CONNECTIVITY THROUGH CINEMA PRESENTS:

BALTIC EXPERIMENTAL FILMS
A selection of contemporary films from Baltic Region
Curated and presented by Ieva Balode (BAL) in person.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 9TH @ MONO NO AWARE : CINEMA ARTS NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
33 FLATBUSH AVENUE, BROOKLYN NEW YORK - LIMITED ATTENDANCE TO 28 - MASKS STRONGLY SUGGESTED
DOORS 7PM – STARTS PROMPTLY AT 7:30PM – $5 SUGGESTED DONATION – FILMS, DRINKS & DISCUSSION.

TRT, 44 minutes. Additional time for discussion / Q & A with artist Ieva Balode IN PERSON
Join us in welcoming Latvian artist and organizer Ieva Balode who will be sharing a program of moving image work from the Baltic region

PROGRAM INCLUDES:

Center Fugue. Roberts Vanags
 Latvia / 2021 / b/w / sound / 3’ 20’’ / 16mm >> digital

There was only one picture hanging on my piano teacher’s wall — a portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach. It was through his creative work that I became familiar with the fugue — the highest form of polyphonic music. It consists of several voices that follow a certain tonal plan with one or several themes winding through all of the voices. I carried this principal of winding and repetition over to the visual realm – I edited the footage I captured on an 8 mm Bolex camera following these same ideas, at the same time playing around and experimenting with time. We are centric beings that the world we’ve created orbits around, repeating itself in different themes that interact with each other. Depending on the setting, we feel time a little differently each day. Each from our own centre. Each at our own pace. “Center Fugue” is a reflection on the complex relationship between man and spacetime.

Bonds Of Time. Henrijs Laķis
Latvia / 2021 / colour / sound / 16’ / 16mm >> digital

Not meant  to be without sorrow.
Sorrow because human cannot be human.
Year 1922 what he thought. What do they think now.
He comes home to ask for water and his mother no longer knows him.
What's the difference?
A century has passed and nothing has changed

Père au ciel / Father In Heaven. Kei Sendak
Latvia / 2021 / colour & b/w / sound / 4’ 30’’ / 16mm >> digital

It takes half an hour to an hour to dive into a completely different scenery when taking the train. The time transformation between place and movement captures an overheard conversation between two people discussing family, religion and language. The viewer is brought into a haze and blur of time perception and easily overseen details of the National Belgian Railway.

The Bearers of Memories. Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė
 Lithuania / 2020 / colour / sound / 13’ 20” / 16mm >> digital

With every moment — one more memory. But memory sometimes goes blind and what is left becomes hazy.

Compos Mentis. Linda Lindenberga
Latvia / 2021 / colour & b/w / sound / 6’ / 16mm >> digital

“Compos Mentis” is an abstract voyage of thought. Sometimes the mind takes the upper hand and wants to make out every single detail, but when one is mentally fatigued everything must be let go. One must separate oneself from thoughts or the thinker, let life flow and simply live.

Thanatophobia. Ieva Balode, Michael Higgins
Latvia, Ireland / 2022 / b/w / digital sound / 11’ / 16mm>>digital

 Fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, fear of the enemy, fear of death since the beginnings of menkind have been both a driving force of humanity as well as a stumbling block. It is an instinctive force that has made humanity join up in communities in search of safety and shelter from a danger lurking in the darkness, however the finality of things is always inevitable. How does one overcome fear of their own fatality?

?  Betija Zvejniece
Latvia / 2021 / colour / digital sound / 2’ 40’’ / 16mm >> digital

What would you do if a look from an old man told you that being young is the coolest thing possible? And what should you do if you’re young but you do not know what to make of it?

Material Aspects /  Paul Kuimet 
Estonia / 2020 / colour / optical sound / 9’15” / 16mm >> 16mm 

Material Aspects is an essay film that unfolds on the desktop of an unknown collage artist working sometime on the early 21st century. Browsing through various source materials such as archival excerpts, magazines, books and photographs — the history of modernist steel and glass architecture is introduced. The film refers to the paradox Marshall Berman described in the early 1980s: the dystopian glass cities depicted in Soviet science fiction became a reality on the other side of the Iron Curtain under the conditions of the so-called free market economy. The best-known example is the transparent glass city depicted by Yevgeny Zamyatin in his 1921 novel We, in which the inhabitants are constantly monitored. The film’s medium and technique of slow cross dissolves evokes the idea of infinite transparency — of always looking through something to see its relation to something else, whether in architectural form or ideology. All of it depending on the point of view, of looking at things in a certain light. This is emphasised once the voiceover of the film suddenly addresses the viewer and tries to place their body in space and in relation to the film, it’s materiality and looping structure.

The Silva Method. Mersedes Margoit
Latvia / 2021 / colour & b/w / digital sound / 5’ 25’’ / 16mm

The Silva method is a healing meditation practice invented by Jose Silva. It aims to reach and sustain a state of mental functioning called alpha state, where your brainwave frequency reaches seven to fourteen Hz.  The information received by the projected mind is then said to be perceived as thoughts, images, feelings, smells, taste and sound..

ReaLitis. Sintija Andersone
Latvia / 2021 / colour / sound / 4’ 20” / 16mm >> 16mm

The search for balance in a noisy world. A mixture of reality and dreams

ABOUT : 
Ieva Balode is a founder of artist’s collective and film lab Baltic Analog Lab (BAL) from Riga, Latvia that gathers filmmakers and photographers working in a field of a photochemical and experimental film. As a director of Experimental film festival “Process”, she is also researching new experimental film works in the region by that trying to define the region-specific filmic language. The programme includes works by established experimental filmmakers who shoot their films on 16mm and 8mm film formats, as well as an ever-growing numbers of new authors. Many films in the programme, either directly or metaphorically reflect on the experiences that we all met during the pandemic. This reveals itself through in-depth self-reflection, anxiety, and, in the end - self-acceptance found in the films from the programme.

BAL : Baltic Analog Lab is a collective founded in 2016 in Riga uniting filmmakers and artists interested in analogue film and photography, Baltic Analog Lab aims to produce, teach and inspire an audience by providing a space for creation, learning and teaching. High focus of the lab is education and collaboration; this is maintained by regular workshops led by BAL members and foreigner guests, as well as international film school organized by the lab. It also includes film screenings and expanded cinema events. The main curatorial event of the lab is the experimental film festival ‘Process’, which happens since year 2017.

MONO NO AWARE SCREENING SERIES:
The CONNECTIVITY THROUGH CINEMA series will present the work of artists, film-makers and curators who are traveling or presenting special interactive programs in-person. Our hope is to engage the community by showing work with a focus on post-screening discussion.