Field Recordings is back! Over the weekend of November 8-9-10, you can immerse yourself in an exciting selection of contemporary anthropological film, landscape cinema and experimental sound work at WORM.
Employing a wide range of media, from 16mm analogue film, to a 360 degree camera, to an interactive audio walk through Rotterdam, the works gathered in the programme touch on a multiplicity of themes. We move from evolution and extinction, narrated by rocks (Last Things, Deborah Stratman), to debates between proponents of traditional and colonial law, inherited from European occupation (Al Djanat, Chloé Aïcha Boro), to an auto-ethnographic portrayal of the Nenets way of life (Nedarma, Anastasia Lapsui & Markku Lehmuskallio) to the consequences of French nuclear testing in colonial era Algeria (And still, it remains, Arwa Aburawa & Turab Shah). Negotiation – whether between two sides of a conflict, or the settlement of a difficult family history – is a common thread.
The programme of Field Recordings 5 engages with various marginalised narratives, often from the perceived peripheries, and is made with an eye on fostering conversations between seemingly disparate geographical and political contexts. As in previous years, we’re featuring many international filmmakers, and many of them will be present at the screenings.
DAY 2 tickets: Early Bird Day ticket €15 , Regular Day ticket €18.50 / Single screening ticket – €10 / Cineville valid at the door & online on the day starting at 10am.
DAY 2 PROGRAMME
11:00 – 13:00 AUDIOWALK BY Anna Khvyl In collaboration with Katía Truijen and Piotr Armianovski
Still present as you notice its absence is an audio walk by Anna Khvyl commissioned by Field Recordings, which will have its premiere during the festival.
This audiowalk reflects on Rotterdam’s identity through the personal experiences of being a tourist, a migrant, and a local. Traversing the border between the parts of the city which were rebuilt after World War Two and those which were left intact, Kyiv-born artist Anna Khvyl and Rotterdam-based Katía Truijen engage in a dialogue about the urban landscape. As we move alongside them, we listen to musical compositions made from field recordings of Rotterdam’s sounds—those initially inaudible to the human ear—mixed with fragments of personal conversations and audio diaries.
We closely explore one of the world’s largest ports, connected by water to distant places and lives thousands of kilometres away. By examining the similarities and differences between the wartime experiences of Rotterdam and Kyiv, the artist poses questions about each city’s conception of self. The walk invites us to join Khvyl on a very personal journey, listening closely to the city, observing its ongoing negotiation with water, and exploring its suppressed memories.
We will walk together on Saturday 9th November, 11am-1pm. Please bring a pair of headphones and a smartphone. We will use the TRACKS app, which is available to download for free here.
The audio piece will be available from the beginning of Field Recordings on the TRACKS app, and you are welcome to do the walk at any time.
**Starting point: Coolsingel 120 (next to the exit from metro Beurs)
End point: Leuvehaven water taxi stop
Tickets include a water taxi ride.
14:00 – 16:10 AFTER THE SNOWMELT by Yi-Shan Lo
110 min., 2024, Taiwan/Japan, Mandarin, Nepali, English with English subtitles
After the Snowmelt is a coming-of-age tale about bereavement and the slow process of healing. During a trek through the Himalayan mountains, the filmmaker’s best friends Chun and Yueh are trapped in a cave for 47 days. The tragic outcome of this expedition leads Lo Yi-Shan on a personal quest to follow in the footsteps of Yueh and their missing best friend, Chun, while reflecting on their unconditional relationship.
Followed by Q&A with Yi-Shan Lo
Get a single screening ticket here
16:30 – 17:30 SHORTS #2
With film and sound works by Hildegard Westerkamp, Kamal Aljafari, Deborah Stratman and Rehab Nazzal. From the aeroplane traffic affecting a suburban community of Richmond, Vancouver, to the constant presence of drones experienced by deaf children of Gaza, to a requiem for the spirits of ‘space dogs’, this programme prompts us to look up and consider the sky as a place of oppression and political contestation. On the other hand, looking down from above, aerial footage offers a new and fraught perspective on the landscape, revealing processes of appropriation and demolition.
Programme: Hildegard Westerkamp – Under the Flightpath, 19 min, 1981 // Kamal Aljafari – UNDR, 15 min, 2024 // Deborah Stratman – Laika, 4:30 min, 2021 // Rehab Nazzal – Vibrations from Gaza, 16 min, 2024
Get a single screening ticket here
18:00 – 19:20 NEDARMA (Travelling) by Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio
** 2007, Finland, 80 min., Nenets and Russian with English subtitles **
Nedarma (Travelling) is a documentary portrait of the Nenets, a nomadic tribe in the northern tundra of Siberia into which Anastasia Lapsui was born. Sumptuous 35mm black and white cinematography describes the landscapes of the Yamal Peninsula and the daily activities of its inhabitants with patience and a visionary perspective, accompanied by a captivating soundtrack. The film begins by illustrating the Nenets’ cosmology, leading us into a filmic structure that follows the arc of life from birth to death.
Get a single screening ticket here
20:30 – 21:55 – AI DJANAT b yChloé Aïcha Boro
2023, Burkina Faso, 84 min., Bambara and French with English subtitles
After the death of her uncle, a local dignitary, the director returns to Burkina Faso to make a film about her family courtyard. A dispute over her uncle’s estate has burst out between advocates of traditional law and proponents of official law, inherited from European colonisation. The courtyard becomes the theatre where conflict takes place and the future of the family is played out. The filmmaker confronts contradictions permeating her family and the country, and at the same time grapples with the difficulty of coming back, to a world that has changed during her absence.
Get a single screening ticket here
22:15 – 23:30 – LAST THINGS by Deborah Stratman
2023, US, 50 min., English and French with English subtitles
Last Things is an experimental film shot on 16mm, presenting evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others. Made in a sci-fi spirit, the film offers an incredible array of images, from microscopic forms to vast landscapes. In dialogue with thinkers such as J.-H. Rosny, Clarice Lispector and Marcia Bjørnerud, the film seeks to displace humankind and human reason from the centre of evolutionary processes, taking up a pluralistic vision of evolution and imagining prehistory as inseparable from envisioning the future.
Get a single screening ticket here
13:30 – 23:30 – INSTALLATION: The Bodhi Tree in Bosch’s Garden
by Maia Liu
in collaboration with Yezi Lin and Leopold Liu
2-channel video installation, 2024, Netherlands, English and Mandarin with English subtitles
The Bodhi Tree in Bosch’s Garden is a video installation which traces Liu’s exploration of her father’s archive of art made in the 1990s during his time in Europe. In her attempt to grasp the meaning of his works and accompanying notes, she relies on the cultural mediation of her best friend Yezi, whose diasporic experience strongly resonates with that of Liu’s father (whom she herself barely knows). The installation offers a playful yet complex interplay of appropriation, projection, intimidation, and admiration among the three characters — the father’s artworks, the daughter, and her friend.
ABOUT FIELD RECORDINGS
Founded in 2018, Field Recordings is a platform for screening, discussing and practicing critical forms of fieldwork – from sensory ethnographies and experimental documentaries to live sound performances and situated praxes of listening. The programme is curated by Tim Leyendekker and Marta Hryniuk.
FULL PROGRAMME:
Field Recordings 5 DAY 1 | 8 nov
Field Recordings 5 DAY 2 | 9 nov
Field Recordings 5 DAY 3 | 10 nov