Women Cinemakers In our work as filmmakers we seek to examine the things we cannot fully comprehend, nor put into words, using sensory experience as a starting point. We want to give shape to the swirling emotions within us, to give form to what has no form yet. We try to lock up the elusive and untamed, to contain it in time and space and make it tangible, in image, sound, scent and tactility. In this effort physicality plays a major role. The French avant-garde theatre reformer, Artaud, is a great source of inspiration for both of us. In his Theatre of Cruelty he pleas: "Through his body the actor makes contact with the sensibility of the audience. The sensibility of the spectator must merge with that of the actor, breath with breath, rhythm with rhythm. " Marked with captivating minimalistic quality, the soundtrack composed by Marc Mâhfoud plays a relevant role in your film, providing the footage with such an enigmatic and a bit unsettling sound tapestry: how do you consider the relationship between sound and moving images? And how did the slow rhythm of the soundtrack influenced the gestures of the performers? It's the other way around, actually. The soundtrack is composed after the edit of the images, except the song at the end of the film. The lyrics of this song are the Dutch translation of the poem Vom Ertrunkenen Mädchen by Bertolt Brecht. It describes the death of a girl in the water; she slowly decomposes, fish eat her flesh, and in the end she interview
disappears. It's a gruesome story, but paradoxically, it also holds a deep beauty. It evokes the famous image of Ophelia drowning herself. Sanne composed a tune to the words; she tried to capture the atmosphere of the poem in the music. In the soundtrack Marc made for us, we have tried to capture the emotions of the main character. Since there is no spoken text in our film, the music is an important parameter for the mood of the film. By using deep, stretched out tones, we tried to create a treacly, dreamlike reality. We made the conscious choice not to use any set sounds, only foley sounds, which should amplify the surreal feeling of the demimonde. We have appreciated the originality of your work and we have found particularly encouraging your unconventional approach. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something 'uncommon', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would you describe your personal experiences as unconventional artists? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? Luckily we are not experiencing discrimination in the way it used to happen back in the day or as it still happens in most parts of the world. We have, or so we believe, as much chances and opportunities to make art as our male colleagues. At the same time we notice that some people still have prejudices against women, especially against Women Cinemakers interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
young women, when they work in leadership positions such as directing. We experienced this for instance when we asked a production company for (financial) support to realise this film. Our plans were big, ambitious and unconventional, but they told us in a very paternalistic way that our ideas were unrealistic and that they therefore would not help us. We got the feeling that this reaction might have been different if we had been men. Nonetheless we believe that women in the film, theatre and art world are advancing and becoming more and more visible. The directing students at our Academy for example are mostly women. This is a positive development, because our workfield used to be dominated by men. Our film The woman who wanted to be infinite is not about gender. We see these actresses not necessarily as women, we see them as people everyone can relate to. It is a human experience, which just happens to be depicted by a woman. Simply because of the fact that we are female directors, the view on women in our film is different from ‘the male gaze’. We believe it is important that women are equally represented, not only on screen, but especially in leading positions like directing. In these positions we can inspire and tell our stories from a women’s (or just human) perspective. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Sanne and Celine. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Women Cinemakers interview
At this moment Celine has just graduated the Academy of Performative Arts. Sanne will graduate in June 2019. Sanne has just finished directing a solo about loneliness, which played at the Over het IJ theater festival in Amsterdam. Next year she’ll be directing a theatre play about the resemblance between existential and physical doubt and she is currently working on an EP-release of her band. Celine’s video installation INSIDE, a Panorama of Anxiety, about how anxiety is related to the body, has just premiered and will be playing on several festivals. Next year she will develop several projects investigating the boundaries and crossovers of film, visual arts, theatre and opera. You can find and follow her upcoming projects on www.celinedaemen.com. Next year, after Sanne’s graduation, we will make a new film that will build on The woman who wanted to be infinite. By making this last production we really found each other as creative partners and we very much look forward to work together again. We just started on these themes and would like to develop them further. We are still searching for the right producers and hope to find funding, so we can realise our artistic dreams. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] Women Cinemakers interview
