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The activities of the 4th edition of BEAST International Film Festival will run until June 3.
Help us to make the festival even better and bigger!
The section is a collaborative project with the Dovzhenko Center, in Ukraine, and pays homage to the country and its experimental short films produced between the 1960s and 1980s, under the control of the Soviet State.
Location: Cinema Passos Manuel
Date: May 13th (THU) – 7:00 PM (The Physicists); 8:30 PM (The Poets)
Ticketing: The normal ticket will be 5€, while the student ticket and the ticket for Tripass cardholders will be 3.5€.
The first session received the name of “The Physicists” for hosting nine short films made in an academic and more experimental context. In turn, the second session is called “The Poets” for presenting works by filmmakers already renowned at the time, such as Sergei Parajanov.
Among its titles are works by the Ukrainian Poetic Cinema movement, led by Sergei Parajanov; student films created by those who would be future icons of Ukrainian cinema, such as Leonid Osyka and Roman Balayan; and shorts produced by the creative team of the Kyivnaukfilm Studio, in the 1980s.
These shorts, marked by absurdity and irony, present the beauty and tragedy of late Soviet informal art, ranging from documentary chronicles of family life to parody comedies.
Every year, exciting new short and medium-length films compete for the awards of Best Fiction, Best Documentary and Best Experimental within the ambit of BEAST International Film Festival. With each edition, this competitive programme enriches BEAST IFF and its community, introducing new works, new faces through a diverse selection of style and form.
Location: Maus Hábitos – Espaço de Intervenção Cultural
Date: May 12th (WED), 8:30 PM
Ticketing: Free admission*
*Pre-reservations can be made by purchasing a snack pack at the Maus Hábitos store.
East Doc Award for Best Documentary: Pure Art (Maksim Shved, Poland, 52′, 2019, DOC., LEG. PT)
Communal painters Zina and Inna carefully paint the graffiti and slogans on the walls of Minsk, leaving colorful rectangles as a result. The artist Zakhar Kudin is inspired by bright figures and decides to copy them to the huge canvases. Passers-by intrigued by Zakhar’s performance are trying to interpret his work and express their opinion, but not only about art. Watching the birth of an artistic phenomenon, the film with irony and love shows contemporary Belarus and raises issues that are relevant not only in this country.
Video mapping is a part of evolution of visual art – it indicates a manifestation of technology to create an optical illusion while playing with light. As a conclusion, ordinary objects are changed into awesome magical creations. Artists can simply apply their majestic sketches to any 3D materials, for example buildings.
In cooperation with the TRAKT from Slovakia, the Video Mapping Workshop intends to give the participants an overview of the different possibilities to create a live installation wrapping projected virtual content around a real world object.
The first edition of the workshop (2019) was a great success, with over 200 people applying for participation. Its second edition will return in an online format, for a limited number of 15 participants. It will cover various options of how to create content (both pre-produced and in real time) and how to apply it on an object using various mapping methods.
Furthermore, the students will get a comprehensive insight on what kind of content works best, based on the nature of the individual, illuminated objects. The educational event invites the participants to discover the space of projection in volume and the production line of the video mapping with a contemporary approach. This was tailored to build on the strengths of the new emerging talents, and equip them with a full understanding of both the workflow, and the technical skills required to create interactive projection mapped installations.
The basic concept of the 2021 online workshop is preparation of mapping for a specific building in Porto. The idea is to discover new creative techniques on how to relate to the object. Software skills are secondary. The mapping lessons will take place via Zoom call, 4 times a month at a regular time.
Sat. 08. 05. 2021, 15:00 – 18:00 | Session 1 – Basics of video mapping
The first lesson will be an introductory lecture including a short demonstration, explanation of basic terms and technical basics. The plan for the rest of the month will be presented.
Sat. 15. 05. 2021, 15:00 – 18:00 | Session 2 – Ways of creating content
The second lesson will focus on creating the content: using a façade printed out on a 3D printer and a mask printed out on a paper. The lecturers will present various unconventional methods – light painting, a look through a cut out part of a text on the texture, fire art, water art, ants and other analogue mapping techniques.
