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Year 2018 in review

Here we are again. Another year comes to an end. It’s not easy to look back at 2018, which began with a complete breakdown of body and mind and which ended with complete exhaustion. In between, I tried to watch films and write articles. On top of that, I have managed (don’t ask me how!) to create a new baby: The Art(s) of Slow Cinema magazine.

But let’s look at something else first. Social media as well as news sites are full of annual Best-Of lists. I don’t think in lists, as many people do. Classifying everything is one of those quirks of our time, primarily because we can. Social media, in particular, allows us to judge everything. Whether continuous and subjective judgment of good and bad brings us forward, or helps the art of cinema in anyway could be a lengthy debate at a workshop, or a conference. I think the issue is that some people watch too many films, and I have trouble to believe that they can actually savour each one of them them or choose wisely. I was forced to take a step back this year and watched less films than usual. But I can say that all films were good. And so they were last year. To me, it’s about giving a film time to make an impact. This can come after a few days, sometimes even after a few weeks. If, by that time, you have seen another 20 films, the impact of a really good film will be drowned by all the others. Images merge and become one. In the end, it’s like a slow coffee filtering process. The more time it takes, the better and stronger the taste.

This is quite literally the case with Wang Bing’s new film Dead Souls. Eight hours long, with the film getting stronger over the course of it running time – this is really what, to me, cinema is all about. Yes, I could say that Dead Souls, a collection of testimony from survivors of Chinese labour camps, was the best film I have seen this year. But then, so is Elsewhere by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, which really drew me in, and which is still with me, even months after I have seen in. Both films create the weight and the urgency with which they tell their stories through the use of long duration. The filmmakers took their time with their subjects. It was not only about listening, but also about understanding the stories the people in front of the camera tell us. This is perhaps the element that stood out most for me this year. It was a year of seeing and of listening to people.

Seeing – this reminds me most strongly of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielmann. It’s one thing to watch the ordinary in Slow Cinema. It is something entirely different if one watches Jeanne doing her routine housework until this routine cracks. I had thought it would be a laborious viewing session, but it was a revealing experience instead. And so was Jacqueline Zünd’s Almost There, a truly marvellous poetic documentary that made me think, and almost cry. It is unfortunate that it’s difficult to find female slow-film directors. I’m sure they’re there. The challenge is to find them. Jacqueline Zünd is a great example of exceptionally good female filmmakers, with an eye for detail and an ear for (extra-)ordinary stories.

My year 2018 was a year of long-form cinema. I have mentioned Geyrhalter’s Elsewhere and Wang Bing’s Dead Souls already. This year, I also took the time to watch Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, Lav Diaz’s four-hour long The woman who left and Andrei Tarkovsky’s equally long Andrei Rublev. There is something about long-form cinema that, for obvious reasons, the average film cannot give you. Long-form cinema can be the ultimate example of vertical cinema, a form of cinema that gives you a real insight, an in-depth exploration of a subject matter. Of course, it is not easy to find time for long films, but every time I do it I have to say that spending a couple of hours with a single film is worth it and I start to like them more than shorter films.

This also shows in my posts. I have written 15 posts less this year than in 2017, and yet I have written 7,000 more words. There was more to say, more thoughts triggered by the films I have seen. And despite the longer posts, people keep reading The Art(s) of Slow Cinema. Thank you! 2018 was the most successful year ever and even more people than last year found their way to the site. Thank you to everyone who is linking to it!

So, what’s next for The Art(s) of Slow Cinema? At the beginning of January, the first 20 copies of Issue 01 of The Art(s) of Slow Cinema magazine will be shipped. The paper version, with previously unpublished material by artists, filmmakers and cinephiles alike, is a new way forward to broaden the output. I want you to read other opinions, other views, instead of always only my own 😉 If you want to check the first issue, do take a look at the contents and you can order it via tao films.

I’m hoping to publish the magazine twice a year, but it really depends. I’m not pushing it. If the content for a new magazine isn’t there, then I will wait until it’s all there and ready. Slow film, slow magazine. A new project for 2019 is a Slow Cinema podcast. Once I have recovered and recuperated my energy, I will start experimenting with different things and see how I can best approach this. Each episode will be a more in-depth analysis, or a conversation with someone about a film I have previously written about on the blog. That’s the plan. How it will look (or sound) like in the end, we’ll see. But this will be the next step for The Art(s) of Slow Cinema.

