RPM in Motion: Shorts

Revolutions per Minute Festival

Short films from Germany 
This program features contemporary short films by filmmakers based in Germany. All works explore hybrid forms of film genres, from experimental narrative to docu-drama to film essays for archival research. The program is free to the public. 

Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis 
Jazz Live Score 

The jazz trio led by tenor saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase will perform their new improvised score to the nearly 100-year-old classic motion picture Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, on March 22. Tickets are available here. Doors open at 6:30 PM. 

Program 1: RPM IN Motion: 1:00 - 2:30PM
International Filmmakers Showcase

01: The film you are about to see
Maxime Marinot,  France, 11:00

Please note that the film you are about to see is taken from real material of film history, namely the disclaimers and warnings that frame the existence of many films. However, any collusion between art and industry, any conflict of interest between freedom of creation and the law, or any hint of moralism on the life of images, would be purely incidental and unintentional.

Maxime Martinot is a French director, editor and writer. After his cinema studies in Paris 8, he works between Brittany, Paris and Lisbon. His first feature film Trois contes de Borges won two prizes at FIDMarseille and was released in French theatres in 2018. His short essay film Histoire de la révolution won the Best Short Film Award at Entrevues Belfort. In 2022, Antelopes is nominated for the César Awards, in the Best documentary short film category.


02: Rule No. 5: Shadow Your Man Closely
Miro Manojlovic, Croatia, 9:59

Rule No. 5: Shadow Your Man Closely assembles a film loop collage out of Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. train scene. One shot becomes the base for specific editing procedures through which the film narrative is reconstructed and a new plot is created.

Miro Manojlovic (Zagreb, 1985) works in music, film and theatre. Since 2014 he has been working as an Art Associate at Academy of Dramatic Art and cooperates with numerous artists at home and abroad. He has created music for numerous films, theatre and dance performances, and actively works as a film author, editor and music composer. In his free time he is devoted to exploring merry mysteries of sound and vision.


03: Questioning the Existence of Alec
Roger Horn, USA, 4:34

"Questioning the Existence of Alec" is comprised of found footage utilizing stop motion and additional in camera effects recorded on the beaches of South Africa during the 1940s. In this dreamlike journey, two or three friends, one of whom may be Alec are presented from adolescence through adulthood. The surreal journey blurs the boundary between the past and present, reality and fantasy, and invites viewers to question for themselves the nature of reality, dreams, and the existence of the protagonists on both sides of the camera.

Roger Horn is a filmmaker, anthropologist, and film professor. He has over 25 years of moving image experience in Berlin, Cape Town, Los Angeles, and Nashville. He obtained his PhD at the University of Cape Town in Cultural Anthropology and holds an MA in Visual & Media Anthropology. 

His films have been showcased at almost 300 film festivals and conferences worldwide. These include IFFR International Film Festival Rotterdam, Aesthetica Short FIlm Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, where he was nominated for the International Competition category, the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and the 21st, 22nd, & 24th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival.


04: Ripple Effect
Niyaz Saghari, UK, 9:00

The diver plunges into the sea (death), but also into life (eternity), where he will rediscover the primordial waters of life. This quote from Pierre Lévêque about the illustrations in Tomb of the Diver resonated when I watched the viral video of a young man who was executed in Iran in 2020.Few days after his death, the grainy mobile video of him was released .He ran in slow motion and dived in a pool. I watched the wave of his hands, the kick of his foot and crossing the border between air and water just as he leaped beyond fear when he spoke the truth, transitioned from life and became eternal in people’s memory. Like an act of preservation, I filmed the video with a super 8 camera. The camera became a tool of magnifying and grieving. 3 years later, men and women still chant his name in protests. Like the waves after a dive, injustice has a ripple effect.

Niyaz Saghari is a Bristol based filmmaker. Graduating from Film Directing from Art University of Tehran ( Iran), she continued her studies on the MA Animation at Newport. Besides following professional work in animation, she has been directing short documentaries and making experimental films.


05:  Madwomen: to be a sparrow not a canary
Johannes Lõhmus, Sten Haljak, Estonia, 22:50 

A housewife confronts situations to which no sane response exists... “Madwomen: to be a sparrow not a canary” is an experimental found footage melodrama composed entirely out of film footage shot in Soviet Estonia from 1960 until 1969. An experimental collage creating an alternative narrative to the storylines in the animations, documentaries and feature films of that time period


06:  A Slippage in Five Movements
Valentina Rosset, Brazil, 14:42

Inspired by a performance of Toru Takemitsu's composition "Corona: For Pianist(s)", A Slippage In Five Movements is a visual immersion into the graphic score and its musical performance, revealing the unfamiliar landscapes and silences that emerge from the pianist's gestures and the architecture of the piano itself.

Valentina ROSSET is a Brazilian filmmaker who is currently based in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of the Film and Video programme of the California Institute of the Arts. Her works move between experimental and narrative while seeking to explore the intimacies of daily life. Rosset’s films have been displayed at Spectacle Theater, New York; Whammy Analog Media, Los Angeles and Oca do Ibirapuera, São Paulo.

