Harkat 16mm Film Festival Harkat 16mm Film Festival

16mm Film Festival 2019

 

The 16mm Film Festival, the home for all things celluloid, is coming back for its third edition. This year, the festival takes two lives, one in Goa as part of our ‘India on Film’ programme at the Serendipity Arts Festival and another in Mumbai, playing international contemporary works made on film.

To recap last year, we screened 25 films from over 8 countries and had a screening of Udaan on 35mm at Films Division, followed by a Q&A with the Director, Vikramaditya Motwane. Apart from our screenings, we also held an in-depth DIY hands-on film-making workshop, in collaboration with Kodak, LaborBerlin and Goethe Institute, and a one minute script competition, the winners of which got to turn their scripts into films, shot on film.

The 16mm Film festival will be held in Mumbai at Harkat Studios, in collaboration with Kodak, on the 7th and 8th of December. The festival will see the screening of films shot on celluloid made by contemporary filmmakers from across the world. The works range from narrative to experimental films, in combination with straight8 and handmade films.

This programme also speaks to our parallel curatorial at Serendipity Arts Festival, which is an exploration of the inter-relationship between the art and craft of making on film; celebrating Indian experiments on film.

Bringing together makers from around the world who believe in the meticulousness and beauty of analog, the 16mm Film Festival 2019 celebrates all the tid-bits, tod-phod and jugaad that goes into putting together a film on film.

DAY 1 | 7th DEC | HARKAT STUDIOS

Straight8

The opening day of the festival will see screenings of select film from the straight8 short film competition. Founded in London, 1999, straight8 is a global one-super-8-cartridge-no-editing short film competition. The films you will see were edited as they were shot, with no retakes and no colour grading, which means the first time the makers saw their films is with the audience themselves. The top 8 films every year get screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

 

7:30 PM

The Honey Bee
Directed by: Conor O’Hagan, Will Skelton, Archie Blue (UK)
Synopsis: A boy growing up under difficult circumstances chooses the wrong way as the right way.

An Inorganic Love Story
Directed by: Lizzy Mansfield (UK)
Synopsis: A surrealist, comedic, love story of a woman and a robot takes an unfortunate turn.

The Immortality of the Crab
Directed by: Giacomo Manzotti (Italy)
Synopsis: The synaesthetic research between sound and image is accomplished by connecting animations, made on 1125 cardboard frames, with an original soundtrack produced using sounds sampled by handling pieces of cardboard.

Letter to Anne
Directed by: Bensdorfer Kreis ( Germany)
Synopsis: In a post Apocalyptic world, a mother must send a letter back in time to prevent her daughter from creating a world-ending event.

Autonomat
Directed by: Anne Fidler, Deccan Hurley (Germany)
Synopsis: A lavish, avant-garde exploration of a photo booth in Berlin.

What a Cab
Directed by: Jake Kuhn (UK)
Synopsis: What happens when your uber driver happens to be a samurai? A comedic take on the encounter.

Memoirs of a Geeza
Directed by: Theo James Krekis (UK)
Synopsis: A top lad recalls friends, fights and painting toe-nails with his old man.

Pink Yoga Mat
Directed by: Rose Hendry (UK)
Synopsis: While deciding which colour yoga mat to buy, a woman explores sides of herself.

Rumours
Directed by: Ollie Birt (Australia)
Synopsis: A young boy recalls stories about a strange man who works behind the counter at a fish shop.

Horse Play
Directed by: Hansel Rodrigues (UK)
Synopsis: An elderly man must come to terms with his wife’s strange sexual obsession.

Babli
Directed by: Aneel Ahmad (UK, filmed in Pakistan)
Synopsis: A short documentary, following the life of a middle aged man suffering from schizophrenia and chronic depression, narrated by his brother.

Experimental

Following this section is the Experimental Films section, featuring experimental short films submitted to the festival. These films twist and blend elements of narrative, space, time, sound and colour to create striking and thought-provoking imagery that will stay with you long after you experience them.

8:30 PM

Motion at a Distance
Directed by: Lindsay Packer, Andrew Yong Hoon Lee (USA)
Synopsis: Color takes ephemeral form into the sound space, shadow shapes emerge, interact and recede as luminous, temporary geometries call into the question the division between analog and digital ways of seeing and believing in the form of stop motion.

