video feature
Avanca
Avanca Film & Video Festival
Avanca
Portugal is playing in Wilfried’s life a particular role, because 1952 just being 2 years old Wilfried moved with his family to Portugal, where his father got the chair as Professor at the Department for Engineering at The University of Oporto. Portugal was at that time ruled by the dictator Salazar. Wilfried was spending the next 3 years in Oporto, but afterwards the family returned Germany. So, Wilfried was spending important years of his childhood in Portugal, but no personal memory is left, just the stories his mothers was telling him. Nevertheless Wilfried was keeping for the rest of his life a particular affinity to Portugal, and he is convinced that his favour for bright intensive colours marking his artistic work has its roots in this most colourful Portuguese years. Portugal became really relevant only again, whe he started curating netart and one of the Portuguese artists, Jose Vieira, started his digital festival FONLAD in Coimbra, Wilfried was participating in all his festival editions – this, however, is the story of another article.
Today, we have the year 2004, when Wilfried is participating for the 1st of three times (2004, 2005, 2007) in AVANCA Film, Video and Multimedia Festival and this evening is the opening at Cine Clube Avanca. Wilfried is participating in the festival with some of his successful multimedia works, like – En [code] ed, Message from Behind a Wall, Bareback – serial DIScharge and Inability of Being Nude, but also with his Film Collection which he is running as a BLOG online, and in this way, all his moving images works – interactive and linear – are presented in the festival edition 2007, as well.
Avanca is located close to Oporto. In the stories his mother was telling, not only Coimbra as a University town appeared, which obviously had some relevance when Wilfried’s father was professor in Oporto, but Wilfried is also remembering the name of Avanca, however only as a small village which the family crossed while exploring the region around Oporto. Only many years later here the Avanca Film Festival was established.
So, Wilfried’s professional participations and collaborations have always also their roots in his own childhood.
Avanca Film & Videofestival Avanca/Portugal
AVANCA seeks to trace the perspective of contemporary cinema, television, video, and multimedia production.
An international film competition, but also a place for creative workshops, conferences, exhibitions and debates.
The films produced during the workshops received more than 50 awards at international festival competitions from around the world.
Each year, in July and in AVANCA, between 15 and 20,000 spectators from around 40 countries on 5 continents gather.
A meeting spot for films and their authors.
Avanca Film & Videofestival 2004 Avanca/Portugal – 21-25 July 2004
Avanca Film & Videofestival 2005 Avanca/Portugal – 22-31 July 2005
Avanca Film & Videofestival 2007 Avanca/Portugal – 26-30 July 2007
Digital video inspired by a visit of Thessaloniki.
The work describes the principle of “code” or “coding” in form of an allegory, a metaphoric story as a ritual of meeting, dominating and resigning. The code is identified as a state of the static, dogmatic and conservative, which asks for obedience, but gives no chance to escape.
Avanca Film & Videofestival 2004 Avanca/Portugal – 21-25 July 2004
Message from Behind a Wall, 2005, 10:00
The segregation wall in Palestine is a fact. In November 2004, an artistic action against the wall ended, taking place at six different places in Palestine where walls were under construction, initiated by Palestine artists by inviting artists from different countries to paint an artistic message on the concrete.
When Agricola de Cologne was in Bethlehem in February 2005, he visited several places where the Israeli were erecting the wall. The part of the wall he was filming, is situated in opposite of the AIDA refugee camp (UN), and was at that time a temporary playground for children. And these children made their own contribution to the huge wall paintings.
“Message from behind a Wall”is transporting different messages, but the main message represents the action of children’s innocence.
The moving picture is a unique document of the day of 17 February 2005. Meanwhile, the construction of the wall in Bethlehem is since long time completed, and the area around the wall does not motivate children to use it further as a playground.
The moving picture takes the classical theme of the “nude” in a contemporary interpretation as a psychological condition.
The viewer is confronted with different levels of movements of baring/exposing.
He becomes very quickly aware, that he did not enter a peep-show, but is disturbing intimacy, the process of emptiness. Emptiness in the sense of meditating.
The nude is a metaphor. The Inability of Being Nude becomes the inability of exposing one’s entire internal to other people, including those who are most intimate and this could be the viewer himself. This inability is in the same way protecting as separating.
Avanca Film & Videofestival 2005 Avanca/Portugal – 22-31 July 2005
The experimental film tells the story of a homeless person, who lost its identity in all the traumatic experiences it was undergoing. Again, Agricola de Cologne uses the form of the allegorical representation for pointing to essential questions of human existence. All people are homeless in on or the other way, most however, suffer from it without being aware of it. The film is a mirror of our time which has lost its roots.
Avanca Film & Videofestival 2007 Avanca/Portugal – 26-30 July 2007
Cine Clube Avanca
