. When displaying Ink City as a method of video, it is both a way to end and a way to start, because it returns to reality the remembrance of painting, photography and even the object. Therefore, in a new form, it restores something of the outside world to the outside world-urban hub.
LV Forest
Temptation of the Land
The Universe Cotton
The story is a narration of a pseudoscience on cotton plantation. The protagonist waters the cotton with music and love, resulting in the greatest harvest that sky is the only way for the cotton to go. Landing from sky, the cotton turns from cloud into candies in kiddy’s hand.
