VIS Music Video Competition 2016
MuVis Awards go to Nu Renegade and Cold Stares
by Elena Prendjova & Lana Sokolaj
The beat was on again as the Austrian and International Music Videos (MuVis) filled up for the third time the stunning theater of Metro Kinokulturhaus on the hot Saturday afternoon of May 28. And the reason was the award ceremony, which saw both competition strands get their winners.
Tunnel/Vision – National Competition
Try to Stay Focused!
by Vanessa Scharrer
The second programme of the National Competition at VIS was a medley of different interpretations of the topic Tunnel Vision. It is not just an impairment which causes people to lose the peripheral vision and only see what’s in front of them, it is also a metaphor for being focused on just one situation, person or goal. We can get lost in this situation by concentrating on something so hard that we can’t see anything else, and the edges to the outside world start to blur. It describes a paradoxical process: we try to focus by ignoring what is happening around us and as a result we can’t see clearly at all.
Animation Avantgarde 2 – International Competition
A Tomb or a Treasury?
by Miha Veingerl
Above the entrance to the Cinémathèque Française in Paris is an inscription: »I can be either a tomb or a treasury – it depends on the one who’s entering«. This quote from Paul Valéry especially applies to lesser accessible forms like experimental film: in order to enjoy it, you have to understand it intellectually or emotionally, in order to understand it, you need to have at least an open mind. I had it, entering the Stadtkino in Künstlerhausto experience the second programme of this year’s VIS Animation Avantgarde competition, comprising 14 short films.
Fiction and Documentary 5: Spread Your Wings and Fly Now
Buckle Up, We Are Taking off!
by Elena Prendjova
Fly off from your minds into your solitary hearts…
Indeed, the theme of the screening Spread Your Wings and Fly Now represents flying in a metaphorical sense. From all the five films screened, only one, Jan van Ijken’s The Art of Flying (Netherlands) took aerial travel literally. Taking the viewer into a mesmerising, optical illusion-producing reality of a huge flock of flying birds, Van Ijken demonstrates his remarkable skill in film photography.
Image © VIS | Maren Jeleff