One of the common threads in the last decade or so of experimental film has been the coincidence of folklore and film grain, as the filmmakers who have the clearest heads for anthropology and myth—whether they are established names like Ben Rivers (Two Years At Sea) and Ben Russell (Let Each One Go Where He May, the Rivers collaboration A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness) or newcomers like the duo of Samuel M. Delgado and Helena Girón—also share an interest in the properties of celluloid. Perhaps it’s part of a wider search for all things primeval: the rugged landscape, the oral tradition, the photochemical process, each promising to lead the artist back to something like the raw material of their origins. This is partly what the Morocco-based Franco-Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe is going for with Mimosas, his primitivist, shot-on-16mm fairy tale about a ragtag group...
- 4/12/2017
- by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
- avclub.com
The Brothers Ben Find Supernal Solace On The Fringe
There are creative collaborations and there are perfect unions. The newly born cinematic relationship between experimental documentarians Ben Russell (Let Each One Go Where He May) and Ben Rivers (Two Years At Sea) seems to be the latter. Their first feature together, A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness, lets the inclinations of both artists meld into one pensively celebrative journey into the outskirts that sees the human spirit glow in the shadow of societal norms. Part reflexive documentary and part narrative fabrication, the film follows the existential exploration of a nameless journeyman (played by real-life musician Robert A.A. Lowe) in three parts – from an island-bound commune in Estonia, to the solitary seclusion of the Finnish backwoods, and finally to the dark depths of a rock club in Norway where he joins fellow black metal musicians on stage in a breathtaking...
There are creative collaborations and there are perfect unions. The newly born cinematic relationship between experimental documentarians Ben Russell (Let Each One Go Where He May) and Ben Rivers (Two Years At Sea) seems to be the latter. Their first feature together, A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness, lets the inclinations of both artists meld into one pensively celebrative journey into the outskirts that sees the human spirit glow in the shadow of societal norms. Part reflexive documentary and part narrative fabrication, the film follows the existential exploration of a nameless journeyman (played by real-life musician Robert A.A. Lowe) in three parts – from an island-bound commune in Estonia, to the solitary seclusion of the Finnish backwoods, and finally to the dark depths of a rock club in Norway where he joins fellow black metal musicians on stage in a breathtaking...
- 12/1/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Titled A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, it's the first feature-film collaboration between celebrated artist/filmmakers Ben Rivers (Two Years at Sea) and Ben Russell (Let Each One Go Where He May), which follows a nameless protagonist (played by musician Robert AA Lowe) as he explores 3 very different existential options: as a member of a commune on a small Estonian island; living alone in the wilds of northern Finland; and fronting a neo-pagan black metal band in Norway - all in a quest for utopia - truth, self-awareness, and spiritual connectedness. A staple in the art and music community of Chicago, Robert A.A. Lowe joined up with the 90 Day Men in 1997, formed Dreamweapon with...
- 2/13/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Nb: Films by Robert Beavers, Peter Hutton, and Luther Price were unavailable for preview. However, I said some very nice things about these men and their work in general over at The Dissolve.
In years past, I have attempted to present this extended article as a preview; my aim has been to send it off into the world either the day before of the day of Tiff's kick-off. That has proven impossible this year, and, dear reader, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee... But the fact that Wavelengths is a beat that is becoming harder and harder for one person to adequately cover is undoubtedly a sign of good health. Since last year, when Tiff enfolded the former Visions section (a space for formally adventurous narrative features) into Wavelengths (Tiff's experimental showcase), not only has interest in the section grown exponentially. The section can now more fully reflect...
In years past, I have attempted to present this extended article as a preview; my aim has been to send it off into the world either the day before of the day of Tiff's kick-off. That has proven impossible this year, and, dear reader, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee... But the fact that Wavelengths is a beat that is becoming harder and harder for one person to adequately cover is undoubtedly a sign of good health. Since last year, when Tiff enfolded the former Visions section (a space for formally adventurous narrative features) into Wavelengths (Tiff's experimental showcase), not only has interest in the section grown exponentially. The section can now more fully reflect...
