Edition I
PHANTASMAGORIA
LA DISCOTECA | 4 March 2022
Through linguistic contaminations between art and cinema, Jacopo Miliani's film La discoteca explores the themes of his artistic research concerning body language, dance, community places and the performativity of the self. The film is set in a dystopian future in which an unidentified authority forbids the free expression of emotions and dance. In a temporal game that juxtaposes the uncertainties of the present with quotations from a past linked to the imagery of disco, the film's protagonists, played by Pietro Turano, Eugenia Delbue and Eva Robin's, move.
After the screening of the film, during the 4 March edition, a conversation followed between the artist, Jacopo Miliani; the two actors Pietro Turano and Eugenia Delbue; Magic Lantern Film Festival and NOS Visual Arts Production.
PRIME TIME | June - September 2021
The cycle of presentations aims at investigating and bringing to light the linguistic and aesthetic variations of video by artists from a generation that grew up in the midst of the digital revolution, analysing the ways in which the material available is used, studied, interpreted, related to the audience and related to different contexts.
Prime Time proposes to reason about the rapid transformations to which the film medium is subjected, capable of adapting to social and technological changes and at the same time tirelessly shaping its contents. Each appointment consists of a screening of a selection of films followed by a talk in which the artist, accompanied by an interlocutor belonging to the same generation, introduces his poetics and methodology starting from his cultural influences: artists, directors, points of reference that have been fundamental for the evolution of his research.
Artists Stefania Carlotti - LIES LIES LIES (first episode), 2020 Stefania Carlotti - Buddy by Steve Hilly, 2020 Anouk Chambaz & Lucas Erin - 06:24, 2015 Anouk Chambaz & Julija Paskeviciute - Vegetation Walk, 2016 Anouk Chambaz - To Have an Existential Crisis, 2016 Anouk Chambaz - A View from the Cliff, 2020 Beatrice Favaretto – CarneCruda, 2018 in progress Beatrice Favaretto - OH L’AMOUR!, 2018 Beatrice Favaretto - The Pornographer, 2021 Perla Sardella - Le Grand Viveur, 2020 Perla Sardella - Prendere la parola [Taking the Floor], 2019 Giulio Scalisi - Angelo Azzurro, 2019 Giulio Scalisi - Dalle stelle alle cellule, 2016
OLTRE QUI | 25 February 2020
Oltre qui strives to create intersecting paths within the concept of spirituality through the vision of artists who work with the moving image. Every film, each with its own distinct intuition, aim and aesthetics, triggers questions and interrogations, starting from a reflection on the very contradictions of being. Ritual, symbols, the soul, transcendence and the materiality of the body are all factors taken into consideration in the selected films as they investigate the spiritual dimension, unknown yet essential for our very existence. The screening programme offers a reflection on the concept of spirituality in a more open, broad sense, in which it may emerge how art is today able to find a dimension that is strongly anchored to time and space, to our existence in relation to nature and to others, through an inner search that gives shape and substance to shared and universal ways of being.