Sat. 22. 05. 2021, 15:00 – 18:00 | Session 3 – Digital processing of pictures
The third lesson will focus on the digital processing of pictures by processing videos created during the previous lesson. The participants would learn how to use digital effects from a database, composition, simple picture blending and other techniques.
Sat. 29. 05. 2021, 15:00 – 18:00 | Session 4 – Your own creations
The fourth lesson will include a small model of a building (printed out on a paper and glued to a board). The participants will try out their creations using one of the mapping programs.
TRAINERS:
Stefan Olis
The main thrust of the work of young artist Stefan Oliš, who now teaches at the Secondary School of Arts in Trencin, is to draw attention to the subject of violence, crime, social problems. He is dedicated to the production of video art, interactive installations, sound installations, art events, objects, but also painting and graphics. Through its broad-based creation tries often with sarcasm and irony to induce viewers to reflect on human life, its values, spirit and interpersonal relationships, the decadence of a critique of the current system of.
Pavol Soukal
Promotion Department graduate design at the Central School of Arts in Trencin. Currently a student Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. He deals with many media are fine art as documentary photography, figurative drawing, light and interactive tendencies, 3D visualization, but also examines new technologies in product design. Since 2012, a member of the civic association TRAKT, where he regularly participates in art projects and realization.
LANGUAGE: Workshops are in English
DURATION: 12h
PRICE: Free entry with mandatory registration, up to 15 people.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION: Participants of the workshop will use free video programs (olive, resolve). As a hardware might be used a camera or a phone. The lecturer will use resolume or a free version of MapMap, or VVVV for projections.
For registration and further information CLICK HERE
The workshop is held within VISEGRAD FILM HUB, organised by BEAST International Film Festival with the support of International Visegrad Fund, provides support for the audiovisual works from the V4 region (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia).
In partnership with Cineclube do Porto, BEAST International Film Festival will bring to the city of Porto the best of Portuguese cinema with connections outside Portugal.
André Gil Mata is a Portuguese director with a strong connection to Eastern European cinema, having made several films abroad. In the session, his most recent feature film “Drvo” (A Árvore, in Portuguese) will be screened.
Location: Casa das Artes
Date: May 8th (SAT), 6:00 PM
Ticketing: The regular ticket will be € 3.5, while the student ticket and the +65 ticket will be € 2.5.
Drvo (André Gil Mata, Portugal / Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2018, FIC., 104’, SUB. PT/EN)
“Drvo” portrays the loneliness present in the shadow of the Balkan War. The project was carried out under the influence of Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, and caused a stir in the 2018 Berlin Film Festival Official Competition. The film was shot entirely in Bosnia.
“Spiral” is a psychological drama of Hungarian and Romanian co-production by director Cecília Felméri. The film brings a certain magical realism, with doses of suspense and terror, to the countryside of Hungary.
The session is held with the support of the International Visegrad Fund and the Hungarian Embassy in Lisbon. The ticket office will open 45 minutes before the film starts.
Location: Cinema Passos Manuel
Date: May 20th (THU), 8:00 PM
Original screening date (May 6th) has been altered.
Ticketing: the normal ticket will be 5€, while the student ticket and the ticket for Tripass cardholders will be 3.5€.
Spiral (Cecília Felméri, Hungary / Romania, 2021, FIC., 94’, SUB. PT/EN)
An old house and a mysterious lake amid Hungarian nature. An isolated and sometimes magical world, home to fish and beasts. There, a man and two women form a strange love triangle. A story of secrets, regrets, and the unknown.
The Portuguese Abroad section is the product of a partnership between BEAST IFF and Cineclube do Porto, and it will once again promote sessions dedicated to the best of Portuguese cinema with connections outside of Portugal.
In the first session of the program, five short films by Welket Bungué produced between 2016 and 2020 will be shown. As they vary from the experimental field to strong fiction narratives, these films demonstrate an enormous cinematographic sensitivity, reflecting the pleasure of using a camera and the discovery that, through it, it is done.
Location: Casa das Artes
Date: May 6th (THU), 8:30 PM
Ticketing: The regular ticket will be € 3.5, while the student ticket and the +65 ticket will be € 2.5.
