A special series of screenings & talk – MORE THAN HUMAN #1 | The Understories
Thurs 02, 09 & 16 Mar 2023
Manzi Art Space
14 Phan Huy Ích, Ba Đình, Hà Nội
From the organzier:
A special side-event series, part of the on-going ‘MORE THAN HUMAN #1 | THE UNDERSTORIES’
Thurs 09 Mar 2023, 05 pm – 09:30 pm
The second screening: Featuring video arts by Ly Hoàng Ly, Nguyễn Trần Nam, Nguyễn Đình Phương, Nhung Đinh, Trương Công Tùng, Red & Nguyễn Trinh Thi
Registration link
The screening includes 3 sections with breaks in-between, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.
Program
05 pm – SECTION I – LY HOÀNG LY – “We have become machines” / “Chúng ta thành cỗ máy rồi” | 2018
<1h 8 mins>
“I stayed still, unmoving in this series of performances. Being aware of my body and mind yet totally empty in thoughts, I just let the surroundings appear and unfold. In this sense, through the camera’s lens, the pedestrians, the local residents, the tree cutters/hewers are performers. I am there, but invisible.
Only in the last one did I speak through my body, my actions. Testing the limits of my endurance, I interacted with other “performers” who are the workers from the Tree Care Company while they were cutting down the last tree of the road – Tree no. 169”
06:20 pm – SECTION II – A series of five short films & video arts:
NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM – “Looking through glass” (the 3nd version) | 2022
<10 mins>
NGUYỄN ĐÌNH PHƯƠNG – “Vừa đi vừa thổi” / “Blowing on the Go” | 2016 – 2017
<7 mins>
a durational performance by Phương Lều, shot by himself, in Hanoi and his hometown Mộc Châu (Edited version by Tầm Tã Studio)
NHUNG ĐINH – Marrying the Island (excerpt) | 2022
<8 mins>
What does it mean to be married to a man? The truth is, I wanted to get married because I wanted the island. So I went and took the island with me. Marry the island, and let the island be the island, me myself. A genderless but feminine island. The island is generous and magnanimous but also unpredictable”
TRƯƠNG CÔNG TÙNG – “Magical Garden” / “Khu vườn kỳ lạ” | 2014 – present
<8 mins>
“A garden similar to ones from mythical stories, the Garden of Eden, or the buddhism sanctuary – Pure Land,… Nevertheless, it is not an out-of-reach myth/ faraway/distant mythical land that humans can never enter. People come here with a belief that the light, earth, water, and invisible beings there are capable of curing them from sufferings and illnesses. The light is presented in the form of a halo magnified by the visual effects of modern devices such as phones and cameras… The moment that humans encounter nature – machine, something bizarre is sparkled. That is, the passage of images is accompanied by vestiges of life, along with traces of the uncertainty and distrust, fragments of social structure, which ultimately create a space conducive to contemplation on the connectedness between the human and non-human beings.”
RED – “nine” / “chín” | 2021
<14 mins>
“nine” is a humble poem consisting of 9 prompts. The data in this poem are gleaned from the words of Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, along with phone calls and conversations between the filmmaker and her parents, about the absent one.
07:30 pm – SECTION III – NGUYỄN TRINH THI – “Cải tiến thế giới” / “How to improve the world” | 2021
<47 mins>
“How to Improve the World” is a film about listening. The film reflects on the differences in how memory is processed between the culture of the eye and that of the ear, while observing the loss of land, forests, and the way of life of the indigenous people in this part of the world. ‘Do you trust sounds or images better?’ The filmmaker, off screen, asks her daughter, who replies ‘images, mum’”
*The event is part of ‘More than Human #1: The Understories’ organized by Hanoi Doclab and Manzi Art Space with the support of the Prince Claus Fund.
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