The overall theme explores how digitalisation and the internet is creeping into our lives in unexpected ways. Even as they challenge us to reflect on how internet platforms and media are informing our existence today. This selected group of films are fun, and very entertaining to watch. Is the internet a force for good, or are we being bombarded with too much altogether.
There are films from Argentina, Chile, México, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia, covering an array of different viewpoints, from the more analytical and visually stunning ‘HOMENAJE A LA OBRA DE PHILIP H. GOSSE’ by Argentine Pablo Martín Weber, to the musical video ‘AMOR POR INTERNET’ set to a catchy song by Las Conquistadoras from Bolivia.
‘HOMENAJE A LA OBRA DE PHILIP H GOSSE’ (2020),(A Tribute to Philip H. Gosse) by Pablo Martín Weber, focuses on the works of this 19th Century naturalist and contemporary of Charles Darwin, Philip H Gosse, who was so obsessed with corals and life in the sea, he became an aquarium pioneer, a word he invented. He co- founded of the huge Crystal Palace aquarium, remains of which can be seen today. He was a prolific illustrator and many of his stunning illustrations and his subsequent legacy (in aquariums) can be enjoyed at the London Horniman Museum to this day.
Argentine Pablo Weber’s gentle voice-over narration, (in his charming local Cordobés accent) ties the film together. Over some of Gosse’s superb illustrations, live aquarium footage and even violent ISIS dark web videos of the Syrian Civil war, Weber links the work of this great naturalist and collector with dark web propaganda videos, to question the very significance of archives and files. Are they just relics of a previous existence? “Our descendants might live in a world with no shadows.”(Weber).
Is there really all that much difference between the vast collection of archives, books and files by someone like Gosse, (largely unknown to many), to the video images that erupt like a volcano from the depths of the dark web, that also need to be archaeologically dug up (hacked) to be discovered.
These parallels question the meaning of a file or an archive and what it can represent today or even all those years ago in the 19th Century, when the concept began. Weber has strung visually stunning (and shocking) images together with Francisco Fantín’s effective sound design that adds an hypnotic quality to this film, the longest in the group at 22 minutes.
Sometimes it is fascinating to see how much one can put into 5 or 6 minutes of a short film. Another example is NUNCA É A NOITE NO MAPE (2016) (Maps have no Night time) by Ernesto de Carvalho. In this thought-provoking film, de Carvalho manipulates google earth images. The film opens on a part of a town (Recife), as the director’s voice over tells us that he is in one of the houses featured on the map.
Ernesto de Carvalho seen in a google map in his film Nunca é a Noite no Mape
Using only google images at street level as well, we meet Ernesto himself, who announces he is now a part of the map forever. He reminds us of the ethereal and virtual level of reality these images take us into. A map cannot run or get lost. The map is indifferent, does not know or care whether any of us are in a house or in the street. “It never rains in the map, there is no wind and you can never go against the traffic flow of a street”. You cannot break the rules, but then to cap it, we get street google images of a row of men against the wall being detained by police.
from 'Nunca é a noite no Mapa'
Despite all this, there still remain no – go areas for the map, areas where the absence of roads limits its accessibility. In a time-related sequence of maps, it is revealed how a village is gradually demolished to make way for the progress of a highway being constructed, so that finally, the map can move into those areas. Then tower blocks (labelled ‘Olympic legacy) are reminiscent of the developments that grew up after the 2012 Olympics in London. Graffiti on the boards read “VAI SAIR QUEM QUISER, QUEM NÃO QUISER FICAR!” (It will be revealed who wants to live here and who does not)- Yet despite this, there is no coup d’état in the map, no revolution. This little google journey that de Carvalho created is a delightful view of how internet images tell a story even when they do not intend to do so, and how it has begun to form an integral part of our existence, filing and archiving us, with or without our consent.
from Hyper Reality by Keiichi Matsuda
In contrast, the 6 min. ‘HYPER REALITY’ (2016) by Colombian Keiichi Matsuda, provokes an immediate reaction with his futuristic kaleidoscope of a new vision of the future, where reality and virtual reality are intertwined and the city is saturated with an overload of information.
