swiss_shorts

Friday, August 2, 9:00 pm, @ The Middle Dam

Programmed by White Frame (Stella Handler and Chantal Molleur)

still from In Uteros – Barbara Naegelin

We are co-founding members of White Frame (www.whiteframe.ch), a Basel based association dedicated to the promotion of Swiss media artists. WF initiates and implements projects and facilitates exchanges between Swiss and international artists. We are delighted to curate this Swiss special focus for the Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film. The festival’s profile corresponds with our curatorial interests. One of the main aims of White Frame is to continue to place emphasis on single-channel works. Although a strong video and experimental film tradition exists in Switzerland, there are fewer opportunities to showcase works in this genre in interesting contexts. The art world and market prefer to show installation works, and experimental film and video art are generally viewed as marginal phenomena in the world of cinema.

Our Swiss program focuses on works that are unconventional, and that push the boundaries of form and content. Interesting, most of the selected films and videos are without dialogue. Three quarters of the creators of our program are German-speaking Swiss, and these artists and filmmakers are generally less inclined than their French-speaking colleagues to explore complexities in words.

For our Swiss Shorts Program we have tapped into video art and animation pools. In their performative and experimental forms, these videos focus on human existence and experiences, concerning themselves with everyday issues, problems, dilemmas, and wishes. The animation films are full of humor, often referencing love and politics. Their production techniques range from draw-on, cutouts, or computer-animation.

For the Swiss Docs afternoon program we are presenting the film Les Reines Prochaines – Thinking Alone is Criminal as a Canadian premiere. This feature length documentary portrays artists that have been practicing for 25 years, working in performance, music and visual arts. These women were, and are still, pioneers inspiring young artists. Preceding this documentary, we are showing the short film essay No Signs by emerging artist Muriel Kunz, a performative personal narrative about everyday insanity. The juxtaposition of these two films creates interesting links between two very different generations of women artists.

In addition to our “fabulous” two programs, we are presenting the video installation of Swiss artist Max Philipp Schmid The Ghost of Happiness.

In this work, a superb encounter between a man and a woman takes place, What begins as a perfect moment mimicking a Hollywood musical, the encounter fails to find that moment, and instead leaves a sense of melancholy to stand between the two protagonists. In this installation, Schmid splendidly manipulates the image and the sound to such a degree that he frees his protagonists of the impact of time.

The inclusion of this installation in our Swiss special highlights our intentions of bridging art and film from a two to three dimensional experience with The Ghost of Happiness. We are delighted to partner with the Durham art Gallery for the exhibit of Max Philipp Schmid’s work.

We salute the efforts of the team of the festival and its partners to showcase experimental film, video, and installation art to the Durham community and beyond. It is extremely important to sustain cultural initiatives outside the big city centers. In our work at White Frame we strive to create interesting curatorial contexts, and to link artists’ discourses, curators’ approaches, and their different audiences on local, national and international platforms. This invitation is another collaboration that relates directly to our interests and efforts. We look forward to this exchange!

—Stella Händler and Chantal Molleur