Three Borders, video, 55 min., 2017
Multiple: video on a tablet, hot plate, steam, smoke
Three Borders is a 55 minute-long film comprising found footage in the style of Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962). It is made up of the artist's family photos as well as other anonymous (family) photos. Framed in the style of magical realism, the film relates anecdotes from the lives of Alisa Berger's Jewish father and North Korean mother. In a series of ten stories, a tale is told of how internal, external, national, ethnic, intellectual or spiritual borders are both transcended or erected and, indeed, span three generations. Alisa Berger tells of Halmani, her Korean grandmother, a farmer whose dream of becoming an artist remained unfulfilled; of Evgenij, the builder and destroyer of bridges and of Naftula, the six-year-old boy, who killed another child. She also remembers Alisa, the girl with one eye different to the other, and Maya, who was swept away by the sea and reborn. And finally she tells of Tanja, the mother who loved her piano more than she loved her son, as well as Sofa, the sister who gave up her family, crossing the border in search of a better life and disappearing forever. Alisa Berger uses the technique of poetic compression in her film: subjective memories and dreams culminate in the intimate reality of a fictitious photo album.
Alisa Berger born 1987 in Machatschkala, Dagestan and raised in Lviv and Essen, lives and works in Cologne, Germany. Previous to her studies worked as First Assistant Director for Philip Gröning. Since 2010 studied at the Academy of Media Art in Cologne, focussed on own fictional and experimental films and performative works. 2013 studied at Universidad Nacional de Colombia fine arts. 2013 Scholarship of DAAD for Colombia exchange and Artist-in-Residency at „lugar a dudas“, Cali, Colombia. Since 2010 working together with artist Lena Ditte Nissen as artistic duo " bergernissen". http://bergernissen.com
