ALCHEMY FILM FESTIVAL - SHORTS: Pastime Present Tense
3 Mei 2020 SAST (+02:00)
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Five Short Films - Pastime Present Tense
The playground is a democracy of things. From birds, bees and berries to dominoes, data storage and derelict sites, the five films in Pastime Present Tense explore exploration – how human bodies interact, interpret and live with space.
In Birds of a Feather, Nora Sweeney creates a warm, endearing portrait of a group of elderly Armenian men playing backgammon in a park in Glendale, California. Sweeney cultivates a sense of ceremony in the game, showing each player arriving from different directions, to convene together. Subtitles are only provided for a few minutes, introducing us to the group’s conversation in their shared language. Sweeney creates a strong sense of the communication and conviviality, at play beyond words, through this omission, intimate close-ups of hands, and personal items – cards, keys, a bottle of cologne, and the tactility of analogue film.
In If play is neither inside nor outside, where is it?, Helen McCrorie takes us to Cultybraggen Camp in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Originally built during World War II as a prisoner-of-war camp, Cultybraggen has also functioned as an army training base, a nuclear monitoring post, regional government headquarters, a data storage centre, an orchard and now – in McCrorie’s film – a world run by children. Through the authoritative presence of children without adults and a voice-over manifesto commanding a strategy of understanding the world through a process of assumption, exploration, testing and repeating, McCrorie presents the site not as something dark and concrete, but something challenged and understood only through the potentials of play and reinterpretation. More so than the lingering remnants of military debris, her inclusion of the data storage facility in the bunker beneath the children’s play-world, introduces an element of fear – the only site in the film which remains untouched and unexplored by any physicality.
Justine Abitbol’s Chant at Dusk explores the materiality of the outdoors in a muddy ritual played out by four siblings. The protagonist, Helen, grapples with mucky nature, holding close the wings of a little bird, and unearthing worms in her hand. For Abitbol, and for Helen, nature and human interaction within in it is serious and visceral.
In Garment/Movement, Lily Ashrowan explores space, physical response and time. Ashrowan depicts two women playing and performing amongst industrial debris, likening human arms and non-human levers in Hawick’s derelict Peter Scott mill, a site imbued with the past labour of women. A tense countdown booms out as the site’s discarded present is explored through the female body and entrancing gestures of the passing of time. Ashrowan challenges notions of play as simply jovial or as pastime, and fixes it firmly in real human experience, a method to understand the world.
Finally, James Hollenbaugh takes us to Animal Farm, a residence where animals are taken to die, their parts later being sold on or left to decay. The description of this site is recalled by the narration and drawings of young Sofia, whose Uncle Steve runs Animal Farm. By juxtaposing images of death and decay with Sofia’s colourful drawings and ambiguous understanding of the place, Hollenbaugh creates an uncomfortable tension between dark human reality and the optimistic worlds of children.
Stream opens 20 minutes before scheduled screening time.
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Five Short Films - Pastime Present Tense
The playground is a democracy of things. From birds, bees and berries to dominoes, data storage and derelict sites, the five films in Pastime Present Tense explore exploration – how human bodies interact, interpret and live with space.
In Birds of a Feather, Nora Sweeney creates a warm, endearing portrait of a group of elderly Armenian men playing backgammon in a park in Glendale, California. Sweeney cultivates a sense of ceremony in the game, showing each player arriving from different directions, to convene together. Subtitles are only provided for a few minutes, introducing us to the group’s conversation in their shared language. Sweeney creates a strong sense of the communication and conviviality, at play beyond words, through this omission, intimate close-ups of hands, and personal items – cards, keys, a bottle of cologne, and the tactility of analogue film.
In If play is neither inside nor outside, where is it?, Helen McCrorie takes us to Cultybraggen Camp in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Originally built during World War II as a prisoner-of-war camp, Cultybraggen has also functioned as an army training base, a nuclear monitoring post, regional government headquarters, a data storage centre, an orchard and now – in McCrorie’s film – a world run by children. Through the authoritative presence of children without adults and a voice-over manifesto commanding a strategy of understanding the world through a process of assumption, exploration, testing and repeating, McCrorie presents the site not as something dark and concrete, but something challenged and understood only through the potentials of play and reinterpretation. More so than the lingering remnants of military debris, her inclusion of the data storage facility in the bunker beneath the children’s play-world, introduces an element of fear – the only site in the film which remains untouched and unexplored by any physicality.
Justine Abitbol’s Chant at Dusk explores the materiality of the outdoors in a muddy ritual played out by four siblings. The protagonist, Helen, grapples with mucky nature, holding close the wings of a little bird, and unearthing worms in her hand. For Abitbol, and for Helen, nature and human interaction within in it is serious and visceral.
In Garment/Movement, Lily Ashrowan explores space, physical response and time. Ashrowan depicts two women playing and performing amongst industrial debris, likening human arms and non-human levers in Hawick’s derelict Peter Scott mill, a site imbued with the past labour of women. A tense countdown booms out as the site’s discarded present is explored through the female body and entrancing gestures of the passing of time. Ashrowan challenges notions of play as simply jovial or as pastime, and fixes it firmly in real human experience, a method to understand the world.
Finally, James Hollenbaugh takes us to Animal Farm, a residence where animals are taken to die, their parts later being sold on or left to decay. The description of this site is recalled by the narration and drawings of young Sofia, whose Uncle Steve runs Animal Farm. By juxtaposing images of death and decay with Sofia’s colourful drawings and ambiguous understanding of the place, Hollenbaugh creates an uncomfortable tension between dark human reality and the optimistic worlds of children.
Stream opens 20 minutes before scheduled screening time.