6 films | 73 min.

Sunday | 17 March | 17:30

Encounters

Filmforum NRW at the Museum Ludwig
Bischofsgartenstr. 1 | 50667 Cologne

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YOU ARE ENOUGH

YOU ARE ENOUGH

France 2022 | 9 minutes
Director: Lisa Magnan

Synopsis

“You are Enough” encourages self-acceptance and growth by embracing imperfection. This dance film is about identity, diversity and uniqueness. We follow four individuals on a journey where they share unique moments in life and explore the beauty and complexity of humanity with poetry, sensitivity and humour. The film is an ode to self-acceptance, a declaration of love for accepting yourself as you really are and no longer being afraid of not being beautiful/legitimate/smart/competent/interesting … enough to do what you really want to do. The dancers on the screen appear and disappear again while the cameraman, the fifth dance partner, develops a choreography with them.

BLIND DREAMERS [-32°N 145°W-]

BLIND DREAMERS [•32°N 145°W•]

France 2022 | 6 minutes
Director: Sandra Geco

Synopsis

A visual fable with poetic notes that oscillate between reality and surrealism, revealing a universe that mixes plastic, landscape and poetry. We discover a couple who look like René Magritte’s lovers, but who have replaced their veil with a plastic bag. In search of sensibility, this video fable questions our break with the rest of the living world and our (in)ability to identify with it. We are this living being caught in a trap. How could we forget that?

HERD

HERD

Israel 2020 | 3 minutes
Director: Daniel Motola | Choreography: Chen Nadler

Synopsis

“Herd (noun): A typically large group of animals of one species kept together under human control”, Merriam-Webster dictionaries. A “human creature” that does not belong to a herd tries to move among other herds. Whether together or apart, in the end we merge with the great nature of our planet. “The film was created by chance. We as artists didn’t plan it and we didn’t organise the people and animals who took part in it; we simply asked to enter the space.”

A SONG WITHOUT WORDS

A SONG WITHOUT WORDS

Germany 2021 | 10 minutes
Director: Max Levy | Choreography: Max Levy & Miguel Toro

Following the film:
Talk with Max Levy

Synopsis

“A Song Without Words” is a dance film about two friends who become estranged in isolation and confrontation and are afraid to engage with each other’s existence. An extension of escapism and acceptance of individual and collective realities that questions the how and why of avoiding the inevitable. The pull of emotion and magnetism in the film speaks about avoidance, risk and intimacy in a time of uncertainty and unavoidable encounters.

NOT FROM HERE(1)

NOT FROM HERE

South Africa 2022 | 5 minutes
Director: Oscar O’Ryan | Choreography: Louise Coetzer

Synopsis

“Not from Here” is an ode to the unique landscape of South Africa’s Karoo Desert. The film follows two visitors who are summoned by their circle on their journey through the barren landscape. The moving figures stand in stark contrast to the vastness of the alien terrain they encounter. “Not from Here” expresses the unknown in search of acceptance.

ROMANCE

ROMANCE

Germany 2023 | 38 minutes
Director: Samantha Shay

Following the film:
Talk with Samantha Shay, Emily Castelli, Julie Shanahan, and Julie Anne Stanzak

Synopsis

On a Saturday morning, a group of women in a lecture theatre learn to be romantic. Based on Miranda July’s short story “It was Romance”, the film creates an illuminating encounter between the works of July and Pina Bausch. The result of filmmaker Samantha Shay’s Fulbright Fellowship at Tanztheater Wuppertal and in collaboration with one of the company’s youngest and first transgender dancers, “Romance” also explores how Naomi Brito’s transition was inspired by her encounter with the female roles in Pina Bausch’s repertoire. Shot on 16mm film in Pina Bausch’s iconic and ageing Lichtburg rehearsal studio, this piece walks the same line between fiction and reality, dance and documentary as Bausch’s deeply cathartic and often autobiographical work. “Romance” is a fruitful dialogue between generations, between past, present and future, showing through a new and powerful encounter that the power of an ageing legacy never ends.