The first post in 2019 will probably be thoughts on seven podcasts, which deal with the concepts of waiting and slowing down. I’ve come across them this month and found that there was a lot in them, which I’d like to expand on here on this blog. Apart from that, however, I will take 2019 the way it comes. I have two more films by Nikolaus Geyrhalter to watch and the rest is open. Let’s see what I’ll find!

Finally, I’d like to take the opportunity to make you aware of my profile on Steady. Steady works a bit like Patreon and offers you a chance to support the growing body of work I’m doing for The Art(s) of Slow Cinema. It becomes more and more demanding, but it is work I have been doing happily for free. I have also said that the blog will always be for free. And I stick to this. On the other hand, you can support me on Steady and make it a bit easier for me to dedicate myself to this work. Take a look and if you could circulate it, advertise it or contribute, I would thoroughly appreciate it. Thank you!

I wish you all a fantastic end of the year, and I’ll see you in 2019!

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Pre-order The Art(s) of Slow Cinema magazine now!

After months of work, the very first issue of The Art(s) of Slow Cinema magazine is now available for pre-order via tao films. It’s thanks to Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais that I have finally made the move towards my own journal. It’s been thought of for years, but I had never actually had the guts to do it. Now, after six years of blogging I’m happy to welcome the first paper version of The Art(s) of Slow Cinema into the world.

With a cover designed by Swedish filmmaker and artist Sebastian Eklund, the magazine comes in A5 size and is 84 pages strong. It comes with a professional fastback binding. I’m super chuffed to have wonderful people on board.

Filmmakers Aleksandra Niemczyk and Sebastian Cordes write about their approach to film, and give you an insight of the behind-the-scenes of their films Centaur and A Place Called Lloyd respectively.

Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais reflect about the state of cinema in the 21st century, to which Maximilian Le Cain responds in a separate essay.

Catlin Meredith from Her Head in Film writes about the meaning of home in Yulene Olaizola’s Fogo, which we are streaming on tao films.

Myself, I investigate the aesthetic of absence in the films of Lav Diaz.

And I’m over the moon with John Clang’s sketchbook of his film Their Remaining Journey.

All of this, and a 20% discount of your tao films subscription, can be found in the magazine.

In order to keep possible financial losses at bay, I will collect orders of twenty magazines before they go into print and are then shipped. It’s a sort of on-demand service, which allows me more flexibility and avoids financial hassles. In the end, we must not forget that this is the first issue and I have no clue as to how successful this will be. I’m taking it safe 🙂

International shipping is available, of course. The price is 10€ for the magazine and 6€ for shipping. Shipping from France is pretty expensive. I wished I could offer it for cheaper, but it’s sadly not (yet) doable. Maybe I’ll have found a better option for issue 02.

As soon as the first batch of magazines is ready for shipping, a shipping date will be communicated to each buyer individually. I’d be eternally grateful if you could spread the message, in whatever way possible. And, of course, if you have any questions about the magazine, do drop me an email: theartsofslowcinema@gmail.com

My thanks goes to all contributors and supporters. This magazine wouldn’t have been possible without you!

Pre-order your magazine on the tao films VoD website and join me on this next part of the slow journey!

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Sneak Peek at The Art(s) of Slow Cinema journal (Issue 1)

It’s slowly coming together, the first print issue of The Art(s) of Slow Cinema. The design is ready (for now), and I have put work on the journal aside for now to allow me some breathing space. If you keep looking at the same thing all the time, you no longer see whether or not something looks good. I want to return to the draft with a fresh pair of eyes by the end of the week and start the final round of proof-reading. This means that we’re getting closer to the day when you can (finally!) pre-order the magazine. And why not give you a sneak peek at what is to come? Let me introduce…. *drumroll*

