2023 Official Selections
Short Non-Documentary
A E T H E R
Pinja Seppälä
Finland
Inspired by the four classical elements: earth, water, air and fire.
How do the elements affect the movement, the feeling, the way of going forward?
Exploring these elements combining various circus disciplines and dance.
COMMON GROUND
Victoria Dela Amedume
United Kingdom
A satirical, fly-on-the-wall documentary......
WE’RE ON THE SEARCH FOR A NEW GLOBAL MAJORITY STAR TO REBRAND CIRCUS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
The Common Ground short film takes you behind the scenes of a creative, chaotic audition room as Director Victoria Dela and comedy writer Athena attempt to find ‘The New Face of Circus’.
Mixing comedy, circus artistry and music, this spoof documentary parodies the very real process of what it’s like to audition as an artist from the Global Majority. Watch aspiring cast members Rafiq, Lu, Ayesha, Eric and Shane navigate the ups and downs of the creative process.
Join us as we sidestep the usual narratives in circus.
Distillations
Luther Bangert
USA
Distillations takes the audience on a multimedia and multidimensional journey through the anatomy of a moment, investigating causality, and emerging into the ground state of the juggling universe. By highlighting segments within the juggling process that are often only a means to an end - the suspense of a peaked throw, an object at rest, a dropped object, and the moving human body above, below, and through it all, we are invited to explore the realms between inner and outer, and wonder at
the transformations inherent there.
In addition to the originality of the juggling performance, Distillations features projected video that is intertwined and parallel to the live performance, providing an extra perspective and tactility to the juggling and movement, and allowing for further questioning and understanding of the presentation. With a mixture of vivid and surreal imagery, the video puts a lens onto the performance itself and investigates it from both the macrocosm and microcosm, taking the audience into the infinitude of the juggling process. In each new place it is performed, Distillations creates a new relationship in how it interacts with and activates the environment, through the projection of the video onto the space, and the projection of the throws around it.
Life ♾️ Hope
DoubleV
Taiwan
Ever since we were born,
we have been searching for and exploring the meaning of life.
As we grow older,
There are more to be learnt and take responsibilities of.
We can't be wilful and do whatever that comes into mind.
And we have reached here so far.
With our own name.
For the unknown future...🔒
Feral
Daisy Black
United Kingdom
FERAL is a cross-artform project by Daisy Black and Gossamer Thread Circus. The project, combining circus performance, short film, original prose and fine art, explores a reconnection with the land, drawing on folklore and ecology around each pivotal moment of the year that has anchored us to the earth throughout history, and the process of rewilding and seasonal ecology.
Each film - Spring, Midsummer, Autumn and Winter - and print was created and released at the turning point of the year, from the Spring Equinox to the Winter Solstice, filmed at Wild Ken Hill, a large-scale rewilding project in West Norfolk, and donations from the project were used to plant trees to link two ancient forests at Make It Wild, a rewilding estate in Yorkshire.
Here the full cycle of films are presented together, as one.
The Lonely Child Project
Stacie Dunlop, Angola Murdoch, Holly Treddenick
Canada
The Lonely Child Project is an intricate tapestry of elements, combining contemporary music, theatre, dance and circus to reimagine Claude Vivier’s iconic Lonely Child in a dramatic setting by animating the role of the child sung by soprano Stacie Dunlop, while his dream world is brought to life through the choreography of aerialist-dancers Angola Murdoch and Holly Treddenick.
Marcel The Muscle Man
Michael Joseph Murray
USA
Midas is King
Rachel Strickland
USA
"Midas is King" is a short aerial dance film about the relentless consumption of beauty as currency within the confines of a system. Especially true for people who are raised as girls, the most valuable capital we have is perceived to be our youth, beauty, and sexual viability.
This axiom is embedded in the fiber of our culture and our bodies, which are consumed and exploited as a resource from an early age. In such a value system, the merit of ourselves is seen to decline steadily as soon as we reach the apex of young adulthood. Brief moments of ascension are possible, tastes of autonomy marked by their brevity and ultimate dissolution.
The act of survival itself consumes as fast as it creates, leaving behind a debt unpaid.