Getting Ready Montage 1: Always Layla
Directed by: Lesley Marshall (Canada)
Synopsis: A stylized version of narrative cinema; one which never ends, a saturated beauty experience which is built on an obsession with feminine iconography.

Oxytocin
Directed by: Lilith Queisser (Germany)
Synopsis: Everything rubs, everything is in contact. But when the closeness disappears, only the rubbing at distance remains; oxytocin, a hormone that gives a pleasant feeling after physical contact starts running.

Textile Workers
Directed by: Andrea Nappi, Juno Roome (USA)
Synopsis: A wayward man, led by a scarlet fairy, is transported to a fantastical land.

Corona
Directed by: Alex Broadwell (USA)
Synopsis: A short study on impressions of light and memory navigating a home and a head or two.

Two
Directed by: Vasilios Papaioannu (USA)
Synopsis: The conversation—between sound and image, seasons come and gone, natural and altered landscapes, and an unseen man and woman—begins as a duet between a video diary and a field recording, and ends as an archive of the possibilities hibernating in each moment.

The Equatorial Calms
Directed by: Derek Taylor (USA)
Synopsis: Optical ruminations on an unpredictable region of Earth where raging storms and calm waters coexist and seafarers are not only contained within this indeterminate state, but also within the film frame.

Blastogenese II
Directed by: Conrad Veit (Germany)
Synopsis: A fantasization of evolution between science fiction images out from the 1950s and images of queer and bizzare experimental films showing creatures between human and animal, born out of a plant seed pouch in a setting of world end.

Void
Directed by: Shincy Lu (USA, China)
Synopsis: At a night of power outage, a young woman alone in her apartment finds herself face to face with her subconscious fear and desire.

DAY 2 | 8th DEC | HARKAT STUDIOS

HANDMADE

The second day will begin with the screening of a series off Hand-Made films made during the ‘From-Shoot-To-Finish’ workshop and the ‘Ek minute’ 16mm film competition from last year’s festival, followed by films from the Narrative category.

6 PM

Killing your Darlings
By Ada, Ayesha, Navneet, Nidhi, Siddhanth

And then, there were none..The Red Pink Balloon
By Sweta, Ranvir, Sujay
Of times past…

Afterimage
By Prashant, Sivaranjini, Anand, Ronit, Omkar
A photographer lost in his own images.

16mm Selfie
By Karan Talwar
A 16mm found footage film, made using footage found at Chor Bazaar (Thieves Market) in Mumbai.

Hold
By Sheba Alexander
A hands on film about letting go.

INTERNATIONAL SHORTS

The various films selected have been filmed on 8mm, 16mm, Super 16mm and 70mm formats, and cover a variety of themes from love and fantasy to psychology and sacrifice.

7:30 PM

Priscilla and Her Sisters
Directed by: Omar Lopex (USA)
Synopsis: A documentary which incorporates fantastical elements and contemporary locations to imbue a previously unknown chapter of history.

Bertin
Directed by: Elise Lausseur (France)
Synopsis: In the Alps, Bertin- a big man and Yohann- a little one robe a charity shop.

Wolf on the Loose: Revenge
Directed by: Nahuel Matias Srnec (Argentina)
Synopsis: A fighter of clandestine boxing fights, Lobo, steps out to seek revenge after he is presumed dead and betrayed.

Well Born
Directed by: Lucas Ostrowski (USA)
Synopsis: Ann, a pregnant reproductive specialist, discovers that the structured, safe, and secure United World may not be a utopian society.

Corruption
Directed by: Jason Ewert (USA)
Synopsis: With a new apartment, a writer descends into creativity and madness.

Daughter of Dismay
Directed by: James Quinn (Austria)
Synopsis: An emotionally broken witch enters the deep of the woods to fulfill her biggest desire.

Blue
Directed by: Shiwei Shen (USA, China)
Synopsis: A young girl, taking care of her disabled father, runs into her ex-boyfriend and is forced to make a difficult choice.

Cold/Mess
Directed by: Dar Gai (India)
Synopsis: An exploration of a couple in a toxic relationship, unable to let go, heal or change; who are addicted to the best in each other, and in denial of the worst in each other.