Women Cinemakers
Andante is a captivating dance short film by An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] Jordanian director Yasmin Marroum: exploring a woman's state of mind that shifts depending on where life takes her, this work address the viewers to such heightened and multilayered experience. Featuring brilliant approach to Yasmin Marroum Women Cinemakers meets Lives and works in Amman, Jordan I am Yasmin Marroum. I was born on the 3rd of June, 1990 on a hot summer day at 2:00pm. I like to produce and direct my own short films. I also like to act on stage where I feel myself the most through body language. I finished studying Media Design in the department of Design & Visual Communication at the German Jordanian University, Amman. I finished a year and a half as an exchange student at the Fachhochschule Mainz, Germany. During my stay in Germany, I completed my graduation project at Mainz and continued on to an internship at Pariser Hoftheater in Weisbaden. In 2015, upon my return to Amman, I pursued a teaching career at the Ahliyyah School for Girls as a Drama and Theatre teacher. Later on in 2016, I was positioned as a Producer/Director for the Jordanian Armed Forces, producing and directing various films that expressed the military culture in Jordan. Throughout my career as both a filmmaker and a theatrical person, I worked on various film projects for local artists. I viewed this as a change for me to spread my ideas and receive feedback on them to allow me to grow in my industry. My main aim, as mentioned before, is to expand my skill set, knowledge, and gain experience in the field of filmmaking, production and theatre. Particularly in turning ideas into profitable films, putting together a creative and talented cast and crew and being responsible for all aspects of a film’s/theatre’s production. Filmmaking and theatre as a career has taught me that without commitment to the idea, putting extra time, and looking for practical ways to solve set issues, will lead to genuine production. It is often difficult to stay true to one’s idea of a script; however, the challenge is in maintaining it and adapting it. Other than my career as a filmmaker, I work at the family business at Henry Marroum & Sons, a chemicals and instruments trading company established in 1950. I am an account manager and handling all the logistics. What I am gaining from this experience is exposure to something not familiar to me. It’s teaching me how to adapt my strategy with people and to always focus on organization. Recently, I was invovled in a visual theatre play that talks about the human condition. The play was demonstarated by the actors bodies. There was no dialogue; the dialogue was spoken through our moevement. The peice talked about the human struggles especially in the middle east. We won three awards: Best integraged performance, Best Director and Best Scenography.
Women Cinemakers interview composition and unconventional cinematography, Andante is a successful attempt to create a captivating allegory of human condition: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Marroum’ s multifaceted and stimulating artistic production. Hello Yasmin and welcome to WomenCinemakers: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your artistic evolution as a director? Moreover, how does your cultural substratum due to your Jordanian roots direct the trajectory of your artistic research? First off, thank you for having me. It is an honor to receive such an award and to be recognized as a professional artist. It would be unjust to say that my upbringing in Jordan and the Middle East did not influence my work. It mostly comes down to the society I was brought up in and how my family raised me. While the Middle East is notoriously known for being a closed-minded community, on the contrary, Jordan hosts various artistic performances and features for me to be able to express my artistic passion. First and foremost, growing up in Amman while being part of the Ahlyah School for Girls gave me an opportunity that had to be taken advantage of. The school offered courses and workshops for Ballet, Drama, and Theatre; which I was a part of. The school, as well as my family, helped orient me towards fine arts and theatre in a way that was supportive and pushed me to excel significantly. As I grew up Ballet
