Usurp Zone5 Film Festival

A Partial History of the Natural World, 1965 – Sasha Waters Freyer | 6:45 | United States
A meditative exploration of the violent struggle for independence in southeast Asia and butterfly metamorphosis. Framed by excerpts from Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Tulips,’ A Partial History of the Natural World, 1965, reminds us that comfort is a privilege and denial of the suffering of others is not an option. With a live 1965 performance of Bartok’s Solo for Violin 3.

Simulacra – Theo Tagholm | 3:47 | Britain
A simulacra of nature. The photograph skims across the skin of reality.

Retail Therapy – Marko Schiefelbein | 4:33 | Germany
A visual reenactment of commercials from the ’80s that were named to be memorable for several people who are affected by a compulsive buying disorder. On the contrary to the originals, the spoken text was replaced by the artist with confessions from interviews of shopping addicts. The work RETAIL THERAPY asks in what way and to what extent compulsive buying disorder is triggered by the advertising industry.

Backward Run – Ayce Kartal | 4:00 | France
June 2013. Demonstrators occupy Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park. While the tension and police brutality rise in the streets, the Turkish TV broadcasts documentaries about penguins. Backward Run is a self-censored film criticising this press censorship.

Screen Memory – Laura Fletcher | 5:58 | United States
The story of the filmmaker’s mother’s encounter with the astronaut John Glenn in 1961. The video makes use of found images borrowed from historical books and web pages featuring the NASA space program, as well as more personal family photos. When called upon to decode facts beyond documents and archival materials in order to construct a reality, fantasy inevitably slips in, spills in, or overlaps uncannily with facts. By portraying a particular historical moment in this work, memory and agency can be negotiated to offer renewed possibility for connection with our pasts, even as they calibrate, realign, and transform our current realities.

A Comprehensive Survey of Historical Plaques in Shoreditch, East London – Jack Wormell | 3:00 | Britain
This short video is recommended for any person or persons looking for an introduction to the various historical plaques commemorating figures and events of import in the inner city district of Shoreditch.

Run – Stuart Pound | 5:00 | Britain
The source clip is from a cult science fiction film and is and turned on its side five times over with a slight time delay. The audio track is cut along with the moving image. Most of the work is high contrast black and white, reverting to the original greenish tint at the end.

We Are Not Amused – Vicki Bennett | 3:00 | Britain
Who knows where ideas come from? You or me? Or THEM? The Muses are angry and they want their ideas back! This is a story of thieving and re-appropriation, staged on a mythological platform.

Cape Mongo Plastic – Francois Knoetze | 5:00 | South Africa
Characters are followed as they journey through the city of Cape Town. Each ‘Mongo’ character is made from the city’s discarded waste – mythical ‘trash creatures’ which have emerged from the growing dumps of consumer culture. The creatures revisit the spaces of their imagined pasts – the locations associated with their material existence and the constitution of their social relations – as if walking against the consumer-driven currents of city.

I Love You – Daniel Watkins | 2:29 | United States
More so than photographing the subject into nothingness, the camera here reassembles its subject with every repetition allowing the image to constantly redefine itself while simultaneously heading down path towards the undefinable. Without filtration or synthesizers, I Love You uses re-photography to create several generations of the same small clip reducing a cultural artifact into an abstraction of sound and image.

Terry’s last Intern – Hannah Ford | 3:16 | Britain
Terry Richardson’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ music video sparked a media onslaught of open letters and feminist debates concerning whether Miley Cyrus’ nudity was empowering or victimising.

Scan me / Milk me – Harrison Banfield | 0:43 | Britain
A short experimental film created through the digital manipulation of found footage and audio. It explores the inherent violence associated with medical procedures.

The Evil Table – Molly Brown | 5:35 | Britain
As the police investigate an incident at a gangster’s birthday party, witnesses tell of having seen a supposedly mythical creature, The Evil Table. But does The Evil Table really exist?

Run Manila Run – MV Isip | 2:50 | Philippines
Based on Chubbs Bustamante’s piece on the romanticized middle class perspective of poverty, Run Manila Run is a digital mixed media videopoem in collaboration with 18 Filipino artists. It attempts to recreate the experience of an artwork one cannot fully grasp at first, but continues to generate new meaning with each viewing.

The 400 Breathless Blows of Jules and Jim – Molly Brown | 3:26 | Britain
A tribute to the French New Wave films of the late 1950s/early 1960s, compiled from a combination of public domain and stock footage.

Saturn Return – Ale Bachlechner | 14:43 | Germany
‘Spiritual self-help video’, written, performed, shot and edited by a two-woman team. In four different chapters, Ale and Olivia take on the roles of themselves, their (ex-)lovers and rivals, and stage dramatic break-ups, moments of goodbye and moral confrontations, partially using the structures and narratives of soap opera. With ever changing costumes and locations, they confuse the notion of consistent gender roles in those relationship dramas. The insecurity about which character is male and which is female, and whose story is told from which perspective is relished. Their bodies and voices become variables that can embody a wide range of meanings. From that position they tackle questions of responsibility, autonomy and identity.