- 9/9/2013
- by Michael Sicinski
- MUBI
After the rush of sales in Park City this year, it seems the entire American cine-punditry is racing to declare this the beginning of a new golden age in American Independent Film. I sure hope they’re right. One wonders if March’s SXSW Film Festival in Austin will continue the trend and finally push that festival into true market status. Nearly 40 films were acquired in Park City and many more that premiered there will surely be acquired in the weeks and months to come. Yet for some of the most daring new American films, the sales rat race at Sundance isn’t an aspiration. After returning from Rotterdam, where the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam is still unspooling through this weekend, I can say that the health of our non-commercial cinema, that from the children of our incredibly rich American Avant-Garde tradition and one that has long been supported...
- 2/4/2011
- by Brandon Harris
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
It’s lucky 13 for the Antimatter Film Festival in Victoria, BC. That is, their 13th annual fest is all set to run on Oct 8-16. That’s nine mind-blowing nights of experimental short films, live film performances and culture-shattering documentaries.
The fest kicks off on the 8th with a 16mm screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s classic silent film Battleship Potemkin that will be accompanied by a live soundtrack by DJ-son Bitter Herbs [Jason Flower]. The people’s revolution never sounded so funky! Then, the fest concludes on the 16th with the event “Uzos [Underwater Zombies from Outer Space]” and will feature performances by Ryan Beattie, Atomic Vaudeville, Slut Revolver, Wes Borg and more.
Smooshed between those two events will be the debut feature film by acclaimed ethnographic filmmaker Ben Russell, Let Each One Go Where They May, which documents the amazing recreation of a bold escape made by slaves. Other feature length documentaries screening are: Teen Routines,...
The fest kicks off on the 8th with a 16mm screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s classic silent film Battleship Potemkin that will be accompanied by a live soundtrack by DJ-son Bitter Herbs [Jason Flower]. The people’s revolution never sounded so funky! Then, the fest concludes on the 16th with the event “Uzos [Underwater Zombies from Outer Space]” and will feature performances by Ryan Beattie, Atomic Vaudeville, Slut Revolver, Wes Borg and more.
Smooshed between those two events will be the debut feature film by acclaimed ethnographic filmmaker Ben Russell, Let Each One Go Where They May, which documents the amazing recreation of a bold escape made by slaves. Other feature length documentaries screening are: Teen Routines,...
- 10/4/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Screening on March 7th, as part of the BAMcinématek series Rotterdam@Bam is Let Each One Go Where He May.
What’s it all about?
From Bam’s website:
Chicago-based filmmaker Ben Russell’s brilliantly rigorous debut feature, solely comprised of 13 ten-minute shots, portrays contemporary Saramaccan life as two brothers venture from the outskirts of Paramaribo, Suriname, on land, and through rapids, past a Maroon village on the Upper Suriname River. Their journey reflects the voyage undertaken by their ancestors, who escaped from slavery at the hands of the Dutch 300 years earlier.
A clip follows below; in watching it, I couldn’t help but think of Gus Van Sant’s Gerry, although the themes, and each film’s reason for being sharply contrast:...
What’s it all about?
From Bam’s website:
Chicago-based filmmaker Ben Russell’s brilliantly rigorous debut feature, solely comprised of 13 ten-minute shots, portrays contemporary Saramaccan life as two brothers venture from the outskirts of Paramaribo, Suriname, on land, and through rapids, past a Maroon village on the Upper Suriname River. Their journey reflects the voyage undertaken by their ancestors, who escaped from slavery at the hands of the Dutch 300 years earlier.
A clip follows below; in watching it, I couldn’t help but think of Gus Van Sant’s Gerry, although the themes, and each film’s reason for being sharply contrast:...
