© 2008 Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy
CREW: Written & directed by EIJA-LIISA AHTILA Cinematographer ARTO KAIVANTO Set designer KAISA NIVA Set decorator PETE NEUVONEN Costume designer MARI SAVIO Editor HEIKKI KOTSALO Sound designer PETER NORDSTRÖM Production manager RIITTA-LEENA NORBERG, KATI NUORA Producer ILPPO POHJOLA
PRODUCTION: Developed with the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Community; Production sponsored by DIGITAL FILM FINLAND, FINNLAB, MUTASEN ELOKUVAKONEPAJA; Financial support ARCADI, ARTS COUNCIL OF FINLAND, AVEK, CITY OF HELSINKI CULTURAL OFFICE, FRAME, GRETA & WILLIAM LEHTINEN FOUNDATION, JEU DE PAUME, NIILO HELANDER FOUNDATION, FINNISH MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, FINNISH FILM FOUNDATION, MINISTRY FOR FOREIGH AFFAIRS OF FINLAND; In co-operation with YLE/TV1; Funded in part through the donations of THE RINGIER COLLECTION and THE ELLIPSE FOUNDATION
CAST: Poet KATI OUTINEN Death TOMMI KORPELA Priest LEEA KLEMOLA Adel ALAEDDIN ALAEDDINE Ismael TAHA MUHAMMAD RGUIBI Doctor MATEUS TEMBE, CARLA ARGENTATO Guard MEHDI KANANI French boy EVAN MILLER
4-image split screen film - camera negative 35 mm - cinema format 35 mm - Kiasma: HD file, codec H. 264 - 1:1,85 - Dolby Digital 5.1 - 51 min
In Finnish with English subtitles. Viewed at the exhibition Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Parallel Worlds (Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, 19 April - 1 September, 2013), Helsinki, 1 June 2013
Kiasma official exhibition introduction: Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Parallel Worlds 19.4.–1.9.
"Eija-Liisa Ahtila has since the early 1990s introduced new creative idioms into moving image art. Using images, sounds and stories, she constructs installations that embody alternating viewpoints. The viewer is swept into the stories. In her most recent works, Ahtila addresses the themes of globalisation as well as relations between humanity, animals and nature."
"Kiasma has several works by Ahtila in its collections. One of the highlights of the exhibition is Where Is Where?, which was donated to the museum by the Kiasma Foundation in 2008. The work is now seen in Helsinki for the first time."
"The exhibition book sheds light on the background of the works on show, as well as the themes in Eija-Liisa Ahtila's work that range from biopolitics to posthumanism."
"The exhibition is organised by Moderna Museet, Stockholm in collaboration with Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki."
Crystal Eye Production information: "WHERE IS WHERE? is a one-hour, split-screen film based on a real incident that took place during the Algerian War of Independence. As a kind of consequence of and reaction to atrocities committed by the French, two Algerian boys kill their friend – a French boy of their own age. The story told in four simultaneous images starts in the present day, as Death enters The Poet's house. With Death's help, The Poet begins to investigate this incident from the past, which is gradually interwoven with events from the present. The mist over the back garden of the Poet's house clears to reveal the white rowing boat that has appeared in the swimming pool. In it sit the two Algerian boys, Adel and Ismael."
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
"The theme of WHERE IS WHERE? is colonialism and the presence of two different cultures. Its starting point is a real event that took place in Algeria at the end of the 1950s. At that time, Algeria was still under French rule and was involved in a long struggle for independence from the mother country. The situation was extremely violent, both because of recurrent assassination attempts by the resistance movement and because of the French government's harsh countermeasures. As one consequence of and reaction to the barbarous acts committed by the French, two Algerian boys killed their friend, a French boy of the same age."
"Although the film's starting points are based in reality, at the heart of the story is the relationship this event has with today's situation. The narrative starts from the present moment, which is gradually interwoven with what the boys did and the events in Algeria. Thus, the murder committed by the boys is seen, on the one hand, in the light of the current world situation and, on the other hand, in a way that attempts to put the conflicts between western and Arab cultures into historical perspective. The events are, nevertheless, approached from the viewpoint of an individual person and filtered through her."
