The Lamp in the Ceiling

The goal the protagonist of the film has set for himself seems impossible to him: to contact his former partner in order to see his own son. On a deeper level, this video essay on what is and isn't possible unifies the footage it uses - videos freely accessible on YouTube and a monochromatic yellow filter through which they are presented.

This silent portrait of a multipurpose compound that serves as a storage site, maximum security space, and luxury showroom slowly turns into a bizarre black-and-white science-fiction movie with the building as the main character. Despite its abstract nature, the meticulously composed rhythmic combination of austere, carefully framed shots lacking any other context is a fitting architectural commentary on the spirit of our era.

A compulsory stay in a Seoul facility known as Hanawon serves to prepare North Korean defectors for life under capitalism. Eight people tell of their experiences from their new lives, highlighting the challenges and prejudices that they must face in the completely different system. Their authentic testimonies are heard against the background of scenes of the bustling megalopolis.

The Memory Atlas refers to the unfinished work of Aby Warburg, a mentally ill German art historian. A surrealistic flow of ideas from his authentic writings from his stay in the Bellevue psychiatric hospital in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland commingles with the medical records of his psychotic states, tracing the border between madness and genius in one zoom out.

They are happy together, but she gets a job offer in another country and he doesn’t want to go. He tries to sway her decision in his favour by offering to marry her… In its format, the film perhaps most closely resembles a music video, but besides music it also uses poetry and dance to tell its story. Shot on an iPhone 7 Plus. 

By tradition, the head of state addresses his citizens on state holidays. Over the many decades of his reign, the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, gave many such speeches. A political study in the form of a short archival film, Ojalá reveals a persistent consistency in the well-wishes and promises of a monarchy far removed from real life.

Nomads in the seas of Indonesia say that when a women gives birth to a child, she also gives birth to its twin in the form of an octopus. A look at a cultural environment shaped by traditional folk beliefs. The camera follows a man swimming with his face submerged in the sea in a ritual honouring the octopus. Dishonouring your aquatic brother can lead to misfortune.

Saudi Arabian cinema only recently emerged from thirty-five years of being an underground phenomenon. Before it was legalized, Bentley Brown used his childhood home movie camera to record filmmakers working in the town of Jeddah. The film’s melancholy mood is underscored by the voiceover of the women who form most of the film crew.

Reality disappears before our eyes – all that remains is what’s preserved in our memories, the retelling of which allows us to bring it back to life. Camera in hand, the experimental filmmaker explores this abstract process in a stylized documentary with young boys in military uniforms and stories of war.

A young filmmaker sets off for the unknown territory of an African enclave to gather true stories of its inhabitants. Motionless scenery carries human imagination to heights where unforgettable moments of human life unfold. The meditative character of the film’s imagery captures the unique atmosphere of Lesotho. 

This short accompaniment to the intermedia project Serial Narratives reveals the real price of cheap goods from China. The testimony of an anonymous worker harmonized with hypnotic images draws attention to the frighteningly elaborate choreography as all phases of manufacturing process undergo rigorous mechanization.

This politico-aesthetic essay is based on found footage from the filmmaker’s family archive. The horrifying parallel between horse breeding and the Nazi racial ideology takes on sharp contours thanks to the dry commentary and the montages of seemingly meaningless, coldly real images, which do not allow the film to drop down to the level of a mental or emotional exploitation of the topic.