Side Step Festival is proud to present four short art films, created by choreographer-director duos as a part of the Zodiak Visions project.
Zodiak Visions was a collaboration project where filmmakers and choreographers were invited to come together to create short films honoring the deep-rooted historical ties between the experimental film and performance fields. Four short films; Everything is Right Before, REDDENING, Jellymama, and KIELO are the gems that were revealed by this process.
Many choreographers’ curiosity and generosity to open their work to a different medium as a common thread ignited the application process to seek funding, in order to take these dialogues further and test their practice-based applications.
Eventually this spark resulted in the project titled Zodiak Visions, where filmmakers/visual artists and choreographers have been invited to come together to re-imagine their Zodiak stage productions; as film. The invited artists were Jenni Elina von Bagh & Anna Antsalo, Elina Pirinen & Sinem Kayacan, Karolina Ginman & Hertta Kiiski, and Janina Rajakangas & Sinem Kayacan.
Following rich discussions regarding the differences and commonalities between the practices of dance on film, dance for film, and dance as film; with respect to the plural suffix in the project title vision-s, outcomes have been manifold, and contemporary in true Zodiak fashion, from genre-bending fantastical thriller to absurdist existential humor. All very strongly honoring the deep-rooted historical ties between the experimental film and performance fields.
The films have received over 70 invitations to film festivals all around the globe, but this is the first time that all four of them are shown together to the general audience. The screening also features a short making of documentary.
Everything is Right Before
(Jenni-Elina von Bagh & Anna Antsalo)
16 mins
“When time stretches and choices torment, our freedom is revealed in all its beauty and chaos.”
In Everything is right before, the film captures a moment on the verge of beginning. An actor prepares for a shoot while the crew waits. Instead of moving forward, the actor is overwhelmed by an endless array of choices.
The film unveils a bodily state where preparation transforms into an endless stretch of time, revealing the complexity of life’s paths and the intricacies of body and mind. It exposes the borders of our existence, confronting the unknown and unpredictable. With a tragicomic touch, the film takes the viewer to the threshold of being and beyond, exploring the artist's freedom in contrast to the still-waiting crew. Who is truly free?
Jellymama
(Karolina Ginman & Hertta Kiiski)
13 mins
A body emerges from a jellylike substance into a warped universe in which inside becomes outside and outside inside in an infinite loop. Ephemeral others appear and disappear, diving into, consuming and nourishing one another.
Jellymama pulls the viewer close beyond the comfortable. Onto the skin, the flesh, exploring secret portals of both body and psyche. With insisting intimacy and unruly playfulness it wants to allure, provoke, excite and repel it’s spectator evoking a direct physical response. Tenderness, awe, love and horror all fluctuate in Jellymama’s wet embrace.
KIELO
(Janina Rajakangas & Sinem Kayacan)
4 mins
“Kielo finds it hard to sit still in class. She takes a break venturing into the corridors of her imagination.”
The film KIELO touches on the subject of love, support as well as contempt between young people in the school environment, with a focus on the convergence of neurodivergence and sisterhood/peer-hood.
We all have a poetic body, that dances when encouraged. It just needs to be given a chance to exist alongside the body that goes by the rules and is used to shy away from expression.
Read exclusive interview with Janina Rajakangas and Sinem Kayacan about Kielo on CURATION HOUR.
REDDENING
(Elina Pirinen & Sinem Kayacan)
15 mins
REDDENING is a genre-bender arthouse fantasy film, at the intersection of contemporary performance and experimental fiction.
The title REDDENING refers to the final stage of alchemy; Rubedo, in which the alchemical transformation takes place.
Historically, the practice of alchemy aimed turning base metals into silver and gold, but further, to reach Magnum Opus; divine illumination, heavenly bliss and the elixir of life. Different disciplines considered the alchemical transformation to take place in the stratum relevant to them; materia, psyche, spirit. Nonetheless, for the transformation to occur, alchemists had to go through a transmutation themselves.
REDDENING explores how a film, as a sensuous object, can pleasure; repulse, nurture, and overall transmute the body of the audience.
Making of Zodiak Visions
(Anna Poleteli)
15 mins
This short documentary presents four different portraits of one phenomenon — explosion of creation.
In this documentary Anna Poleteli closely follows the making-of processes of the Visions short films, reveling in the intricate reunion of dance and experimental film fields in its multifaceted forms.
The production partners of Zodiak Visions are PALO Art Productions and Second Theatre.
The project was funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture, as a part of the NextGenerationEU programme of the European Union.
