The Tiger Awards for Short Films went to Ben Rivers for Things, Safia Benhalm for La fievre and Ben Russell for The Ancestors. My personal short-list was slightly different – all images and videos courtesy of the artists (thanks for making them freely available):
The Propeller Group – The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music
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Fun, slightly surreal, breath of fresh air.
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“The film, which takes its title from a Vietnamese proverb, focuses on the ceremony of the funeral wake in Vietnam, where spiritual mediums, professional criers and musicians lead these multiple day mourning ceremonies into euphoric public events.”
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Nina Yuen – Raymond
Quirky, engaging, poignant – Raymond can be viewed on Nina’s website: http://www.ninayuen.info/
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James Richards – Raking Light
I think this is the film in which James comes of age as a film-maker; an assured, compelling work. Sadly, the film’s not available online.
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Caroline Douglas’s (Director of The Contemporary Art Society) review of Raking Light, when it was exhibited at Cabinet Gallery in London in 2014, can be found here.
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Ting Min-Wei – You’re Dead To Me
“A tranquil cemetery sprawled across a dense, unruly tropical forest. We encounter a solitary, anonymous figure who sleeps on graves and wanders through the lush forest as if in search of something. The lone, mysterious character marks a sense of isolation and his movements signal a final communion with the forest and the dead before they vanish.” Ting Min-Wei.
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You can find stills on Min-Wei’s website: http://www.mwting.com/albums/youre-dead-to-me/
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From Art Forum – Shorts Circuit: Erika Balsom’s thoughts on Rotterdam
“IS THERE A MAJOR FILM FESTIVAL that takes artists’ film and video as seriously as Rotterdam? What too often figures as a marginalized sidebar emerges here as a key focus, with dozens of screenings covering the broad spectrum of experimental practice. From curated programs to installations in hotel rooms open 24/7, from gorgeous photochemical film to the wilds of digital psychedelia, from an eight-performance retrospective by Bruce McClure to the world premiere of Kevin Jerome Everson’s eight-hour Park Lanes (2015), Rotterdam had it all… [read more here]”
Courtesy Art Forum