Night for Day

11.06.2021 21:30 Eng. subtitles Open Air Kino HKW (Tickets)
In Short Film Program #1, with:
SONGS OF THE SHIRT (1), LOST ON ARRIVAL, BÖSE ZU SEIN IST AUCH EIN BEWEIS VON GEFÜHL

NIGHT FOR DAY sets out with a fake mother-son relationship between three real people living in contemporary Lisbon. The ‘mother’ is Isabel do Carmo, who co-ran the Revolutionary Brigades in Portugal that helped to overthrow the longest fascist dictatorship in Europe, and the ‘sons’ are two young men, Alexander Bridi and Djelal Osman—astrophysicists running a start-up in Lisbon that attempts to programme computers to recognise moving images. The film collages a subjectivity from fragments of cameras struggling to see at night, of presences out in the cold watching families inside their homes, and images that attempt to describe a loved one in frequencies of three. Their imaginary house is the real family home of the architect António Teixeira Guerra, finished just before 1974, designed in the shape of a triangle and shot at the time he always chose to invite guests—the magic hour. (Emily Wardill)

Production company Stenar Projects (Lissabon, Portugal). Written and directed by Emily Wardill. Cinematography Emanuel Garcia, José Marques, Emily Wardill. Editing Emily Wardill, Francisco Moreira. Music The Louis Moholo Octet, Dominic Fitzgerald, Emily Wardill. Sound design Dominic Fitzgerald. Commissioned by Vienna Secession. With Isabel do Carmo (voice, herself), Djelal Osman (voice, himself), Alexander Bridi (voice, himself), Kimberley Pearl Febich (woman on the beach 1), Paula Barco (woman on the beach 2), Aurora Santos (woman on the beach 3), Christina Gonçalves (woman on the beach 4), Carloto Cotta (man at home).

Emily Wardill, born 1977 in the United Kingdom, lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal and Malmo, Sweden. Her films, photographs and objects probe the complexity of perception and communication, the question of how reality appears authentic to us, and the displacements of substance and form effected by the individual nature of the imagination. The films that she started making in the mid-2000s are typically defined by a narrative framework, but the plots as such tend to be secondary. The focus is on other aspects: the mechanics of storytelling, the relationship of imaginary space to language and the interplay between gesture and word. Wardill’s work has been exhibited in museums, art spaces and biennials internationally. Currently, Wardill works as a Professor at Malmo Art Academy, Sweden and as a visiting tutor at Maumaus, School of Visual Arts, in Lisbon.

Films: 2006: Ben (10 min.), Basking in what feels like ‘An Ocean of Grace’ I soon realise that I am not looking at it, but rather, I AM it, recognising myself (8 min.), Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul (9 Min.). 2007: Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck (12 min.). 2008: Sea Oak (51 min.), The Diamond (Descartes Daughter) (10 min.). 2009: Game Keepers without Game (72 min.). 2010: The Pips (7 min.). 2011: Full Firearms (81 min.). 2012: Found himself in a walled garden... (45 min.), The Third Person (43 min.). 2013: The Palace (7 min.). 2014: When you fall into a trance (72 min.). 2016: I gave me love a cherry that had no stone (8 min.). 2017: No Trace of Accelerator (48 min.). 2019: Bi (14 min.). 2020: Night For Day.