With actors, captions and music, he questions how we can survive in this bombardment of information, telephones ring, shops are riddled with offers, real and artificial, words are inter-crossed in different languages, both in the images and in the sounds. The system does not allow us in, customer service is out-of-order, on repeat mode, and the insistence that everything is fine wears thin. Juliana Restrepo (Natalia Tamayo) is desperate not to lose her points at the supermarket but she is threatened from all sides. A cut on her hand obliges her to try to reset her ID… the biometric reader fails… all reflected by the sound of a baby crying on the soundtrack… perhaps because everyone is crying, virtually? Visually, the film is beautifully crafted. It plays with Science fiction, fantasy, and parody. Matsuda’s fills this accomplished film with wit and humour, even when it feels a bit too close to home! AAH!
In ‘INTERNET’ (2010), Sonia Marotta and Dadalú illustrate the growth of the culture of the selfie. With the song lyrics reflecting the pain of trying to remain popular on social media. “Por internet te conocí …Siempre me sentí diferente at rebaño…” (We met through the internet… I always felt different to the flock…how dare you ignore my selfie? You risk falling in love). Lyrics to a catchy tune that expresses all this pain and yet everyone will sing it.
The list is endless, disillusion, blogs and selfies and the despair at trying to communicate, despite sexual intimidation, posters that read “2 UGLY 2 SOCIALIZE” and being surrounded by what can only be described as cruelty. The constant sway between hope and disillusion, kiss me… more cats (do we really need more on the internet?) roses than open in hope and close in despair, wolves and illusionists. Images that can be digitally changed, created or improved. Welcome to this new reality!
From 'Amor por Internet' by Las Conquistadoras and the charango Kings.
In ‘AMOR POR INTERNET (2010), (Love via the internet) has a totally different take in the 5 min. This music video by the Bolivian group ‘Las Conquistadoras’ (The Conquerors) is performed with charm by the first group of cholitas that started to interpret and perform Huayño-Cumbia, directed by Servando Cáceres and Felicidad Centura.
There are 4 cholitas and 4 charango kings. The Charango being the traditional small stringed guitarlike instrument typical of Bolivia. It has a very distinctive sound, with its metallic strings, it carries echoes of the local mountains in its high-ringing tones. The tune is catchy and the feel reminded me the Lambada tracks that caught on so well in the 80s.
“Chiquito, via the internet I tell you I love, via the internet I tell you I miss you, via the internet we can love more deeply…” The Lyrics beg the question as to whether these lovers will ever meet in reality.
Carpeta Fotos by Flor Vallejos
Argentine video artist Florencia (Flor) Vallejos is an established video art film creator. Her work has been screened at the Patio de Salvataje, Video and Gif Festival (1st Prize) - CC Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina [Jan- 2019] as well as the International Film Fest Femenina in Montevideo Uruguay.
This current film, CARPETA FOTOS (2020) 3D video in 5 min has been at the ‘Ciclo Hasta Las Tetas’ in Barcelona, España, Festival Byte Footage - CCK (2021)
In CARPETAS FOTOS, (3D video in 5 min), Vallejos uses architectural images of a 4- storey block of flats with balconies towering over a tiny independent house with a garden. Vallejos moves digitally with maps, around the city of Buenos Aires, where the proliferation of McDonald’s sprout up like mushrooms or an infection. We witness one-way conversations with the order app, so that the confusion leads to how we process memories. Flor Vallejos does not shy away from a sharp critique of the power of digitally enhanced images to distort our concept of reality and how we recall and store, our memories
What are these memories? They all mix and flow into one another, a digital sun lounger with a parasol on an isolated section of motorway is submerged in a flood of water, while the voice (with an Iberian Spanish accent) insists, she will go to tan her tits on the balcony. In this way, Flor Vallejos’ film goes through a succession of memories, files of memories that need updating and cataloguing or they will be lost. There is the grocery store where the cat sits among the apples or the house where the neighbour is preparing coffee at 3.30 in the afternoon, suffusing the area with the aroma of coffee. Voices superimpose and distort as memories struggle to fit around each other. The girl cannot find some memories, have they been deleted? Vallejo hits out satirically, but there is also an element of pathos: “Where have my files ended up” Will we find our memory files deleted because there is no more space?
https://florenciavallejos.wixsite.com/florva
These are just some of the nine interesting offerings that will be found at the ICA screenings of the London Short Film Festival. The Cinema Mentiré presents: Señ@r Internet event takes place on the 24th of January at 20.45 at the ICA in central London and is a collaboration between Cinema Mentiré - a group showcasing unique Latin American Films instagram.com/cinema.mentire/ and London Short Film Festival.
The tickets can be booked via this website: ica.art/lsff24-cinema-mentire
The 21st London Short Film Festival will take place from January 19th to January 28th 2024.
