QUIET ODD #13

QUIET ODD #13 _ Calodemonic madeleines

Rabih Mroué & Vlad Cristea

9.4.2017   20:00

The second QUIET ODD session organized in collaboration with n.b.k. runs during bogdan lypkhan’s Calodemonic Explanations and questions lived memory, as well as the heritage of old regimes and traditions in the everyday of the contemporary youth. The films have an autobiographic character to their narrative, as well as a certain generational feel.

Rabih Mroué, Face A / Face B, 2002 (9:58 min, color, sound)

Rabih Mroué (*1967, Beirut, Lebanon) is an artist, actor, director, writer and editor who lives in Beirut and Berlin. In his artistic work, he uses fictional texts and real documents to deal with his immediate reality. He often thematizes the political situation in Lebanon and the political responsibility of artists. Face A / Face B is an autobiographical journey spanning from the artist’s childhood to the present, in the context of the Lebanese civil war. It includes photographs, voice, melodies and historical data, in a story that explores aspects such as the nature of memory, the human voice and identity. Through a cassette tape that Rabih Mroué and his brother recorded during their childhood in the seventies to send to a third brother who was living in Russia, the work questions the meaning of the past and shows that collective and personal histories are inseparable and intertwined. The recorded voices are accompanied by projected old photographs of the protagonists and of the effects of the war on the artist’s childhood home. Private and collective memories mingle in a collection of voices that bring together personal memory, political critique and philosophical reflection.

Vlad Cristea, Debate, 2012 (18:24 min, color, sound); Early Winter, 2013 (21:09 min, color, sound) 

Vlad Cristea (1990, Campina, Romania) is a Bucharest based filmmaker also known for his semi-imaginary record label, The Cristea Institute. His work embraces lo-fi aesthetics with deconstruction, whilst exploring drug culture and misspent youth. Debate (2012) is an autobiographical docudrama that presents a voyeuristic portrait of Vlad’s friends and their surroundings as they endlessly discuss the minutiae of their everyday life as disillusioned students of the state film school. Early Winter (2013) is a fictional drama that pays constant tribute to the films of Yasujiro Ozu, highlighting the prevalence of spousal rape in our society.