Runtime: 71:00
Break: 10 mins
Program 2: SHORTS FROM GERMANY
2:30PM - 4:00PM

This program will feature three contemporary short films by German based filmmakers. All pieces explore the hybrid modes of film genres from experimental narrative, docu-drama to archive research film essays. The program is free to the public. 

4:00 PM: ZOOM Q&A Conversation with Maria Mayland, Stefania Smolkina and Nahia Garcia de Andoin 

01: Katalinen Kanthoria 
dir. Nahia Garcia de Andoin | 2024

On a winter night, Katalin, a newly arrived immigrant in Germany, wanders the streets of Kalk in what seems to be an attempt to search for a room. After her failure, she takes refuge in ethereal havens of intimacy in a detour home to mend an existence shaped by the margins.

Nahia Garcia de Andoin (2000, Bilbao) is an artist and director working on experimental fiction films. In her works, she shapes intimate spaces of solitude, suspended moments, which create in-between emotions and perceptions, and rethink sensibility as well as the disappearance of life in precariousness. Currently she pursues a MA in Media Arts at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. 


02: Outside 
Dir. Maria Mayland | 2024

“Outside” is a narrative film based on accurate research. The script is based on audio interviews, in which various experts were asked about their personal views on the biography of outsider artist Rosemarie Koczy, who passed away in 2007. Rosemarie Koczy had presumably claimed falsely to be a Holocaust survivor from the 1990s onwards. As part of the screenplay production, audio interviews were conducted with people familiar with the case or the person Rosemarie Koczy. These were: the curators Hans-Jürgen Schwalm and Ferdinand Ulrich, the head of the Recklinghausen city archive Matthias Kordes, the former first deputy of the city of Recklinghausen Georg Möllers, the art historian Christian Walda and one gallerist. These interviews were then transcribed and, together with existing research material, condensed into a script consisting of five monologues. These monologues were staged with actors in theater-like situations. The stage consists of relatively sparsely designed, allusive spatial settings, with props that can spontaneously be read as being documentary in nature, but which do not conceal their artificiality.

Maria Mayland (*1988) is a visual artist and self-taught filmmaker. She obtained her MFA from Basel’s Art Institute and took part in KKH Stockholm's postgraduate program Philosophy in the Context of Art, taught by Peter Osborne. Her short film works have been shown in various contexts across Europe. Screenings include International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück, IDFA Amsterdam, Hamburg International Short Film Festival, transmediale, Edinburgh Film Festival and Sharjah Film Platform. She won the EMAF-Media Art Award of the German film critics association (VdFK) in 2021, and the award for the best entry in the NRW competition of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2018, as well as in 2022.


03: Avec la 4e Division Marocaine de Montagne
Dir. Stefania Smolkina 

A star is immortalized in a rock face next to the Ill River in Vorarlberg. The superimposition of text fragments, archival artifacts, and historical maps reveals a view of the city of Feldkirch that is shaped by the presence and traces of an anti-fascist and anti-colonial Moroccan military division. This differentiates and challenges the dominant narrative of the history of liberation from the National Socialist regime and the subsequent French occupation in Vorarlberg.  

Stefania Smolkina is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher. Trained as a textile and media artist, she predominantly works with moving images at the junction of documentary and fiction. 
 
In 2024 she received a KUNSTFONDS_scholarship and her film Avec la 4e Division Marocaine de Montagne was shown at Diagonale‘24 in Graz and at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. In 2023, she was an artist-in-residency at DOCK 20 Residency, Lustenau-Hohenems, Austria and a recipient of the research scholarship Berlin. In 2022, she was a fellow at Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojek, Berlin and part of the Creative Pathways project between Ireland and Germany. She received the Landesstipendium of the Free State of Saxony, the Junctions21 research grant from PACT Zollverein in Essen and travel grants from the Goethe-Institut Moscow. She is part of the initiative Kino in Bewegung, Leipzig and The Emerging Eye Network, Berlin.


Runtime: 69:00
 

Program 3: Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, Live Score  -  Charlie Kohlhase Trio 
7:00PM
Walter Ruttmann
65:00, B/W, 1927
 
Tickets need to be aquired for program 3

Alto, tenor and baritone saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase has been a mainstay of Boston’s jazz scene for over twenty years.  Whether leading his two newest bands, performing in a dozen others or writing over 50 compositions, his music spans a broad range of styles with an emphasis on the contemporary and the improvised.
Born and raised in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (11/28/56), Charlie began playing saxophones at 18.  After private studies with Stan Strickland and Roswell Rudd, he moved to Boston in 1980.
In 1989, he formed the Charlie Kohlhase Quintet, an ongoing project that has performed locally and nationally for a decade and half. Their long-awaited live 2-CD set, “Play Free Or Die,” has been released on the Boxholder label to critical acclaim. Kohlhase also leads the CK5, a second quintet that recently released its live debut, “CK5 Live!” Charlie's two newest bands, Explorer's Club and Saxophone Support Group , are charting new territory. Explorer's Club , another quintet for Kohlhase, builds upon his long relationship with New England saxophonist Matt Langley. SSG is an ever-changing quartet to octet of local sax luminaries.
Door opens at 6:30PM.