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview was no longer the centerpiece of my life and theatre began to take over. By the time I graduated I was conflicted between choosing design, filmmaking, or production. Eventually by the time I entered the German Jordanian University, I decided to go into Graphic Design. The transition between Highschool and University, played a huge role in shaping my emotions and my overall individual perspective. It was a slight shock to compare my easy-going Highschool life to my University life. Socially it was a difficult time, since the atmosphere I was put in during Highschool was more accepting of arts and individualism. When I started university, the people I surrounded myself with where of a very different background, acceptance and tolerance became an issue. Fast forward into my senior year of university and my major has changed from Graphic Design to Filmmaking; my attitude also changed and my confidence in film grew. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we have selected Andante, an extremely interesting dance video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/208294255. What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the concept of identity is the way you have provided the results of your artistic research with such refined aesthetic, inviting the viewers to such a multilayered experience: when walking our readers through the genesis of Andante,
would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? Andante was a result from various changes and adaptations of a certain idea. It all started with a back story which turned into a script, which later became a dance film. The idea for the final production was inspired from various dimensions of my life. However, the major inspirations where from music such as Radiohead, Frederic Chopin, and the score from the film “Candy”. The whole story was based on the idea of existence and the various emotions we feel while experiencing life. It all circles around questions such as; what is the purpose of life? How did this happen?... There is no conclusion to all the sequence of questions from this existential theme. On the other hand, answers to such questions can either instill a great amount of faith or render a person to take life in a negative sense. Depression is the main symptom of such existentialism. The original idea was supposed to be a film which is character driven to do so much more than just tell a satisfying story with a beginning, middle, and an end. It can clarify the essential value of human
existence. Elle, the main character in “Andante”, is depressed which leads her to become an alcoholic to numb the pain of her over analytical mind. Giving focus on the character’s condition with her struggle of presence would introduce the idea of hope when she meets Dann, the second character. By the end, all Elle can see is blue as she realizes that it does not matter if she finds hope or not, because it is what she feels from the inside. In the film she hits rock bottom and loses control over her mind. To me, Elle symbolizes people that reject the idea of life as we know it today. The audience should be able to identify with Elle’s character from the unfairness of life. She is an empty, lonely, and devoid 23-year-old thinker. After my story and script were written, I decided to develop the script into a dance video, which would illustrate these emotions in a more expressional and flexible way. Initially, the music in the film was supposed to be “All is Full of Love” by Bjork. The music would have worked, but Frederic Chopin was what spoke to me. Eventually “Nocturne in F major, Op 15, and no. 1” Andante Cantabile by Frederic Chopin was the song.
Women Cinemakers Elegantly shot, Andante features stunning cinematography by Lukas Rauterberg and Kevin Otiam: what were your aesthetic decisions when shooting? In particular, what was your choice about camera and lens? There were two videos which were integrated together, and each video had a separate theme. The two videos were the dance scenes and the outdoor nature clips. Two opposing themes, one to describe the emotion of dance in a void space, while the other showed nostalgic, painful, yet beautiful memories. All was shot by hand without using any additional equipment, and thanks to Kevin and Lukas, the movement of the camera with the dancers was more than perfect. The camera perfectly swayed and followed the dancers according to the emotion set. In the beginning it was smooth then becoming more aggressive as the characters fall into a struggle and conflict. Similarly, the nature videos were made to seem as memories, the camera was not supposed to be steady and clear, but quick in motion and to make the footage seem blurred as if it was a lost memory. The camera played a huge role in the film and the main reason everything was done in handheld was due to the low budget at the time. The camera used was a Canon EOS 5D with a 200 mm lens. As you have remarked in your director's statement, Andante is about a woman's state of mind that shifts depending on where life takes her: would you tell us interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview how important was for you to make a personal film, about something you knew a lot? This film was most definitely an expression of something i have already experienced and the point of it was to make it personal. At the time, I started writing the script and my thoughts on paper, it was at the time when I was taking a major step in my life by moving from Jordan to Germany to continue my studies. The whole idea started with writing down my faults and what I view as detrimental in my actions. From that, the work started coming