Since 1988 transmediale has been one of Europe’s premiere events for showcasing transmedia and technology for art and narrative and nonfiction storytelling. Director Kristoffer Gansing (who spoke with Filmmaker last year) and his team continue to assemble cutting-edge films, installations, performances, workshops, and other events, turning the House of World Cultures in Berlin into a hub for all things new media. I spoke with a number of artists who presented video-based pieces at the festival. Erica Scourti (seen above in an image from another project) is an Athens-born, London-based artist focusing on video art and, increasingly, Internet-centered artwork; as she describes below, her work gradually transformed […]
by Randy Astle on Feb 24, 2015I remember the first time I saw Sherman’s March and realized how revealing autobiographical documentary could be. Filmmakers who turn the camera on themselves run a high risk of self-indulgence, but when done right their films can intimately show the resilience of the human spirit, especially when their challenges appear insurmountable, whether in situations as grandiose as in Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley’s South or as ostensibly mundane as Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan’s Troublesome Creek. The process of making autobiographical films can even be beneficial for the filmmakers, psychologically or otherwise, provided they place therapy on a backseat to […]
by Randy Astle on Jan 28, 2014