mumok cinema | Films as Letters

Presenting Films as Letters emphasizes the individual address—while they are nonetheless directed at an audience. Personal information oscillates with public messages. Various cinematic compositions of salutation, reply, and visual moments create their own long-distance relationships and time crystals. Whether they are love letters in the year of Chernobyl (Thelyia Petrakis, Bella, 2020), or correspondences about the assault on a kibbutz in Israel (Lynne Sachs, States of UnBelonging, 2005) or a reconciliation attempt between a daughter and a father who would have preferred to have a son (Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Love, Dad, 2021), the evening’s screened films nimbly cross the boundaries of fictionalization and authentication. 

Program
Thelyia Petrakis, Bella, 2020, 24 min
Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Love, Dad, 2021, 15 min
Lynne Sachs, States of UnBelonging, 2005, 63 min

Presented by Rainer Bellenbaum in conversation with Ayala Shoshana Guy
 

Rainer Bellenbaum is a freelance lecturer in film theory. Along with contributions to books and journals (Texte zur Kunst, bbooks, Spector Books), he released short films with Arsenal Distribution Berlin, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen and others.

Ayala Shoshana Guy is an artist and filmmaker, working at the intersection of video, animation and text. She teaches at the University of Passau and attends the Critical Studies master’s program at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. 

This program is part of the eponymous course by Rainer Bellenbaum and Sabeth Buchmann at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.