Artists Meris Angioletti - Un re all’ascolto, 2017 Andrea Büttner - Little Sisters: Lunapark Ostia (still), 2012 Tamara Henderson - Womb Life, 2018-2019 Joachim Koester - Morning of the Magicians, 2006 Ketty La Rocca, Appendice per una supplica, 1972 Emiliano Maggi - Levitation Device, 2015 Shana Moulton - Whispering Pines 8, 2006 Shana Moulton & Nick Hallett - Morning Ritual, 2016 Yoko Ono - Film N.10: Sky, 1968 Rory Pilgrim - Sacred Repository N.1: VIOLENTLY SPEAKING, 2014 Jeremy Shaw – Quickeners, 2014 Ulla von Brandenburg – Mamuthones, 2011
VIDEOCITTÀ A BOLOGNA VIDEO ART WEEK | 19 - 26 January 2020
READY, STEADY, PLAY | 25 January
BLUE-PLATE. FOOD | ART | ACTIVISM | 26 January
Artists Will Benedict & Steffen Jorgensen – The restaurant, 2018 Maryam Jafri – Mouthfeel, 2014 Gordon Matta-Clark – Food, 1972 Pino Pascali – Il pianeta del sole, 1965 Pino Pascali ¬- Salvador, el matador del televisor, 1962 Marco Raparelli - Ristorante Italia, 2008 Martha Rosler - Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975 Ryan Trecartin - Kitchen Girl, 2001
Artists Bruce Conner | Toni Basil – Breakaway, 1966 Martin Creed – Work No. 1454 1-100, 2012 | Work NO. 1701, 2013 Matthew Day Jackson | Manhigh – Dazzle, 2012 Matthew Day Jackson | Manhigh – Everything Leads to Another, 2011 Rä di Martino | Porcelain Raft – The Poets were Right, 2013- 2017 Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard | Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – More News From Nowhere, 2008 Ron Hays | Earth, Wind & Fire – Let’s Groove, 1981 Derek Jarman | The Smiths - Ask, 1986 Derek Jarman | Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days, 1983 Marie Losier | PTV3-Genesis | P-Orridge - Papal Broken Dance, 2008 Carsten Nicolai – Future past perfect pt.3, 2009 Luigi Ontani – Ciao, 1985 Eddie Peake | Gwilym Gold – Muscle, 2015 Pipilotti Rist – You Called Me Jacky, 1990 William Wegman & Robert Breer | New Order - Blue Monday ’88, 1983
BLUE-PLATE. FOOD | ART | ACTIVISM | 23 November 2019 > Videocittà
Blue-Plate. Food | Art | Activism thus brings together a selection of video works by artists to reason on the history, politics, economics and ethics connected to the concept of food: aesthetics, production, distribution, consumption, cultural memory, become protagonists and raw material for lines of thought, formalisations, in-depth studies on a subject that is familiar to all.
Artists Gianfranco Baruchello - Per una giornata di malumore nazionale, 1968 Gianfranco Baruchello – Costretto a scomparire, 1968 Will Benedict - The Bed That Eats, 2015 Will Benedict & Steffen Jorgensen – The restaurant, 2018 Elina Brotherus - Orange Event, 2017 Melissa Durbin - Paul McCarthy Kitchen Kewpie, 2015 Fischli & Weiss – Busi (Kitty), 2001 Maryam Jafri – Mouthfeel, 2014 Gordon Matta-Clark – Food, 1972 Pino Pascali – Il pianeta del sole, 1965 Pino Pascali ¬- Salvador, el matador del televisor, 1962 Marco Raparelli - Ristorante Italia, 2008 Dan Rees - Stimulate Surprise, 2015 Martha Rosler - A budding gourmet, 1974 | Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975 Zina Saro-Wiwa - Table Manners Season 1: Felix Eats Sorgor - Table Manners Season 2: Friday Eats Hairy - Table Manners Season 2: Dorcas Eats Roasted, 2014-2016 Shimabuku - Shimabuku’s Fish & Chips, 2006 Jan Svankmajer - Jidlo (Food), 1993 Ryan Trecartin - Kitchen Girl, 2001 Jud Yalkut - John Cage Mushroom Hunting in Stony Brook, 1972
THE NOVUM | 26-27 JUNE 2019
Sci-fi film is a genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception and time travel, along with futuristic elements such as spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar travel or other technologies.
Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. In many cases, tropes derived from written science fiction may be used by filmmakers ignorant of or at best indifferent to the standards of scientific plausibility and plot logic to which written science fiction is traditionally held.
