Shhh is the only festival that declares its love for silent film and the sea. This sixth edition is centered around The Social Life of Film, an international gathering of nomadic film platforms from different corners of the world.
THE CAMELIA COMMITTEE, one sea, three seas
Duration 40’
ONE SEA, THREE SEAS – THE CAMELIA COMMITTEE – LB/NO, 2024 – digital – 40’
LIVE READINGS AND SOUNDS
Cinema Fulgor, The Sea Oracle
Duration 35’
LOOKING AT THE SEA – PETER HUTTON – USA/IR, 2001 – 16MM – 15’
WHAT THE WATER SAID, Nos.4-6 – DAVID GATTEN – USA, 2006-2007 – 16mm – 17’
THE GREEN RAY – TACITA DEAN – UK, 2001 – 16mm – 2’30”
Cinema Parenthèse & Walden, Sea Sights
Duration 70’
KNITTING PATTERN SERIES: CORNISH, YORKSHIRE AND NORFOLK KNITTING PATTERNS – JENNIFER NIGHTINGALE – UK, 2016-2024 – 16mm to digital – 11’
VOILIERS ET COCQUELICOTS – Rose Lowder – FR, 2002 – 16mm – 3’
MOVIE WATCHING – JUN’ICHI OKUYAMA – JP, 1982 – 35mm to 16mm – 12’
IMAGES OF ASIAN MUSIC (A DIARY FROM LIFE 1973-74) – PETER HUTTON – USA, 1974 – 16mm – 26’
NOTES ON THE PASSAGE OF TIME – ARTHUR AND CORINNE CANTRILL – AUS, 1979- 16mm – 13’
VERGE, FOR MY SISTERS – AMY HALPERN – USA, 2022 – 16mm – 5’
Non-Aligned Film Archives, Le cinéma manquant de Madeleine Beauséjour (The Missing Cinema of Madeleine Beauséjour)
Duration 68’
CLIP FROM AN AMATEUR FILM (HOLDAYS WITH A GROUP OF FRIENDS IN NORMANDY) – 1966 – 3’
CLIP FROM ÉTRANGE, ÉTRANGERS – MARCEL TRILLAT & FRÉDÉRIC VARIOT – FR, 1970 – 43”
CLIP FROM OBSÈQUE DES MALIENS D’AUBERVILLIERS – JOURNAL TÉLÉVISÉ, INA – FR, 1970 – 1’
JOURNÉES PORTES OUVERTES À FRANCY, RÉVO AFRIQUE – MADELEINE BEAUSÉJOUR, CLAUDE REZNIK, JEAN DENIS BONAN & COLLECTIVE – FR, 1972 – 18’
KOMAN I LÉ LA SOURS – MADELEINE BEAUSÉJOUR – FR/RE, 1988 – 26’
LECTURE PERFORMANCE + SCREENING
anorak, Untitled (Trust)
Duration 65’
BEFORE I GOT MY EYE PUT OUT – EMILY DICKINSON – 1862 – READ BY JULIE HARRIS – 1’06”
NEGATIVE HANDS (WORKERS IN SONG FLICKER REMIX) – JAMES RICHARDS – DE, 2024 – digital – 13’
RUHE AUF DER LEINWAND (SILENCE ON THE SCREEN) – FRIEDL VOM GRÖLLER – AU, 2014 – 16mm – 1’30”
KARMEL DACHAU – ANDREA BÜTTNER – DE, 2019/2022-23 – digital – 49’13”
Monokino, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans + NYKOLAES & DANIEL PAUL + PARTY WITH DJ LAU
Duration 97‘∞
SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS – F.W. MURNAU – USA, 1927 – 16MM – 97’
LIVE SOUNDTRACK: NYKOLAES & DANIEL PAUL
PARTY WITH DJ LAU
| 13/09 | ||
| 20:00 | THE CAMELIA COMMITTEE (Oslo/Beirut) PRESENTS one sea, three seas Live film performance |
at KAAP TICKETS |
| 22:00 | CINEMA FULGOR (Baixo Alentejo) PRESENTS The Sea Oracle PETER HUTTON, DAVID GATTEN, TACITA DEAN |
at the beach TICKETS |
| 14/09 | ||
| 14:00 | CINÉMA PARENTHÈSE (Brussels) & WALDEN (Stockholm) PRESENT Sea Sights JENNIFER NIGHTINGALE, ROSE LOWDER, JUN’ICHI OKUYAMA, PETER HUTTON, ARTHUR & CORINNE CANTRILL, AMY HALPERN |
at kleinVerhaal TICKETS |
| 16:00 | NON-ALIGNED FILM ARCHIVES (Paris/Rennes) PRESENTS Le cinéma manquant de Madeleine Beauséjour (The Missing Cinema of Madeleine Beauséjour) Lecture performance + screening |
at kleinVerhaal TICKETS |
| 20:00 | ANORAK (Berlin) PRESENTS Untitled (Trust) EMILY DICKINSON, JULIE HARRIS, JAMES RICHARDS, FRIEDL VOM GRÖLLER, ANDREA BÜTTNER |
at Elysée TICKETS |
| 22:00 | MONOKINO (Ostend) PRESENTS Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans F.W. MURNAU with live music by NYKOLAES & DANIEL PAUL + party with DJ LAU |
at Elysée TICKETS |
The first edition of The Social Life of Film was organised last year in Copenhagen by PRISMS and Terrassen. This year, Monokino is bringing the meeting to Ostend.