on its own and the idea came to life. The emotions that Elle were experiencing where definitely an extension to what I was feeling and what I was jotting down. Sound and visual are crucial in your practice and we have appreciated the way the sound tapestry by Merve Bebek provides the footage of Andante with such an ethereal and a bit unsettling atmosphere: how would you consider the role of sound within your practice and how do you see the relationship between sound and movement? For my dance video, I chose the first Nocturne “Nocturne in F major, Op 15, and no. 1” Andante Cantabile by Frederic Chopin. It starts off with a calm and beautiful mood, ruffled by a sudden storm and eventually it goes back to being calm. The first time I heard this music I thought this will be the perfect tract for the theme of my
Women Cinemakers interview project. The first minute is the opening of the story, where I felt the subject of my story should be introduced performing a scene of feelings: a state of melancholia. The second part of the music is calm and serene, where both subjects in the story express hope, love, and happiness. The third part of the music is smooth yet aggressive, where both subjects start by fighting but eventually they end up fighting themselves, which leads the subjects to come to an understanding and dwell in their own affairs. The movement has been choreographed and studied to go along with the tones, highs, and lows of the music. Moreover, Merve was able to capture the sound of the waves splashing and the different noises you would find on a river bank to give the nature clips some life. Featuring well-orchestrated choreography, Andante involves the audience into a heightened visual experience, urging them to challenge their perceptual categories to create personal narratives: what are you hoping Andante will trigger in the spectatorship? In particular, how important is for you to address the viewer's imagination in order to elaborate personal associations? Initially this was not meant to be seen by the masses, but it made it through. The emotions and relations from audience were taken into consideration and the emotions that I wanted triggered were ones relating to each person’s life. However, there is a bigger theme, one
Women Cinemakers
A still from Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview that related to women and their own narrative. The audience should feel the ups and downs of this specific character but at the same time relate to a larger social issue we are facing. On an individual level, feelings of anxiety and depression causing overthinking took center stage. While on a larger level, it is the struggle of a woman that should be the center piece. The film is very much subjective to the audience with a general tone of struggle. The viewer’s imagination was not taken into account, since such a film may relate to any person in a society; the emotions portrayed are ones everyone feels. Emotions that make all of us human. Many artists express the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative processes. German visual artist Gerhard Richter once underlined that "it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable": how do you consider the relation between the abstract feature of the ideas you aim to communicate and the physical act of creating your artworks? Body language is universal, it speaks words that we all understand, it is louder than speech. I think the statement “it is always only a matter of seeing: the physical act is unavoidable” by Gerhard Richter is an accurate representation for what and how strong body language is. My ideas revolve around feeling of rage, annoyance, sadness, melancholia, and hatred. To exhibit such ideas,
Women Cinemakers interview one needs to think a little outside the box rather than doing it in conventional ways. The ideas that I have are more of self-struggles and I always find ways to portray that indirectly in my films. Also, I wanted to make the work as relatable to any person as possible, to leave room for personal reflection. - We have appreciated the way your approach to dance conveys sense of freedom and reflects rigorous approach to the grammar of body language: how do you consider the relationship between the necessity of scheduling the details of your performative gestures and the need of spontaneity? How much importance does play improvisation in your process? To be honest, there was no improvisation at all. It was all practiced, calculated and considered. I tried to avoid making mistakes as much as possible. Camera movement and the dance itself were worked on for more than two months, around 3 times a week. The plan was to demonstrate the dance as a live performance and project the nature video on the dancers. Another idea was to use a split screen to the contrast between the two worlds that we as humans struggle with from day to day life and our inner emotions. The film was to showcase the limited freedom we have, what we struggle with from inside and what we portray in the day-to-day life. After a lot of discussion, we came to the conclusion to have a full dance video using the natural movement of the camera to depict the feeling that we are trying to expose.