"The story has three main characters: Adel and Ismael, the Arab boys who committed the murder, and a European poet, a woman of about 40. The story opens with Death entering the woman's house. The experience of death is compared to finding oneself in a new country and to a calling into question of existence and identity. The woman starts, with the aid of words from her profession of poet, to clarify what happened, while also running through elements involved in the event, such as the different religions, guilt and sameness, and a search for what they have in common. Gradually the focus shifts from the woman's world to the boys' reality. The murder is taken out of the time of its occurrence and brought into the present day. A mist clears from the back garden of the house to reveal a boat that has appeared in the swimming pool, in it sit Adel and Ismael. The poet is shifted to the background, and what the boys say and the inevitability of what they did – with its causes and consequences –take centre stage."
"The events in the film take place in a constructed, fictive event reality within the film and in a theatre-like, referential set. The point of this is both simply to inject life into the narrative, and to investigate the way the different levels of the fictive narrative function together. The film's narrative mode is thus experimental; it attempts to provide information not just in a traditionally direct way with the aid of what happens on the screen, but also by adding to the impact of the images and sounds. The aim is for the expressive elements in the moving image to work not just as subordinate to the story, but so that they will carry independent, sensory information (for example, a scene with Sufi dancers, landscapes in different countries, or singing scenes). The idea of this is to bring a looseness, a personalness and emotionality to the story, and to break down traditional chronologicality, but without losing track of the plot. The idea of the actors' presence also operates along the same lines: for example, in the dialogue between Death and the Poet, in addition to the information given by the words, the focus is on what happens in the face and body (and obviously in the contacts and what happens between the actors)."
Missä on missä? is being screened almost non stop in the Eija-Liisa Ahtila exhibition at Kiasma. Every hour a new screening starts. The movie is so intensive that it is a good idea not to watch anything else during the visit.
The four screens of the presentation surround the entire screening space, but they are separate screens at a certain distance from one another. The presentation is not a panorama, not an Abel Gance style triptych, not Magirama, not Cinerama, not Woodstock, and not IMAX. The viewer cannot see everything at once but must be in constant motion. There is always one screen which carries the main weight, and other screens accompany it. Sometimes the same action is divided between two screens, which then form a CinemaScope style continuum.
Affinities range from Jean Cocteau to Fritz Lang, Grace Jones (A One Man Show), and Michael Haneke (Caché).
Words are important. They are recited blankly but carry a lot of weight. Made two years before the Arab spring, Missä on missä? has no direct relevance to its events. It operates on a more general level. The children are reacting as senselessly as Meursault did in L'Étranger. The children are both executors and victims in a world of oppression and violence. The children are perpetrators of the lex talionis as preposterously as the grown-ups.
The title "where is where?" refers to death, among other things, and Death, in person, appears, impersonated by Tommi Korpela, who brings to mind Bernhard Goetzke in Der müde Tod. Another cinematic affinity would be to Körkarlen / The Phantom Carriage by Victor Sjöström. A further affinity exists with the Kalevala, its Tuonela (Hades) concept, and The Swan of Tuonela as imagined in music by Sibelius.
The screening space is beyond the black curtain to the left of the orientation space to the Eija-Liisa Ahtila exhibition. I had to ask the personnel twice "where is where?" to find my way.
I liked Eija-Liisa Ahtila's Me/We, Okay and Gray (1993) immediately, and Love Is a Treasure (2002) I rank not only in my list of the best Finnish films but I also included it in my MMM Film Guide 110th anniversary of the cinema selection of the best 1100 films of all time. Ahtila's later films do not possess the same immediate impact on me. They are works to study and to reflect on.
The four screen film has actually been shot on photochemical 35 mm film with real professionalism. For obvious reasons the film is screened digitally.