Artists John Akomfrah - Last Angel Of history, 1995 Yuri Ancarani – Piattaforma Luna, 2011 Rosa Barba – Somnium, 2011 Neil Beloufa – Kempinski, 2007 Carola Bonfili - 3412 Kafka First Chapter, The Infinite End of Franz Kafka’s “Das schloss”, 2018 George Kuchar - Planet of the Vamps, 2000 Chris Marker – La Jetée, 1962 Nathaniel Mellors The sophisticated Neanderthal Interview, 2013-2014 Larissa Sansour – A Space Exodus, 2009 | Nation Estate, 2012 Jeremy Shaw – Quickeners, 2014
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL | 17 December 2018
Pattini d'argento [Silver Skates], a collaborative video made by PAD (Federico Chiari, Anna Franceschini and Diego Marcon), is a portrait of the Hot Shivers, a synchronized ice skating group and official team of Precision Skating Milan. The artists filmed the skaters during their summer retreat at the ice stadium in Bormio, in the Italian Alps.
During the gracefully choreographed exercise routines, the athletes seem to transform into pure image, light and movement. Yet the gracefulness of the silhouettes that glide on the icy surface is just one aspect of a life that also includes endless training, fatigue and clashes on the ice rink. The arena that welcomes the athletes with all their hopes and fears is not always a friend, but a stage on which to fight, albeit elegantly, under the scrutiny of friends and relatives, often equipped with digital eyes. In the video, material shot with amateur cameras becomes the visual counterpart of the protagonists themselves. The skaters of Pattini d’argento, apparitions in perennial movement and tension, become a whirling vision, transfiguring into a metaphor of the cinematographic medium itself, and of the perceptual dynamics it initiates.
READY STEADY PLAY | 26 October 2018 > Videocittà
Ready, Steady, Play focuses on the intermix between pop music and contemporary art, formalised through the music video. The screening is presented as a playlist featuring both popular and more niche videos, created by some of the most prominent artists of the 20 th and 21 st century. It traces, from the artists’ point of view, the history of a media product that has in turn influenced the history of the image and of music from the 1980s to today.
Artists Roger Ballen | Die Antwoord - I Fink U Freeky, 2012 Will Benedict | Wolf Eyes - I AM A PROBLEM, 2017 Johanna Billing – You Don’t Love Me Yet, 2003 Bruce Conner |Brian Eno & David Byrne – Mea Culpa, 1981 Bruce Conner | Toni Basil – Breakaway, 1966 Martin Creed – Work No. 1454 1-100, 2012 | Work NO. 1701, 2013 Matthew Day Jackson | Manhigh – Dazzle, 2012 Matthew Day Jackson | Manhigh – Everything Leads to Another, 2011 Rä di Martino | Porcelain Raft – The Poets were Right, 2013- 2017 Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard | Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – More News From Nowhere, 2008 Ron Hays | Earth, Wind & Fire – Let’s Groove, 1981 Derek Jarman | Pet Shop Boys – Rent, 1987 Derek Jarman | The Smiths - Ask, 1986 Derek Jarman | Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days, 1983 Marie Losier | April March & Julien Gasc – Cet Air La, 2010 Marie Losier | PTV3-Genesis | P-Orridge - Papal Broken Dance, 2008 Carsten Nicolai – Future past perfect pt.3, 2009 Luigi Ontani – Ciao, 1985 Luigi Ontani | Bogam – Hidup Pedidian, 2005- 2018 Luigi Ontani | Bogam – Terek Terekan, 2005-2018 Eddie Peake | Gwilym Gold – Flex, 2015 Eddie Peake | Gwilym Gold – Muscle, 2015 Pipilotti Rist – You Called Me Jacky, 1990 Mathew Sawyer & The Ghosts – Love is a Place, 2005 William Wegman & Robert Breer | New Order - Blue Monday ’88, 1983
READY STEADY PLAY | 26 October 2018 > Videocittà
Hollywood film genre par excellence, the musical perhaps exploits more than any other genre the two basic elements of cinema: moving image and sound. Its morphology has often been studied and borrowed by the visual arts, often upending the essential norms, including narrative and a dramaturgical development traditionally structured on music and choreography. Song and dance, activated by the characters in the story, become a lexicon to rethink both formally and conceptually.
Product of the early 1980s and the fruit of postmodernism, the music video has attempted to create recognizable codes and stylistic characteristics. Presenting different expressive forms - from the live studio recording session, to the construction of short narrative films, to free styling editing and quotation - the music videos in DO RE MI trace the way in which a language and its codes have been utilised, expanded or revolutionised by the artist’s gaze.
