AVIFF has been presenting films at the Cannes film festival for 13 years – a third “voice” between cinema and audiovisual, cinematographic work and contemporary art. In 2021 AVIFF curated a special selection of winning films from their first festival decade. The selection of films is not suitable for children
A‘Dad
2016 | Austria
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
DADA, father of anti-art, is 100. This film is a dance with Dada on its centenary. Watch with caution because the present leaves traces in the past!
Director: Robert Cambrinus
12 mins
PG-13
Alchemy on the Amstell (III)
2019 | Slovenia
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
Cinematic travelogue through the Underworld dreamed by the river Amstel. If in the first two parts – Alchemy On The Amstel (I,II) water serves as a liquid mirror, visual oracle that reflects Parallel Universe of the Amsterdam city, then in the Alchemy Of The Amstel (III) the power of the river and key of narration lies in her memory and her absence.
Director: Janja Rakus
21 mins
PG-13
Atlas
2015 | Finland
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
Referring to the different meanings of Atlas as a map and an illustration, as the cervical vertebrae that support the head, and as the Titan in Greek mythology who was condemned to support the sky on his shoulders, the essay film Atlas takes the forms of a travelogue and a correspondence. The film explores both the loss and search for an identity that is scattered in – and endlessly transformed by – the shifting and changing landscapes the narrator is thrown into.
Director: Eeva Siivonen
22 mins
PG-13
Femen (Naked War)
2014 | France
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
A philosophical and artistic reflection on Femen, a graphic film that seeks to see what may not be in the images. For a year, Joseph Paris filmed the Femen movement from the inside; its acts, its shocks and confrontations, its fumes and its noises, but also its circumstances, its doubts and sometimes its contradictions. A year at the heart of an overexposed activism in the mass media, where its underlying reasons have remained silent or sometimes erroneous.
Director: Joseph Paris
61 mins
PG-13
Le Dispositif (Pieces of Men)
2008 | France
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
Le DISPOSITIF is a program of 52 films of varying lengths of explanation, orientation and conditioning. In today’s world man appears in many pieces. This film proposes a rearrangement of the different ‘human’ pieces by an electric current which brings back the ‘second memory’. The device has been the subject of numerous screenings, Galerie Eof, La Maroquinnerie, Center Pompidou, Espace Ricard … and two retrospectives in Paris, at the Palais de Tokyo in 2009 and at the PCF in 2010 as part of the Festival Politiques 0.
Directors: Thomas Berthay & Pacôme Thiellement
50 mins
PG-13
Les Diaboliques-Remix
2018 | France
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
Christina and Nicole murder Michel and throw him in the swimming pool, but the body disappears… Les diaboliques-remix entirely restructures and reassembles Clouzots’ psychological masterpiece in order to conjure up the films’ surrealism (with the agreement of the Clouzot family).
Director: Hugues Sanchez
44 mins
PG-13
Lothar
2013 | Switzerland
Every time Lothar sneezes, things explode. To protect the world, he locks himself in an underground house, isolated from the outside world. One day, an accident occurs. Despite all the care he takes, he breaks his beloved toaster – a gift from his mother. The broken toaster forces him to leave his residence. Soon after taking the risk, Lothar puts the world in great danger.
Director: Luca Zuberbühler
14 mins
PG-13
Não É Normal (Not Normal)
2019 | United Kingdom
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
The epic return of Maria Alice Barbosa (Dona Alice), now blind, at 93 years old, to Porto after 87 years of her migration to Brazil – to dance, at sunrise, her own choreography of Bolero, from Maurice Ravel. This is a true happening constructed in another temporality that may be explained by the Portuguese word “desova” and maybe can be understood in the flow of the film: a time which is fragmented, liquid, cluttered, immeasurable, juxtaposed and multiple.
Director: João Villas
12 mins
PG-13
Ouvre les Yeux (Open Your Eyes)
2008 | France
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
28 Frenchmen dressed in white are in front of a white wall. Their eyes are closed; a hand waiting for a surprising object: a weapon … The discovery of the object and what it carries amazes, disturbs and awakens their senses.
Director: Pascal Lafay
13 mins
PG-13
The Lovers
2010 | South Africa
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
Transcending the limits of a love story, The Lovers transports viewers to a post-apocalyptic setting with classic 1920s allure. A man and a woman explore their relationship in a metaphorical context, alluding to the art of René Magritte through a daliesque landscape. The film leads viewers to use elements of surrealism. Austere cinematography and symmetrical framing add to a picturesque experience. The story remains open to individual subjective interpretation without compromising a strong narrative element.
Directors: Thomas Dorman & Ronnie Belcher
10 mins
PG-13
The Towers with Porno Voices
2014 | China
Screening made possible by AVIFF (best 10 films of 10 years)
An experimental audiovisual exploration of Shanghai towers as phallic erections.
Director: Yang Zhen Zhong
4 mins
R