CREW: Written & directed by EIJA-LIISA AHTILA Cinematographer ARTO KAIVANTO Set designer KAISA NIVA Set decorator PETE NEUVONEN Costume designer MARI SAVIO Editor HEIKKI KOTSALO Sound designer PETER NORDSTRÖM Production manager RIITTA-LEENA NORBERG, KATI NUORA Producer ILPPO POHJOLA
PRODUCTION: Developed with the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Community; Production sponsored by DIGITAL FILM FINLAND, FINNLAB, MUTASEN ELOKUVAKONEPAJA; Financial support ARCADI, ARTS COUNCIL OF FINLAND, AVEK, CITY OF HELSINKI CULTURAL OFFICE, FRAME, GRETA & WILLIAM LEHTINEN FOUNDATION, JEU DE PAUME, NIILO HELANDER FOUNDATION, FINNISH MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, FINNISH FILM FOUNDATION, MINISTRY FOR FOREIGH AFFAIRS OF FINLAND; In co-operation with YLE/TV1; Funded in part through the donations of THE RINGIER COLLECTION and THE ELLIPSE FOUNDATION
CAST: Poet KATI OUTINEN Death TOMMI KORPELA Priest LEEA KLEMOLA Adel ALAEDDIN ALAEDDINE Ismael TAHA MUHAMMAD RGUIBI Doctor MATEUS TEMBE, CARLA ARGENTATO Guard MEHDI KANANI French boy EVAN MILLER
4-image split screen film - camera negative 35 mm - cinema format 35 mm - Kiasma: HD file, codec H. 264 - 1:1,85 - Dolby Digital 5.1 - 51 min
In Finnish with English subtitles. Viewed at the exhibition Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Parallel Worlds (Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, 19 April - 1 September, 2013), Helsinki, 1 June 2013
Kiasma official exhibition introduction: Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Parallel Worlds 19.4.–1.9.
"Eija-Liisa Ahtila has since the early 1990s introduced new creative idioms into moving image art. Using images, sounds and stories, she constructs installations that embody alternating viewpoints. The viewer is swept into the stories. In her most recent works, Ahtila addresses the themes of globalisation as well as relations between humanity, animals and nature."
"Kiasma has several works by Ahtila in its collections. One of the highlights of the exhibition is Where Is Where?, which was donated to the museum by the Kiasma Foundation in 2008. The work is now seen in Helsinki for the first time."
"The exhibition book sheds light on the background of the works on show, as well as the themes in Eija-Liisa Ahtila's work that range from biopolitics to posthumanism."
"The exhibition is organised by Moderna Museet, Stockholm in collaboration with Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki."
Crystal Eye Production information: "WHERE IS WHERE? is a one-hour, split-screen film based on a real incident that took place during the Algerian War of Independence. As a kind of consequence of and reaction to atrocities committed by the French, two Algerian boys kill their friend – a French boy of their own age. The story told in four simultaneous images starts in the present day, as Death enters The Poet's house. With Death's help, The Poet begins to investigate this incident from the past, which is gradually interwoven with events from the present. The mist over the back garden of the Poet's house clears to reveal the white rowing boat that has appeared in the swimming pool. In it sit the two Algerian boys, Adel and Ismael."
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
"The theme of WHERE IS WHERE? is colonialism and the presence of two different cultures. Its starting point is a real event that took place in Algeria at the end of the 1950s. At that time, Algeria was still under French rule and was involved in a long struggle for independence from the mother country. The situation was extremely violent, both because of recurrent assassination attempts by the resistance movement and because of the French government's harsh countermeasures. As one consequence of and reaction to the barbarous acts committed by the French, two Algerian boys killed their friend, a French boy of the same age."
"Although the film's starting points are based in reality, at the heart of the story is the relationship this event has with today's situation. The narrative starts from the present moment, which is gradually interwoven with what the boys did and the events in Algeria. Thus, the murder committed by the boys is seen, on the one hand, in the light of the current world situation and, on the other hand, in a way that attempts to put the conflicts between western and Arab cultures into historical perspective. The events are, nevertheless, approached from the viewpoint of an individual person and filtered through her."
