Shot in Spain in 2013; part of a three-film suite also including Toros – Window (screening in International Program 4).

Robert Fenz (Ann Arbor MI 1969). Studies at Bard College and CalArts. 12+ films since 1992; screenings at two Whitney Biennials (New York), solo screenings at Locarno Film Festival (Italy), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Cinématheque Française (Paris), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (2004). Lives in Los Angeles, California. Fourth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening (2009); Grand Prize (2004).

Envíos (“Letters”) are moments in photography and film that I dedicate and send to particular persons. Thoughts, sensations, images transmitted by the Envíos are fragments of life made possible through encountering those persons. In the Envíos these fragments return, or move towards another place of reference. Each Envío is a consignment in a small cardboard box, consisting of a film reel or photography and accompanying text.

Envío 26 is for Fernando Orrega and Reinhardt Schulz and was filmed in El Volcan, Chile.

Jeannette Muñoz (Santiago, Chile 1967). Studies at Universidad de Chile. 30+ films since 2000; screenings at Kino Arsenal (Berlin), “Views from the Avant-garde” at the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc. Lives in Zürich, Switzerland. Third appearance at Media City.

Apulia, Italy, 2013.

Anna Marziano (Padova, Italy 1982). Studies at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Rome) and at Le Fresnoy (Tourcoing, France). Five films since 2009; screenings at Experimenta (Bangalore, India), Torino Film Festival, “Wavelengths” at the Toronto International Film Festival, etc. Currently lives in Berlin, Germany. Second appearance at Media City.

“Moments of paradoxical experience — of being a superhero or being for sale — channelled into reverberant conduits, divided by panes of glass or suspended in watery solitudes… Sister City, like water, seeks its own level, cresting and displacing continuous bursts of life, spiritualized, succulent and ultimately alone.” — Deirtra Thompson

Image copyright the artist coutesy Video Data Bank: vdb.org

Dani Leventhal (Columbus OH, 1972). Studies at the University of Illinois and Bard College. Works in drawing and in video since 2003, screenings at MoMA PS1, “Views from the Avant-garde” at the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc; drawings in permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art and Yale University. Lives in Columbus, Ohio. First appearance at Media City.

“Her eyes are wide, not sure of what they are seeing. The neck supporting the face is pure structure, skin alone covering the skeleton and resembling the bark encasing the roots of a thousand-year-old tree eroding from out of the earth… Light streaks across the image from which heads emerge and disappear, like ghosts or abstractions. The camera is the centre of instability, shaken by jolts or twitches…” ― Sylvia Szely

“Instead of eyes it is the mouth that serves as the open organ at the center of this image. Why is life worth living / why life is worth living: it is a question and an answer at one and the same time. Why is it really worth it? Why do we suffer pain? Perhaps to watch and to see, even with our eyes closed.” — Sylvia Szely

Friedl vom Gröller (London, England 1946). Studies at Graphic Instruction and Research Institute Vienna. Photography exhibitions at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Frankfurter Kunstverein, etc; Austrian State Prize for Photography (2005). 40+ films since 1968; screenings at Austrian Filmmuseum, International FIlm Festival Rotterdam, Anthology Film Archives (New York), etc. Founder of School for Artistic Photography and School for Independent Film, Vienna. Lives in Vienna, Austria. Fifth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening and exhibition in 2010.

A film based on fragments of the story “La Gente Perra” by Colombian writer Gomati D. Wahn (1923-1993). The story takes place 3000 years in the future and follows the character of The Admiral as he searches for the land of the Dog People. As is typical of Wahn’s style, the story is assembled from altered existing texts, in this case, historic accounts of the discovery and conquest of what was once known as The New World.

Anja Dornieden ([Heilbad] Heiligenstadt, [East] Germany 1984), Juan David González Monroy (Bogotá, Colombia 1983). Eight films in collaboration since 2010; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Visions du Réel, etc. Live in Berlin, Germany. First appearance at Media City.