Over the past ten years, there has been an explosion of small, autonomous, non-profit, nomadic screening platforms that regularly organise film events without having their own location. The Social Life of Film brings together 25 of these nomadic platforms in Ostend.
What binds these organisations is their event-driven nature, often a specific and personal focus from which their programs originate, a strong commitment, but also a tendency to operate with limited resources, which creates fragility and sometimes leads to a short lifespan. The aim of the gathering is to create a network of shared knowledge and experience, and to initiate a broader conversation about the necessity of a more inclusive film culture.
In addition to getting acquainted with each other, we are also happy to introduce some of these exciting platforms to a broader audience. We asked a few of them to create a program based on the principles of Shhh — silent film and the sea — but also to showcase the uniqueness of their platform.
For this special edition we will show films on the beach, with some screenings accompanied by musicians or storytellers. Shhh is anything but ‘silent.’
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With the particpation of anorak (Berlin), Beforeforgetting (Copenhagen), Birdie Num Num (Barcelona), blue screen (Brussels), Cinema Fulgor (Odemira), Cinema Galleggiante (Venice), Cinéma Parenthèse (Brussel), HÆRK (Oslo), Kinoautomat (Ghent), LaborBerlin (Berlin), Liberated Film Club (London), Lumière (Sevilla), Mascara Film Club (London), Monokino (Oostende), Nomadica (Bologna), Non-Aligned Film Archives (Paris/Rennes), Other Cinemas (London), Polar Film Lab (Tromsø), PRISMS (Oslo), Sharna Pax (Copenhagen/London), Sinema Transtopia (Berlin), Terrassen (Copenhagen), The Camelia Committee (Beirut/Oslo), Walden (Stockholm), WET (Rotterdam).
With the support of Vlaamse gemeenschap, Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds, Nederlandse Ambassade, OCA, Caruur, nw-aalst, KAAP, kleinVerhaal, projectvierennegentig.
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Individual screenings cost €12 (support rate), 10€ (basic rate), 8€ (reduced rate for students, 65+ and teachers) or 2€ (UiTPAS). A festival pass for all events costs €35. You can order passes and tickets via UiT.
You can contact info@monokino.org for more info.
SUPPORT — We currently work without subsidies, so your support is more than welcome and literally brings light to the screen:
BE80 7340 4532 5277 BIC: KREDBEBB
Payment reference: ‘Gift’.
Gifts above the sum of € 40 are tax deductible.
A gift of € 100 will only cost you € 55.
Artistic coordination: Anouk De Clercq, Godart Bakkers
General coordination: Ditte Claus
Artistic team: Eric de Kuyper, Xavier Garcia Bardon
Production team: Bob Mees, Jef Declercq, Johan Opstaele, Noah Heylen
Communication: Cynthia Vandenbruaene
Graphic design: Michaël Bussaer. Webdesign: Dominique Callewaert.
With the support of Auguste Orts, CINEMATEK, KAAP, KASK School of Arts Gent, Onderzoeksfonds Universiteit Gent, Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds.
Whoever walks in Ostend today is confronted with a fantastic eclecticism: a brutal grey apartment block exists next to the glorious Thermae Palace. The mighty, almost Stalinist, building of De Grote Post dominates the Hendrik Serruyslaan. A former department store houses a museum for contemporary art. Belle-époque houses are hidden in the quiet but stately streets.
In 2017, one void struck artist Anouk De Clercq: that glorious film culture of Henri Storck, James Ensor or Raoul Servais had disappeared from the streets. With the closure of the Rialto cinema, the last independent cinema from the Ostend cinema circuit also disappeared. Against such an extraordinary backdrop, with the sea as a large projection surface for images, stories and histories, that is such a shame.
And so the idea of Monokino ripens: one room, marked by an equally fantastic eclecticism, where cinema can be itself again. One room where long and short films, film classics, auteur cinema, video art, experimental films, animation, or the work of young makers can find a place. Monokino shows, questions, responds, engages in conversation, invites, welcomes, puts in perspective. Monokino is a place of, by and for people from Ostend, for professionals and enthusiasts, for young and old, for those from here and those from there.
The films that Monokino wants to show don’t only live on the screen. They also spread between residents, spectators, and makers. In that sense, Monokino is also Kopfkino: a mental cinema, where images get the chance to live and multiply.
That’s how Monokino drifts nomadically through those eclectic streets of Ostend and settles in the heads and hearts of the people of Ostend. Soon it’ll moor for good.
Monokino wants to drive cinema into the 21st century and illuminate the adventurous side of film. While we strive for a permanent place as anchorage for cinefiles from Ostend and beyond, Monokino operates as a nomadic film platform.
The sea is Monokino’s favourite projection surface for images, stories and histories. In anticipation of our next screening, we’ve started to collect a list of films in which the sea plays a main or supporting role. Can you think of a film that’s not already on our list? We’d love to hear about it via info@monokino.org.
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