Films

• The Centrifuge Brain Project / Projekt Wirówka Mózgu, 7'

  GER 2011, 7’

  In the 1970s Dr Nick Laslowicz studied the effects of playground roundabouts on the learning curve of four-year-old children. Larger and more powerful machines had to be constructed to study the effect on adults. “The early tests were a catastrophe. When we reached 6 g everything broke down. We lost our academic status.” But Dr Laslowicz and his partner found a way to continue, and developed the craziest rides to overcome that error of Nature, gravity. Archive photographs provide proof. A tongue-in-cheek film designed like a – too short! – TV documentary, about the abstruse extent of science. Even the viewer loses all sense of proportion.

   

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  Authors:

  • Till Nowak
• Postcard from Somova, Romania / Pocztówka z Somovy, z Rumunii, 20'

  AUT, ROU 2011, 20’

  This cinematic postcard tells not of an idyllic vacation or exciting adventures. On the contrary, time seems to stand still in the Danube Delta near Somova. Goats, a horse, dogs and cats wander about, litter lies on the ground. The camera captures the aimless movements of the animals with great attention to detail. The beauty of this “postcard” unfolds in the apparently incidental seamless observation – to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Partita for Double String Orchestra.

   

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  Authors:

  • Andreas Horvath
• On Hard Art of Strolling / O trudnej sztuce spacerowania, 48'

  ESP 2011, 48’

  Five travelogues will be shown, or we are told at the beginning of the film. Travelogues are early travel films from exotic countries and cities, and were popular in the first half of the 20th century: Shanghai before Mao, Paris between the wars, the Soviet Union during industrialisation, Japan before the invasion of Manchuria, Barcelona at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. The film takes us into the past, on a journey where everyday details play a more important role than touristic highlights – a virtual saunter through cinematic reality in black and white. See and be amazed, without a commentary.

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  Authors:

  • Ivan Garcia
• Little Afghanistan / Mały Afganistan, 30'

  FRA 2011, 30’

  Along the narrow three kilometres of the Qala-e Wahid, a street in Kabul, the horse-drawn cabs have a hard time amongst the cars. Sometimes there are collisions. The ancient business could fall prey to modernisation. Some shop owners would like to see that happen because the horses make a lot of mess. But despite their hectic lives, the drivers of the horse-drawn cabs still find time for fun – for the camera, but also just for themselves. The streets are Little Afghanistan – as the voice-over says – with all its conflicts and contradictions.

   

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  Authors:

  • Basir Seerat