A screening program curated by Juliet Jacques

About

The screening takes place during a late opening of the show with free entry for all. The evening includes a special guided tour by Andrea Bellini, director and curator of the show (at 6pm) as well as a performance by Marianna Simnett (at 7pm), ending with the screening in the Cinema Dynamo at 8pm.

The films selected deal with metamorphosis in a range of different contexts. In the first all-animated film ever made, Émile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie (1908), it appears in the literal shifting of one shape to another, as it is also does in Portuguese artist António Palolo’s Metamorphosis (1968) – a triumph of abstract filmmaking. In several, including Stéphane Marti’s Allegoria (1979), David Wojnarowicz’s Beautiful People (1988) and Body Double 35 (2017) by Brice Dellsperger, gender play is the basis of transformation, as familiar films and forms are overturned through cross-dressing, glamorous set design and sharp soundtracks. Feminist artist Valie Export uses a stand-in for herself in Syntagma (1983), challenging our way of looking at embodiment, while Slovenian filmmakers Marina Gržinić & Aina Šmid consider the impending nationalist wars in Yugoslavia in Bilokacija (1990), using digital technology to re-render images of violence in Kosovo. Elsewhere, the School of Theory and Activism in Bishkek (ShTAB) turns old postcards into evidence of a lost queer-feminist commune in Soviet Kyrgyzstan in Queer in Space, showing how we can transform the past as well as the present.

Film program

ÉMILE COHL
FANTASMAGORIE
1908

ANTÓNIO PALOLO
METAMORPHOSIS
1968

STÉPHANE MARTI
ALLEGORIA
1979

VALIE EXPORT
SYNTAGMA
1983

DAVID WOJNAROWICZ
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
1988

MARINA GRŽINIĆ & AINA ŠMID
BILOKACIJA
1990

SCHOOL OF THEORY AND ACTIVISM IN BISHKEK (SHTAB)
QUEER IN SPACE: KOLLONTAI COMMUNE ARCHIVE
2015

BRICE DELLSPERGER
BODY DOUBLE 35
2017

TINA TAKEMOTO
WAYWARD EMULSIONS
2018