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview Before leaving this conversation, we want to catch this occasion to ask you to express your view on the future of women in contemporary cinema. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something 'uncommon', however in the last decades there are signs that something is changing. How would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional director? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? Frankly speaking, it is quite a roller-coaster ride to be a director with eccentric and unconventional ideas in a country like Jordan. No one would take such ideas in a serious manner. Furthermore, it is difficult for a woman to bring forth new ideas and concepts in Arab Nations; but we still try our best. The best example for such obstacles can be exemplified in my experience at the Jordan Armed Forces where I worked as a producer / director. The position was to produce high quality 3- minute films that depict the strength and efficiency of the army, however, I faced many challenges by virtue of being a woman. To be fair, I was the only woman in a male dominated setting where all the orders would come from me. One can only imagine the tension that built up, but that was overcome by encouraging the crew to work as a team. The future of women in the film industry is not as gloomy as explained; there is hope and a future. Many women are part of this industry and not only as actresses, but also as producers, directors, directors of
Women Cinemakers interview photography, and much more. Only time can show what the future will hold, but I am very optimistic. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Yasmin. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Again, thank you for having me and making me a part of this community. At the moment, I am working on another experimental short film called “Buried in Space.” It talks about the struggle between the conscious and the subconscious mind. It will be a short film also about a young woman detaching herself from her ego and pride. The young woman goes through a series of emotional lapses using her body as a canvas and her movements as the brush. Eventually during the film, the character would split into two, the duality of her existence. One showing her image from the outside and what people see and the other is her inner state. Both characters struggle to break free from one another and mend back together through a series of contemporary dance moves. I would love to have a feature film in the future tackling similar thoughts on a bigger and deeper scale. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected]
Women Cinemakers
Hello Claire and welcome to : we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you are currently pursuing An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] your M.A. in Art Studies, majoring in Art Theory and Criticism at the University of the Philippines: how did this experience influence your artistic evolution? Moreover, how does your address your artistic research? I have always been fascinated with the flaneur, mainly from watching the arresting images of flanerie in French New Wave Claire Villacorta Women Cinemakers meets city-scape is an ongoing video, dance, performance collaboration that serves as a linguistic intervention; a stand-in for “city that escapes.” Cruz and Villacorta examine the notion of fleeting identities in relation to cities and bodies within their hometown of Manila – its historicities and contexts respective to the particular spaces they work with. A visible, queer Asian male body (Cruz) is examined through the optic of an invisible female observer (Villacorta) as they maneuver their way around aesthetics and dance as manifestations of resistance. In the light of the global and digital age, their respective identities undergo fluid transitions. This particular body of work explores gestures of the digital – how performances and gestures dissipate through a digital platform. Through digital rendering, the “city that escapes” is explored as both process and dialogue. It posits a counternarrative about bodies and cities in its fleeting nature as well as the inscribed postcolonial and decolonial tendencies of the intent by the two authors (Cruz and Villacorta) and the respective contexts they play with and operate from. Lastly, city-scape explores an interesting trajectory as it valorizes the female optic. Although the subject is a queer male, there lies an operative and transgressive paradox that turns the inherent gestures in the work into a progressive otherwise. It creates a new, contested space for the opening up of new identities and socio-political contexts to reassess in relation to contemporary sexualities. Gian Cruz (b.1987) and Claire Villacorta (b.1975) are two artists living and working in Manila, Philippines. Cruz is an artist/photographer/art critic while Villacorta is a graduate student/videographer actively involved in zinemaking and the archiving of independently printed matter. Their collaborative video project is city-scape. A linguistic intervention for a “city that escapes”, the video explores the duo’s respective identities through their relationships with different spaces in Manila, by way of dance and performance. Since embarking on the project in 2013, they have had exhibitions in Norway, Romania, Spain, Germany, Philippines, Argentina, Israel, Korea, to name a few. Some of their most notable exhibitions include Verbo 2018 Mostra de Performance Arte 14ª edição, Jornadas de Reflexión Analogicó-Digital (in collaboration with the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of the University of Buenos Aires), Manila Pollination of the London Biennale and the Transart Triennale in 2016 and Performance Art Oslo in 2013.