Artists Doug Aitken | Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank, 1998 Nathan Carter - The DRAMASTICS are Loud, 2016 Carles Congost - Wonders, 2016 Rä Di Martino - The Show Mas Go On, 2014 Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard | Nick Cave - Higgs Boson Blues, 2013 Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard | Nick Cave - More News From Nowhere, 2008 Derek Jarman | The Smiths - The Queen is Dead, 1986 Derek Jarman | Pet Shop Boys – Rent, 1987 Derek Jarman, Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days, 1983 Mark Leckey - Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, 1999 Deimantas Narkevicius – Ausgeträumt, 2010 Mark Oates | Tom Rubnitz - Psykho III The Musical, 1985 Pipilotti Rist - I’m a victim of this song, 1995 Laurie Simmons - The Music of Regret, 2006 Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Búrca - Estás vendo coisas (You are seeing things), 2017 Andy Warhol | The Cars - Hello Again, 1984
WONDERLAND | 26-28 September 2017
The works of the selected artists and directors undermine aesthetic semiotics and the iconic realm of childhood, instead suggesting a darker flip-side to the more traditional, reassuring, infantile characteristics. Naivety, grace, humour and beauty are cast off and re-envisioned in more political, conceptual, and grotesque nuances. Wonderland shows surprising and unknown terrains, where fairy tale imagery reveals its infinite potential. Transposed to dark and enigmatic dimensions, childhood’s visual language, considered in its interpretive complexity, offers to the spectator the full value of its hidden power.
Artists Marvin Gaye Chetwynd - Vision Verticale, 2014 John Baldessari - Three Feathers and Other Fairy Tales, 1973 Quay Brothers - Street of Crocodiles, 1986 Ryan Gander – Imagineering, 2013 Andy Holden - Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, 2011-2016 Rachel Maclean - Over the Rainbow, 2013 Marco Raparelli - Elephant and man, 2006 Marco Raparelli - Fly mc Fly, 2008 Marco Raparelli – Muscles, 2011
REALLY | 21-23 March 2017
The festival’s second edition, Really, focuses on the biopic, perhaps the most ambiguous and malleable of cinematic genres. If the aim of the biopic is to explore the real life stories of significant individuals, the famous and the non-famous, the enigmatic to the well documented, the dead and the living, the difficulty in trying to define the genre stems not only from the blurring of generic boundaries, but also because these films often lie somewhere between fiction and history. What the biopic genre does typically do is comply with iconographic conventions of structure – usually following a simply and highly defined narrative arc –, incorporate devices that aid the compression of time – montage, flashback, voiceover –, and use codified film aesthetics that try to convey a sense of truth.
Artists Rossella Biscotti - The Undercover Man, 2008 Jeremy Deller & Nicholas Abrahams - The Bruce Lacey Experience, 2012 Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard – 20,000 Days on Eart, 2014 Dani Gal - As From Afar (Wie aus der Ferne), 2013 Arvo Leo - Fish Plane, Heart Clock, 2014 Elisabeth Subrin – Shulie, 1997
PHANTASMAGORIA | 26-28 October 2016
Magic Lantern Film Festival launches its programming with Phantasmagoria, a small collection of films that demonstrate how noir and horror have been adopted and adapted by the visual arts, creating narratives imbued with current socio-political implications. The films’ protagonists move in a context characterised by uncertainty, in a perpetually misleading, sometimes desperate and corrupt world, where tension and fear – laced by dark humour – prevails.
Artists Omer Fast – Remainder, 2015 Fischli & Weiss – The Point of Least Resistance, 1980-81 Fischli & Weiss - The Right Way, 1983 Loris Greaud – Sculpt, 2016 Diego Marcon - Storie di fantasmi per adulti, 2010 Jesus Rinzoli- Hiker Meat, 1982 Cindy Sherman- Office Killer, l’impiegata modello, 1997 Kathrin Sonntag - Dracula’s Ghost, 2009