"The story has three main characters: Adel and Ismael, the Arab boys who committed the murder, and a European poet, a woman of about 40. The story opens with Death entering the woman's house. The experience of death is compared to finding oneself in a new country and to a calling into question of existence and identity. The woman starts, with the aid of words from her profession of poet, to clarify what happened, while also running through elements involved in the event, such as the different religions, guilt and sameness, and a search for what they have in common. Gradually the focus shifts from the woman's world to the boys' reality. The murder is taken out of the time of its occurrence and brought into the present day. A mist clears from the back garden of the house to reveal a boat that has appeared in the swimming pool, in it sit Adel and Ismael. The poet is shifted to the background, and what the boys say and the inevitability of what they did – with its causes and consequences –take centre stage."
"The events in the film take place in a constructed, fictive event reality within the film and in a theatre-like, referential set. The point of this is both simply to inject life into the narrative, and to investigate the way the different levels of the fictive narrative function together. The film's narrative mode is thus experimental; it attempts to provide information not just in a traditionally direct way with the aid of what happens on the screen, but also by adding to the impact of the images and sounds. The aim is for the expressive elements in the moving image to work not just as subordinate to the story, but so that they will carry independent, sensory information (for example, a scene with Sufi dancers, landscapes in different countries, or singing scenes). The idea of this is to bring a looseness, a personalness and emotionality to the story, and to break down traditional chronologicality, but without losing track of the plot. The idea of the actors' presence also operates along the same lines: for example, in the dialogue between Death and the Poet, in addition to the information given by the words, the focus is on what happens in the face and body (and obviously in the contacts and what happens between the actors)."
Missä on missä? is being screened almost non stop in the Eija-Liisa Ahtila exhibition at Kiasma. Every hour a new screening starts. The movie is so intensive that it is a good idea not to watch anything else during the visit.
The four screens of the presentation surround the entire screening space, but they are separate screens at a certain distance from one another. The presentation is not a panorama, not an Abel Gance style triptych, not Magirama, not Cinerama, not Woodstock, and not IMAX. The viewer cannot see everything at once but must be in constant motion. There is always one screen which carries the main weight, and other screens accompany it. Sometimes the same action is divided between two screens, which then form a CinemaScope style continuum.
Affinities range from Jean Cocteau to Fritz Lang, Grace Jones (A One Man Show), and Michael Haneke (Caché).
Words are important. They are recited blankly but carry a lot of weight. Made two years before the Arab spring, Missä on missä? has no direct relevance to its events. It operates on a more general level. The children are reacting as senselessly as Meursault did in L'Étranger. The children are both executors and victims in a world of oppression and violence. The children are perpetrators of the lex talionis as preposterously as the grown-ups.
The title "where is where?" refers to death, among other things, and Death, in person, appears, impersonated by Tommi Korpela, who brings to mind Bernhard Goetzke in Der müde Tod. Another cinematic affinity would be to Körkarlen / The Phantom Carriage by Victor Sjöström. A further affinity exists with the Kalevala, its Tuonela (Hades) concept, and The Swan of Tuonela as imagined in music by Sibelius.
The screening space is beyond the black curtain to the left of the orientation space to the Eija-Liisa Ahtila exhibition. I had to ask the personnel twice "where is where?" to find my way.
I liked Eija-Liisa Ahtila's Me/We, Okay and Gray (1993) immediately, and Love Is a Treasure (2002) I rank not only in my list of the best Finnish films but I also included it in my MMM Film Guide 110th anniversary of the cinema selection of the best 1100 films of all time. Ahtila's later films do not possess the same immediate impact on me. They are works to study and to reflect on.
The four screen film has actually been shot on photochemical 35 mm film with real professionalism. For obvious reasons the film is screened digitally.
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