Women Cinemakers cinema. Stylish aesthetics of the French New Wave aside, I myself am no stranger to the mundanity of café dwelling, people-watching and "blending" in a crowd that I have, more often than not, felt at odds with in the city where I currently live - Manila - which also happens to be the city I grew up in. Cafés also happen to be the places I inhabit in order to ponder and sharpen the reflexivity required of the course work for my graduate program, for lack of cozy public libraries inside and outside of the university. Spaces that are created specifically for the pursuit of academic scholarship don't seem to have the environmental comforts of the student in mind, and the struggle between maximising government funds and efforts to privatise come into play, and it's an excruciatingly slow process. Most libraries are private and are only accessible to the students that have immediate access to them. Writing and creating within the quietude of the home environment has not entirely worked for me, either, since a typical Filipino home means dealing with your family on a daily basis - unless you happen to live alone. Ideas borne out of my domestic private space can't seem to flourish in my own home because it is a space for unwinding with loved ones, restful distractions and hibernation. Therefore, I get a lot of my inspiration for my creative pursuits by interacting with spaces outside of the home. University life takes me 20 kilometres away from where I live, so I get to be away from my immediate surroundings. The academic environment is less cosmopolitan than what I am used to, and over time, its community has witnessed the deteriorative state of our university in terms of the imminent danger of old physical structures falling apart. We have lost buildings to fires - buildings that have housed a lifetime of archives that have not all been digitised. While that can easily dampen the collective spirit of faculty and students and everyone concerned within the community, I can only hope that the academic superbness of our graduate program is not compromised in the process. Active discussions in the classroom on place, space and the everyday have opened my eyes to how I could discursively tackle and frame these concepts, whether I attempt to write about them or translate them into the digital realm. I was also delighted to know that there is a concept of place and space with the idea of being on the move, or in transit, that can be articulated as valid aesthetic experiences. Contrast of environment is also necessary to be able to hold a firm grasp in the articulation of place and space - and the idea of having traveled to First World cities also helps put the idea of cosmopolitanism into perspective. It says a lot about urban planning, of the expatriate culture that adds to the interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview multiculturalism concentrated only in these cosmopolitan spaces, the evolving coffeehouse culture and of safer spaces. And yet Manila is still a Third World city, in spite of this supposed cultural boom. Social realism has been done through and through, and has been the most creatively "packaged" concept, in terms of "selling" the image of our country to an international film audience. I don't think it's an intentional representation. It's just that a lot of narratives happen to touch on the theme, and there are a lot of filmmakers worthy of critical praise that are already thriving in this artistic terrain. My own creative life, on the other hand, is a dichotomy. When I write, I focus on the autobiographical storytelling or creative nonfiction. When it comes to digital video projects like city-scape, I would rather not focus on reality, but on the homage to the flaneur as a displaced figure within the cosmopolitan spaces of Manila, feeling his way around a contextual plane laden with colonial histories of architecture and self-aware lenses of mirror-imaging of cities. It may have nothing to do with distinctly local expressions of our culture, but it has a multitude of things to reveal about space as constantly developing, cosmopolitan place as a First World clone and Filipino identity as being more worldly on account of being traveled and exposed to developing/developed Asian cities, on top of bearing a past history of being colonised. There is also that layer of gender - the female optic, which is me, filming and hidden from view, experiencing open spaces vicariously through an openly gay man. This attempt to queer the space is an exploration of our public safety after broad daylight. Martial law in the seventies to early eighties had rendered spaces safe, with the imposition of curfews. However, safely was only relative to those who weren't political targets. Even with the current administration's war on drugs, gender violence and unreported stories on police raids shared within the confines of social media, the impending fear of martial law hangs over our heads. (As of this writing, Mindanao, a Muslim region south of the Philippines, is under martial law to curb ongoing acts of rebellion involving firearms and terrorism, and an extension has been upheld by the Supreme Court until the end of the year. Its constitutionality has been questioned and while it is far away and we are culturally removed from Mindanao, this display of power only means that martial law can be declared anytime.) And just like the example of social realism I brought up, it doesn't entirely represent us as a race or culture, either. But city-scape as our digital offering is what reflects our reciprocity to neighbouring cities and spaces and the desire for the familiar and unfamiliar. It's what we give back to the
