On 1 August, we added 5 films to our permanent tao films library. There is now a selection of 20 films from 17 countries available to you. I’m particularly happy of adding more contemplative experimental films because I love just how much they have you engaged, how much you’re left to your own devices. Maybe this will become my new thing now!

tao films selection 

BALADA by Anton Petersen (Faroe Islands)

The last evening together – a couple who has just broken up need to clean their apartment before the next morning when both of them will go their separate ways. Petersen, from the Faroe Islands and a former student at Béla Tarr’s film.factory places emphasis on the rift between the two characters, but does so with little dialogue. Instead, the mise-en-scène and the film’s characteristic smooth travelling camera speak volumes.

KALEIDOSCOPE by Telemach Wiesinger (Germany)

One could say that Telemach Wiesinger is the modern man with a movie camera, a sort of contemporary version of Dziga Vertov, whose film is and will always remain a classic. Kaleidoscope is a film poem, a travelogue, perhaps a book of moving images in 21 chapters. The images, well-chosen and put into light, are, thanks to Wiesinger’s versatile aesthetics, a reminder that there is not one tempo, one form of pace in life. Rather, it is a combination of speed and slowness, of linear time and time that progresses like the movements of a river.

LA COGNIZIONE DEL CALORE by Salvatore Insana (Italy)

This film is shown for the very first time in the world and I’m proud that tao films could be the platform for the world premiere of Salvatore Insana’s new experimental short film. La Cognizione evokes several feelings at once, and perhaps the idea of memory is strongest throughout the film. Or is it? Insana uses sound in a peculiar way, allowing it an almost hyperreal presence, rendering the images spooky, voyeuristic, but also intriguing and captivating. Through its hyperreal and yet vague aesthetics, Insana has created an impressive experimental, say experiential, film that will captivate your senses.

LETTERS FROM THE DESERT by Michela Occhipinti (Italy)

Seven years (!!!) after the first release of the film, Letters from the Desert, the first feature film by Michela Occhipinti, is finally available for the world to see. I have come across this film during my PhD research, and I’m proud that I can give this patient documentary a home now. Occhipinti tells the story of a postman in the desert. We see him picking up letters at the train station and distributing them to several villages. The arrival of letters is an event, something that we have long forgotten. But there are signs of change; the first communication post appears in the middle of the desert…

THE BLIND WALTZ by Sebastian Eklund (Sweden)

Another experimental short film that is one of my favourites at the moment. The extraordinary vision Eklund shows in his photographs (he’s also a photographer) also shows in his cinematic work. The film’s stunning images take us on a journey through his house while the crisp-clear sound makes one believe that what is happening is happening around us, in our own home. Eklund’s visual and aural treatment is almost hyperreal and it finds its climax during the blind waltz that is almost illusionary and yet, it is real.

In other news

Eight months into our work, we have (finally!) been written about, and in a very positive way, too! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the article in Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the three main newspapers in Germany, a daily paper from Munich. That was worth a drink and really helped to get our name out. But more needs to be done. We’re now in contact with KONT magazine, a new slow magazine from the Netherlands…

The first Slow Short Film Festival is coming up. It takes place in England and several of our films (already showing or still to come) will be shown on a big screen, amongst them ECCE HOMO by Dimitar Kutmanov, CENTAUR by Aleksandra Niemczyk and ONE TIMES ONE by Chris Bell. Hats off to the organisers! More info, including a trailer can be found on the official website.

Kevin Pontuti’s ONERE keeps traveling the world, and has been selected for the Nevada City Film Festival. Watch Kevin’s film now on tao films, if you’re curious as to what all this festival buzz is about.

Sorayos Prapapan’s new film DEATH OF THE SOUND MAN has its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. His short film A SOUVENIR FROM SWITZERLAND is still available on tao films.

EHO by Dren Zherka, soon available on tao films, will have its Austrian premiere in Kitzbühel this month.

Another film just had its world premiere; 1000 SMILES PER HOUR by Fabian Altenried premiered in Edinburgh and has also been selected for the Sarajevo Film Festival, which has just come to a close. I’m sure many more festival screenings will happen, and we’re looking forward to showing the film in the near future.

More news to come next month! Till then, keep watching good films and take it slow!