Bastien (Welket Bungué, Portugal, 2016, FIC., 20’)
Ex Exploiter Expropriator (Welket Bungué, Cape Verde, 2016, FIC., 17’)
Aginal (Welket Bungué, Brazil / Germany, 2018, FIC., 14’)
Run If You Can, Dance If You Dare (Welket Bungué, Portugal / Brazil, 2019, FIC., 8’)
Cacheu Cutum (Welket Bungué, Guinea Bissau, 2020, FIC / DOC., 7’5’’)
Every year, exciting new short and medium-length films compete for the awards of Best Fiction, Best Documentary and Best Experimental within the ambit of BEAST International Film Festival. With each edition, this competitive programme enriches BEAST IFF and its community, introducing new works, new faces through a diverse selection of style and form.
Location: Maus Hábitos – Espaço de Intervenção Cultural
Date: May 5th (WED), 8:30 PM
Ticketing: Free admission*
*Pre-reservations can be made by purchasing a snack pack at the Maus Hábitos store.
East Wave Award for Best Fiction Film: SH_T HAPPENS (Michaela Mihalyi e David Štumpf, Czech Republic, 2019, FIC., 13’02, SUB. PT)
A caretaker exhausted by everything, his frustrated wife and one totally depressed deer. Their mutual despair leads them to absurd events, because… shit happens all the time.
Experimental East Award for Best Experimental Film: The Close River (Marta Hryniuk, Poland, 28′, 2020, EXP./DOC., SUB. PT)
Shot over the course of three weeks, in various locations in western Ukraine, The Close River is a poetic investigation of a region with multiple overlapping temporalities of colonisation and exploitation. The film traces shifting borders and markers of power, exploring how the histories of coexistence, violence and resistance are carved into the landscape and culture of the region, and ultimately how they shape contemporary ways of living.
The 4th BEAST International Film Festival returns to theaters in Porto! To start the on-site edition, the festival kicks off at Cinema Passos Manuel, on April 29th with “Ivana The Terrible”. The film was awarded at the Locarno Film Festival in 2019.
In addition to debuting the 2021 on-site edition, Cinema Passos Manuel will also host BEAST IFF sessions every Thursday, until the 3rd of June.
Location: Cinema Passos Manuel
Date: April 29th (THU), 7:30 PM
Ticketing: 5€
Stay also tuned to the festival’s social media for new dates and information.
Ivana The Terrible (Ivana Mladenović, Romania / Serbia, 2019, DOC., 86‘, SUB. PT/EN)
By pushing the boundaries between drama, comedy and non-fiction, the plot leads the protagonist, resident in Bucharest, through a tumultuous visit to her small hometown.
In this award-winning docu-fiction, Mladenović proves to be an insightful actress, screenwriter, and filmmaker, guaranteeing her place among the newest and most interesting faces of New East cinema.
Presented by Associação Cultural OKNA in co-production with Câmara Municipal do Porto and with the support of local and international cultural institutes, BEAST International Film Festival will continue its activities after its online edition in March this year.
From films available on VOD platforms, and live activities and discussions with members of the film industry on Facebook and YouTube, the festival surpassed the 10,000 views mark and proved the viability of an enriching online experience.
In view of the recent measures proposed by Portugal health guidelines, BEAST IFF now extends its programming to the traditional cinemas in Porto, which have always welcomed us.
So far, 16 unique screenings are planned between April 29 and June 3. Highlights of the online program will be showcased, as well as new films for those who attended the 4th edition of BEAST International Film Festival from the comfort of their homes.
On April 29, Cinema Passos Manuel will host the premiere session of the 4th BEAST IFF on-site program with the festival’s opening film, “Ivana The Terrible“, by director Ivana Mladenović. In addition to debuting the 2021 on-site edition, Cinema Passos Manuel will also host BEAST IFF sessions every Thursday, until the 3rd of June.
Espaço Cultural Maus Hábitos will also host the festival twice – on the 5th and on the 12th of May. On this first occasion, the event, which will be free of charge, will present the short and medium-length films that won the Official Competition of BEAST International Film Festival this year.
Casa das Artes, in turn, will host two sessions of the new Portuguese Abroad program, on the 6th and 8th of May. Other cultural sites in the city of Porto, such as Cinema da Trindade, Café Candelabro and Livraria Térmita will also screen films from the festival’s program.
