Part of Fall 2008 - A Lower World
This eclectic selection of films rupture and twist the disembodied and authoritative gaze of science. They offer unexpected breakdowns in the way the camera looks at things it wants to learn more about, with each piece showing you sights you don’t normally see – or want to see. We are very pleased to present the Toronto premiere of the young South Korean director Kim Kyung-Mook’s Faceless Things, an utterly creepy low-budget feature structurally divided into only three scenes, each rigorously shot in a single take, which makes the slow-burning tension sometimes overwhelming. The first is filmed with an unwavering, surveillance-style camera, recording a disturbing hotel room tryst between a chubby married man and a teenage gay boy. The second episode features a graphic interlude between the director and a partner interrupted by an animated fantasia. The film ends with an enigmatic confessional coda, making it a fascinating, disconcerting examination of psychosexual alienation and self-exposure to the camera. Faceless Things will be accompanied by three formidable shorts: Sick Film is British artist Martin Creed’s unflinching document of a number of people who one by one stand against a pristine white backdrop and vomit for the camera. His experiment proves fruitful for discerning the panoply of different ways that a cross-section of Brits throw up. Capturing the real with vivid accuracy, Turkish artist Ömer Ali Kazma’s Brain Surgeon depicts brain surgery on a woman in graphic detail, refusing to allow us to look away and focusing on the precise actions of the surgeon. Finally, Magnetic Movie by British science geek duo Semiconductor uses dynamic digital animation to breathtakingly illustrate the invisible forces that govern matter in the universe.
Programme:
Chop Off, M.M. Serra, 2008, 6 min. video USA (in Person)
Faceless Things, Kim Kyung-Mook, 2005, 65 min. video South Korea
Sick Film, Martin Creed, 2006, 20 min. video UK
Brain Surgeon, Ömer Ali Kazma, 2007, 15 min. video Turkey
Magnetic Movie, Semiconductor, 2007, 5 min. video UK