The wonderful Sebastian Eklund from Sweden, one of the most talented artists I know, has adapted the poster for his new film The Tide Brings the Birds Underwater (streaming for free on tao films) in order for it to fit the cover of the journal. It’s beautiful and expresses everything that Slow Cinema is for me. Obscurity, dreams, mind images, imagination…I cannot thank Sebastian enough for this. I hope it will look just as good in print! 🙂

The journal contains seven articles, responses, and/or creative works. Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais from The Underground Film Studio contributed their engaging 21 Reflections on Creativity and Cinema in the 21st Century, which takes a look at the meaning of both at a time when digital images are omnipresent. A taster? Here you go: 

The daily work of the artist is to develop a craft. Seek to have the widest possible creative tools available in order to best serve the images that need to materialise through you. Work on cinema and let cinema work on you; artistry and craft are ways of being.

I’m particularly happy that filmmaker and writer Maximilian Le Cain has agreed to write a response to Daniel’s and Clara’s propositions. All three belong to an active group of experimental filmmakers whose output is simply fascinating.  

Watching is as personal and creative as making. This understanding rips the foundations out from under the traditional hierarchical power relations implicit in the producer/consumer dynamic. The question they pose of “how can a film fail when its only goal is to come into existence?” neatly emasculates over a century of puffing and panting efforts to overawe audiences with bigger, better, louder, more Olympian products. 

And we continue with filmmakers speaking about their work and the meaning of cinema, time, and duration. There is Aleksandra Niemczyk, whose breathtaking film Centaur runs on tao films at the moment. Her Thoughts on Centaur are a view behind-the-scenes of making a film that is both personal, and yet universal. A visual beauty which impressed me the first time I saw it. 

In a photo, stillness is pregnant with movement. The photographer brings the stillness, and the viewer must project the movement. In a film, stillness frames a scene, while movement is giving information, telling, bringing emotion. Stillness is observing and giving time to see and breathe the point of the frame. 

What is the link between film and boredom? Why is it that some people get bored by films and others do not? Sebastian Cordes, director of A Place Called Lloyd (available on tao films), investigates the subject of boredom in cinema, merging his experiences as a filmmaker on set of Lloyd and theoretical reading. 

 To know nothing is, precisely, the child’s position. The poet, the philosophers position. This was our position in Bolivia. Anti-journalism. To embrace, to dwell, to plunge into a space for a while. This takes time. As it is said before, boredom is linguistically connected to time as well. Phenomenologically speaking, boredom is the state of being such that one’s time feels lengthened. 

But Slow Cinema is not only about time. It is also about themes that find less exposure in other, more popular films. Their vertical development, i.e. their in-depth exploration of themes as opposed to a horizontal progression of a narrative by all means, allows us to get closer to a burning topic that are the heart of some people’s lives. Caitlin Meredith, the voice behind Her Head In Films podcast, writes about Yulene Olaizola’s Fogo:

 Olaizola’s focus on the mundane also shows how these men are embedded in Fogo Island. We begin to understand why they cannot leave. They are so enmeshed in the environment–so attached to the land, the wind, and the water–that evacuating is, in some sense, death. It’s a death of the soul, of the spirit. By refusing to leave, they are resisting this death. 

And one thing is sure: as Caitlin points out, at the heart of Fogo is the theme of loss, of death. This is also the case with Lav Diaz’s oeuvre, which I have explored for the Brazilian film magazine multiplot!, available online. 

Slow Cinema has often been talked about in the context of temps mort, or dead time. After an action has come to an end, frames remain empty for several seconds, which tests the patience of the viewer. Lav Diaz’s films are no different, but his use of long duration and dead time takes on another dimension. He creates something that I call death time. Death always comes slowly in his films. It takes its time, and it’s not so much about dead time in Diaz’s films but about the slow descent into madness with death being a refuge for the persecuted. 

The journal is a complementary resource to the website you have come to love over the years. There is one secret, which I’m not willing to give away yet, and maybe I never will. But let me say one thing: I have invited filmmaker and artist John Clang to contribute, and his work is so gorgeous that I don’t think I will give it away before at least the pre-sale! 

