“Squatterpunk” @ Sydney
THE VIEW FROM ELSEWHERE
The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) launches The View From Elsewhere (March 19 – June 13), its first exhibition for 2009, in partnership with Queensland Art Gallery|Gallery of Modern Art.
The view from elsewhere is an exhibition of film, video and installation works reflecting contemporary moving image practice from East Asia to the Middle East. Featuring works by some of the region’s most acclaimed filmmakers as well as an installation of artists’ video work, The view from elsewhere is a must see for anyone interested in the life enriching experiences afforded by contemporary film practice.
“Sydney offers very limited opportunities for dedicated movie goers to enjoy the cinémathèque experience. For three months, SCAF will change this, showing over one hundred movies in the intimate space of our Paddington gallery, and it will be free to all comers. Audiences will be introduced to some of the best films made in the region over recent years that cannot, and will not, be seen in mainstream movie theatres. Cinema has played an important role in the process of cultural renewal in these regions. With the changing socio-political landscapes, a number of talented directors have emerged to reflect upon topical issues of culture in their respective countries…” said Dr Gene Sherman, Executive Director and Founder of SCAF.
“Film is a natural fit with the SCAF philosophy. Low cost digital cameras now mean that movie making is no longer the preserve of heavily funded film production studios – it has become a democratic medium; the essential visual language through which people today communicate. The new wave of Asian filmmakers are using low production values to rigorously explore and interpret the world in a way not seen before.” said Dr Sherman.
Curated by Queensland Art Gallery’s Kathryn Weir (Head of International Art and the Australian Cinémathèque) in collaboration with Mark Nash (Head of Department, Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of London), the movies are as diverse in length as they are in subject matter; ranging from the unrelenting punk-rock driven soundtrack of Khavn De La Cruz’s Squatterpunk (2007), a film about the poverty in the slums of Manila, through to the tender documentary elegiac love story of Hu Jie’s Though I am Gone (2006), a film recently banned in China because it deals with the first death of the Cultural Revolution.
Jia Zhangke’s feature, the hauntingly lyrical Still Life (2006), Golden Lion winner at the Venice Film Festival in 2006, tells a love story filmed against the backdrop of one of China’s most controversial projects, the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. While A House in Jerusalem (1998) by Israeli Amos Gitaï, traces the history of a house in West Jerusalem over twenty years from 1980 and the families that have lived in it during this turbulent period.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi6awU-v9eU
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