04.03. – 05.03.2023
ArtDoc & ProArt
In the third year of the IDFF Artdocfest/Riga in Latvia, it’s time for us to expand and think about an out-of-competition programme. Considering that the name of our festival contains the word “Art”, we decided to present our audience with a programme of the brightest and perhaps the most unexpected manifestations of creative documentaries from around the world.
These include video installations with one’s own body in the Swedish film The Body of the War and borderline genres like in the Sex Relish film which combines animation and documentary. We also included several films about art in the “ArtDoc & ProArt” programme. These are films about artists, directors, and creative personalities in the broadest sense of the word. For example, the Ukrainian film about the actress Larisa Kadochnikova who became the star of a movie made by Paradzhanov – Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Or the American film A Life on the Farm about a mysterious amateur director who filmed real horror films on his farm.
The programme will be shown at the Zuzeum Art Centre. The closing film of this programme will be a more than relevant German film Music Under the Swastika about collaboration between an artist and dictatorship. If the audience likes the new programme, we will make it an annual event. So, it all depends on you. Welcome to the festival!
Movie screenings
On March 4, at 14.00 ‘Sex Relish (a solo orgasm)’ and ‘A Life On The Farm’.
‘Sex Relish (a solo orgasm)’
In this endless pandemic era, where our sexuality has sometimes had to evolve, has been tested, women from different backgrounds offer their intimate testimonies, addressing their desires and pleasures in solitude.
‘A Life On The Farm’
When filmmaker Oscar Harding’s grandfather passed away in the rural English county of Somerset, his family inherited an extraordinary video tape – a feature-length home movie from neighbour Charles Carson, which can best be described as “Monty Python meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. But there’s so much more to the man than his bizarre videos. Charles was an inventor, an outsider artist, and a pioneer of death positivity, to name just a few of the filmmaking farmer’s achievements. Charles’ life and work are examined by those who knew him best, as well as a whole new generation of fans who have been inspired by the legacy he left behind.
Entry to the event is free with the purchase of an exhibition ticket.
On March 4, at 16.00. ‘In Light’ and ‘Music under the Swastika – The Maestro and the Cellist of Auschwitz’.
‘In Light’
This film is a visual poem illustrating an alternative way of living whose foundations lie in welcoming all and having faith in the goodness of people. Alternating archival film material with new footage, the short film grants a unique insight into the peaceful and sublime ways of the Universal White Brotherhood. Director Alice Fassi and photographer Marco Gehlhar welcome us into the life of a community of brothers and sisters whose philosophy lies in opening their hearts to the light and the greater good.
‘Music under the Swastika – The Maestro and the Cellist of Auschwitz’
Why was classical music so important to Nazis? An insight into that is provided by the stories of a Jewish cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch who survived Auschwitz and of a star conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler who worked with the Nazis. The film centers around two people who represent musical culture during the Third Reich. Wilhelm Furtwängler was a star conductor, whereas Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was a cellist of the infamous Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. The conductor made a pact with Hitler and his henchmen. The young woman, brought to Auschwitz for being Jewish, was spared death for her musical talent.
Entry to the event is free with the purchase of an exhibition ticket.
On March 5, at 14.00 ‘The body of the war’ und ’The Camera of Doctor Morris’.
‘The body of the war’ is a documentary dance which appears in the gap between Victoria’s experience of the outside environment in peaceful Sweden and the inner world full of the war in Ukraine. Her body has become the body of the war. She is searching within herself to find where the war resides. Is it stocked in the cracks, wounds of the body, hair, skin pores, feet, bends and lengths of the body? The film is divided in three chapters and locations that are linked to specific places in Ukraine. The rock on a beach brings Victoria back to houses in ruins, a wheat field on a beautiful day reminds her of the burning fields in south of Ukraine and the safe landscape and statue of the Barsebäcks power plant is a stark contrast to the reality of the Zaporizhzhia NPP which is under constant military attack by the Russian army.
’The Camera of Doctor Morris’
An eccentric pilot in the British Armed Forces and his young wife flee a devastated post-WWII Europe and arrive in Eilat, the newly founded Israel’s southernmost town. Situated on the Red Sea, at the intersection of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, Eilat was home primarily to soldiers, port workers, and released prisoners. Then the Morris Family came to town. In their own secluded paradise, Dr. and Mrs. Morris begin to build their unconventional lives. They set up a British bubble and raise their children in the heart of the desert, all the while keeping a deadly crocodile as the family pet. When a mysterious accident leads to an orphaned young girl, the family confronts a loved but forgotten ghost. Decades later, a treasure of dozens of 8mm reels – all of film captured by Dr. Morris – are uncovered hidden away in the home the family once shared. Through the archives of fully lived and filmed lives, combined with recounting from Morris family members themselves, their unusual and absorbing story unfolds.
Entry to the event is free with the purchase of an exhibition ticket.
On March 5, at 16.00 ‘PULOTA. LIDA BLINOVA’ and ‘Larisa Kadochnikova. The War’.
‘PULOTA. LIDA BLINOVA’
Lida Blinova is well-known in the scene of the first contemporary art wave, particularly amongst architects who were very much engaged in arts in 1970s Almaty. However, almost no legacy of her art practices is left for researchers, historians and following generations of today. Being in many senses a shadow-artist of a bigger star, her husband Rustam Khalfin, directors of the documentary are questioning the possibility of the freedom of choice among Kazakhstani women artists like Lida Blinova, embarking on a biographical journey through the genealogy of contemporary art and its formation in Kazakhstan. So, the fundamental question is whether Lida Blinova was a shadow artist or an alter ego?
‘Larisa Kadochnikova. The War’
Larysa Kadochnikova is a screen legend of Ukrainian cinema who played Marichka in Serhii Paradzhanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. On 24 February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she refused to evacuate and stayed in Kyiv during the offensive. The film tells the story of her life in those dire times. The story of a new reality where the past, the present, the future, memories, meditations, and dreams intertwine as the war goes on…
Entry to the event is free with the purchase of an exhibition ticket.