The only thing you need to do now is wait. Which is what I do, too. Good things come slowly, and I’m not too far off the pre-sale. I’m just taking my time to make sure that it’s all good and that I can ship the baby without getting a bad conscience! 

In the meantime, if you missed this announcement, you can now support me not only via Patreon and a monthly contribution. You can also buy me a virtual coffee via Ko-Fi. I love coffee when I write for you! 🙂

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The next step – The Art(s) of Slow Cinema Journal

It’s been several years that I dream of publishing my own journal. I was still a student when I began to think about pursuing this because I was frustrated at being rejected because my subject matter didn’t seem to fit anywhere. Things have changed lot, though, since the idea first popped into my head, although I can say for sure that it has never disappeared. Over the years, my blog has become the most visited site in the area of Slow Cinema. I have readers from all corners of the world (except for Greenland, which I find very sad), and I have gotten to know a lot of wonderful people because of my writing. I have gotten to know filmmakers, cinephiles, but I also came across new films thanks to my readers. In the last five years, I have been able to build a network of people whose interest and thirst for Slow Cinema I’m happy to cater for, and who, at the same time, taught me a lot; about cinema, about writing, about confidence, about myself.

It is thanks to Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais that I’m returning to my idea of publishing a journal. When I held their FilmPanic magazine in my hands, I could no longer shake off this thought. I could no longer ignore it for another couple of years. My guts told me that now was the time. Why is that? Because I feel that this would be the right step forwards; expanding on the blog; inviting other contributors, whom I always rejected because the blog was supposed to be my personal platform on which I developed my own ideas; creating a new challenge for myself; challenging academia and its published content on Slow Cinema.

The Art(s) of Slow Cinema has already given birth to tao films, my video-on-demand platform for contemplative world cinema. The platform went live on 1 January 2017, and after a few adjustments (learning by doing!), we’re now offering a growing catalogue of fiction films, documentaries and experimental cinema. Every month, more films are added and you can either buy the films individually, or you can get yourself a 30-day subscription, which will not be renewed automatically. We’re fair and don’t want to cash in on people’s forgetfulness on having subs with several platforms. So, in case you haven’t yet been aware of this project, you should definitely check it out, because we show films that are difficult to get hold of, or are, in most cases, available exclusively on tao.

The Art(s) of Slow Cinema journal, whose publication in the near future I’m herewith announcing (you should imagine me dance while writing this!), is another step forward, another attempt at expanding on the work I have already done, and at creating alternative content in the context of Slow Cinema. I will take it slow, of course, and start small. There won’t be a fancy design, there won’t be glossy paper, or a team of editors trying to think of what’s best to publish. What this journal will be instead is a space for those interested in the field to publish their ideas and thoughts. The journal will develop as freely as it can, without word limits etc which always inhibit a real development of great ideas. Just as I listen to the filmmakers, who release their films through tao films, I’ll listen to the writers of The Art(s) of Slow Cinema journal and accompany them as best as I can. So what can you expect if not the glossy stuff or a perfectly designed, expensive magazine?

You’ll be able to read exclusive content that you wouldn’t find here on this blog. There will be interviews with filmmakers. There will be filmmaker notes, essays by filmmakers, diaries about their shootings. There will be essays by cinephiles, who have a special interest in Slow Cinema and who love to explore certain themes in more detail in their writing. There will be creative responses to films. There will be a whole lot that you will never find either here or in academic writing. It’ll be a sort of fan journal, if you want to call it this way, albeit this might sound too cheesy and boring.

The first authors have been selected, and they’re working on their respective pieces until the beginning of July. I’m really looking forward to this and feel super excited to take this step this year, as, yes, the first edition will be published this year. Magazines will be available via pre-order only in order to create a sustainable project that does not become a financial burden. I don’t want to prep 1,000 copies if only 100 people want to read it. I don’t have a fireplace where I can burn the rest to heat the house 😀 Nowadays, we need to be reasonable and while I would love to go full-blow on this, I want to do this right, that means careful, thought-through, with the aim to grow if necessary and possible.

Details about the content of the first edition and the pre-order price will be published in due course. I need to collect the articles first and then I can give you an update on everything. Let’s make this happen and please share the slow love! Thank you!