This year's artistic focus is the Armenian filmmaker Artavazd Peleshyan (Артавазд Пелешян, b. 1938). He studied at the prestigious film school in Moscow (VGIK), and made visionary and radically inventive films from the 1960s and onwards. In Armenia, Russia and France, he has long been regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of cinema, and the more internationally well-known Sergei Parajanov has called Peleshyan «one of the few authentic geniuses in the world of cinema». Still, his work has only recently begun to get serious international attention. This retrospective, which include all of his films, wish to hail and present one of the most important and original filmmakers in the history of cinema.
Continuing the practical and theoretical work on montage made by the pioneers of the silent cinema, such as Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Peleshyan has worked on cinema as a singular intelligence in the world, rather than as a storytelling medium. With his notion of «distance montage» or contrapuntal montage, he has prolonged an important tradition from the silent era and simultaneously developed cinema's possibilities as a universal language. This is a wordless and documentary form of montage in the era of sound, where the aggressively political aspect of an Eisenstein or Vertov are toned down in favor of a more poetic and philosophical point of view. In this regard, Peleshyan's films are closer to those of the contemporary Andrei Tarkovsky, where the goal is not political agitation, but to renew perception and place the viewer in a new, intuitive contact with the world.
The films deal with foundational issues, phenomenons and events in historical reality, such as gravity, space travel and genocide, not to say humanity, the earth and the cosmos as such. As Peleshyan himself has said, he has sought to «capture the emotional and social cardiogram of his time».
In addition to screenings, we will arrange discussions of his films, such as a Masterclass where Peleshyan himself will talk about his work.
SUN 1964 | Doc. Exp | 10 min
Director: Artavazd Peleshyan
MOUNTAIN PATROL (Gornyj patrul)
Allerede i Pelesjans første film vises en interesse for det alminnelige, arbeidende mennesket, komponert inn i en poetisk montasjehelhet med sirkulær struktur.
Already in his first film, some of Peleshyan's key interests are markedly present: working, everyday humans, composed into a poetic montage with a circular structure.
Script: G. Arakelyan | Editing: Artavazd Peleshyan
SUN 1966 | Doc. Exp | 10 min
Director: Artavazd Peleshyan
LAND OF THE PEOPLE (Zemlya Lyudey)
Det skapende, virksomme menneskesamfunnet.
The activity of human society.
Script, editing: Artavazd Peleshyan
Production: Yerevan Documentary Film Studio, VGIK, Hayk Studio
SUN 1967 | Doc. Exp | 10 min
Director: Artavazd Peleshyan
IN THE BEGINNING (Natchalo)
Laget i forbindelse med en 50-årsmarkering av den russiske revolusjonen. Med et ekstremt tempo og høy intensitet, vekker filmen en fornemmelse av de voldsomme sosiale kreftene som utspiller seg i protestbevegelser og revolusjoner.
Made in relation to a 50th anniversary of the Russian revolution, this intense and speedy work evoke notions of the vivacity of social forces fueling protest movements and revolutions.
Script, editing: Artavazd Peleshyan | Camera: Elizbar Karavayev | Sound: Oleg Polisonov, M. Samvelyan | Music: Georgi Sviridov
Production: Yerevan Documentary Film Studios, VGIK
SUN 1969 | Doc. Exp | 30 min
Director: Artavazd Peleshyan
US (Menk)
En film om armensk historie, der folkemordet på armenerne skjelver inn i samtidens konkrete bilder og ansikt. Sammen med det historiske og kulturspesifikke, ville Pelesjan uttrykke noe om menneskeheten mer generelt.
A film on Armenian history, where the Armenian Genocide infuse the images of contemporary life. Along with the historically and culturally specific issues, Peleshyan wanted to express something about humanity in general.
SUN 1972 | Doc. Exp | 30 min
Director: Artavazd Peleshyan
THE SEASONS (Vremena goda)
Mennesker teller ikke sauer mens de prøver å sove. Ikke i Pelesjans verden. De klamrer seg fast til sauer mens de samordner sitt liv med naturens våkne krefter. En symfonisk film om menneske og natur.
Men do not count sheep while trying to sleep. Not in Peleshyan's world. They hold onto sheep while coordinating their lives with the wakeful forces of nature. A symphonic film about man and nature.
In connection with the screenings of Artavazd Peleshyan's films, we arrange a Symposium on Peleshyan, in cooperation with Dept. of Art and Media Studies, NTNU.
Who is Artavazd Peleshyan? How to talk about his films? What kind of film tradition does Pelesjan continue and develop into new territories? Does his work show a path taken up by other filmmakers working today? Peleshyan has gone farther than many in his search for a completely wordless cinematic expression, and the film's significance seems to reside in cinema's own pre-verbal language itself. Still, to talk about Peleshyan can sharpen and expand our attentiveness and understanding. In this symposium, three film scholars will discuss the cinema of Peleshyan. The talk will be in English, and will be moderated by Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, Associate Professor at Dept. of Art and Media Studies, NTNU.
Panel participants:
DANIEL FAIRFAX (b. 1982, Australia): Doctoral candidate in Film Studies and Comparative Literature at Yale Univsersity in New Haven, Connecticut. His research currently focuses on French film theory in the post-1968 period. Writes regularly for the online journal Senses of Cinema.
MARIT KATHRYN CORNEIL (b. 1965, Canada): Filmmaker and doctoral candidate at the Dept. of Art and Media Studies at NTNU, Trondheim. Teaches film and media at NTNU and the Nord-Trøndelag University College. Has published on documentary film history and theory. Currently writing on experimental documentary.
TROND LUNDEMO (b. 1963, Norway): Associate Professor at the Department of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University. Has been a visiting Professor at the Seijo University of Tokyo, and is currently a senior research fellow at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. Has been working on questions of the technology and aesthetics of cinema.
In connection with the screenings of Artavazd Peleshyan's films, we arrange a Masterclass with the filmmaker himself. As a film theorist as well as a filmmaker, Peleshyan has clear ideas on his own practice. The session will be led by film scholar Endre Eidsaa Larsen, who wrote his master thesis on Peleshyan.
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Towards the end there will be a Q&A, where the audience is encouraged to ask questions to the Armenian master.