world, especially after taking all our experiences in and translating them into a visual articulation of sorts. The videos have also done their own share of traveling and finding their art audiences. And how we continue to dance around these concepts is our way of further exploring how much further we can go. For this special edition of we have selected , an interesting ongoing video, dance, performance collaborative project that you created with Gian Cruz and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: what has particularly impressed us of your insightful inquiry into is the way you provided the results of your work with captivating aesthetics and coherent visual unity. When walking our readers through the genesis of would you tell us how did you develop the initial idea? I was able to take a film elective a year before I finalised the very first city-scape video. It was a spin-off from an original film I completed for the elective called Flaneurs In Love, wherein two men who gave off hints of their actual personalities dance away their respective highs and lows before a chance meeting between them takes place. I chose dance as a medium of expression and communication because it was the best way for me not to deal with dialogue or a clear-cut narrative. I happened to be watching a lot of silent films at the time, and was drawn to movement with little to no sound at all. Maya Deren's short films involving dance totally blew me away because they conveyed how there were no limits to the use of space and how connectivity is highly possible between or among distinctly different spaces. I would definitely give a nod to Pina Bausch's unconventional approaches to ballet. The inspiration is definitely there in terms of situating ourselves in relation to our surroundings, though I can't really say that we have
gone as far as challenging the physical limits of bodies with erratic movements brought about by the quality of emotional intensity, as we are still reconciling emotions with performativity as something that comes naturally. It's a continuing, exploratory thing as we are always on the lookout for locations and the spaces within to work with for city-scape. Robert Longo's "Men in the Cities" series also resonates with us in terms of the stylishly cleancut male and female "dancers" in the given frame, trying to cut loose or break free from a certain convention - minus the monumental scale of the hand-drawn medium and iconographic aspects that the series is known for. While working with two flaneurs served its purpose for the duration of the course, I felt that I didn't just want it to just start and end with a film elective. It was interesting to see how the characters were developed in relation to the city and each other, but I also couldn't see a future beyond their encounter, either. Gian Cruz, whom I had cast as one of the flaneurs, saw the potential of a continuing project, with him retaining his character. On camera, his depiction of a flaneur was more natural between the two. So I shamelessly edited the other guy out (since we were no longer friends at one point), and city-scape was realised from there. It was easier to work with the ambiguity of having only one flaneur relate to his surroundings because it allows for breathing space, especially for the layers of discourse to unfold. It gave more room for the articulation of the unseen "observer", which is where I come in, because in a way, the flaneur is an extension of myself. He inhabits the spaces I inhabit. It is an exploration for both of us to venture in these spaces that are coded as "safe", because there are always threats of gender violence in the streets that perhaps have everything and nothing to do with political activism. Everything because we have a misogynist in power who actually stated that women should be shot in the pussy with an rifle, and nothing
Women Cinemakers because women, both straight and queer, and queer men just want to go about their daily commute safely without having to end up at a rally. Even something as everyday as taking public transport or driving alone is a struggle for safety. Likewise with the simple act of walking. At present, city-scape is a trilogy and it won't end there. The first video gives you an inkling of how the flaneur preoccupies himself when out into the town, most notably with the books he reads in the French text. His worldliness is met with a locality of pretences, and both fantasy and reality somehow collide with how we chose to re/present the contextual space. The second video was set within a confined, private space and environmental sound. Outside of the visible space, particularly over the wall, is public space, and the only evidence we have of it is the sound itself. The third video deals with a cosmopolitan space that boasts of its global expansion by building more condos. In spite of having the end consumer in mind, which is the feeling of home, the space actually feels soulless; hence, the flaneur's robotic movements in his dance. It's no doubt that collaborations as the one that you have established with artist Gian Cruz are today ever growing forces in Contemporary Art and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields of practice meet and collaborate on a project: could you tell us something about the collaborative nature of your work? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between artists from different disciplines? Gian was there from the very beginning. We're actually from the same graduate program. So he was very accessible for the first 2 videos since city-scape's inception in 2012. These days, however, we have to schedule our shoots around the demands of thesis writing, ongoing projects and our personal lives. At the time the first video was fleshed out in 2013, he was embarking on an ongoing self- portraiture project called "You as Me", wherein he had friends, acquaintances and people he had just encountered to don his usual threads - a button down white shirt with a tie, a blazer and blackrimmed frames. He would photograph his subjects against a plain white wall. He works with black and white photography, and he really dresses like a flaneur in the European sense of the word. Both "You as Me" and city-scape deal with identity and performativity in similar and in also very different ways, so I guess you could say that our works communicate with each other without necessarily being directly connected to one another. interview