- 3/2/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Like many major film festivals, the International Film Festival Rotterdam has a "video lab" that lets members of the press, and I believe members of the market there, Cinemart, to catch films they missed the theatrical screenings of at the festival on iMac video monitors. It is a very useful enterprise, since Iffr had over a hundred features and countless short films, and it is inevitable that films don't fit into your schedule, something slips through the cracks, or you hear about a work well after its lone screening has occurred. Rotterdam's digital lab was the most extensive I have yet seen; I would say the vast majority of all non-retrospective titles in the 2010 lineup had been digitized and put on their local online server. This last point, that the videos are hosted online, seems small and logistical but is in fact crucial: not only could you watch the film from the video lab,...
- 2/21/2010
- MUBI
Updated through 2/11.
The last round of awards to be presented during this year's just-wrapped International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced Saturday night. The Iffr 2010 Audience Award goes to Álvaro Pastor and Antonio Naharro's Yo, también, the Dioraphte Award "for the Hubert Bals Fund film held in highest regard" to Hawa Essuman's Soul Boy, produced by Tom Tykwer.
2010's three winners of the Vpro Tiger Awards, given to debut or second features by new directors, are Paz Fábrega's Agua fría de mar, Pedro González-Rubio's Alamar and Anocha Suwichakornpong's Mundane History (I posted first impressions of those last two here; meantime, indieWIRE reports that Film Movement has picked up Alamar for distribution in the Us). The International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) has presented its Rotterdam award to Ben Russell's Let Each One Go Where He May and the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (Netpac) has selected Whang Cheol-Mean's Moscow.
The last round of awards to be presented during this year's just-wrapped International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced Saturday night. The Iffr 2010 Audience Award goes to Álvaro Pastor and Antonio Naharro's Yo, también, the Dioraphte Award "for the Hubert Bals Fund film held in highest regard" to Hawa Essuman's Soul Boy, produced by Tom Tykwer.
2010's three winners of the Vpro Tiger Awards, given to debut or second features by new directors, are Paz Fábrega's Agua fría de mar, Pedro González-Rubio's Alamar and Anocha Suwichakornpong's Mundane History (I posted first impressions of those last two here; meantime, indieWIRE reports that Film Movement has picked up Alamar for distribution in the Us). The International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) has presented its Rotterdam award to Ben Russell's Let Each One Go Where He May and the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (Netpac) has selected Whang Cheol-Mean's Moscow.
- 2/12/2010
- MUBI
Movies shot on digital still cameras, mobile phones used as projectors – Rotterdam's forward-looking film festival offered intriguing glimpses of the future of movie-making
There have been times when this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has felt like glimpsing a blueprint for the future – or at least some provisional early sketches. The festival has offered ideas, experiments and proofs of how the digital cinema world might look, from pre-production to shooting to exhibition, as well as some playful reminders of past times when the movie industry has faced challenge and change.
Cinema Reloaded, an experiment in raising production funds through crowd-sourcing, has been the festival's flagship online programme this year. The aim was to raise 30,000 euros for one of three proposed short films through virtual donations – an intriguing if somewhat gimmicky notion that does not seem to have caught fire in practice: at the time of writing, even the most popular project,...
There have been times when this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has felt like glimpsing a blueprint for the future – or at least some provisional early sketches. The festival has offered ideas, experiments and proofs of how the digital cinema world might look, from pre-production to shooting to exhibition, as well as some playful reminders of past times when the movie industry has faced challenge and change.
Cinema Reloaded, an experiment in raising production funds through crowd-sourcing, has been the festival's flagship online programme this year. The aim was to raise 30,000 euros for one of three proposed short films through virtual donations – an intriguing if somewhat gimmicky notion that does not seem to have caught fire in practice: at the time of writing, even the most popular project,...
- 2/8/2010
- by Ben Walters
- The Guardian - Film News
Long takes seem to characterize a group of films in this year’s Tiger Awards competition. Each one of these films ends of being distinct and memorable. This is the kind of fare that only programmers can identify, not those who market the films.
Nikolay and Yelena Renard’s Mama (Russia) includes long takes where the camera is entirely stationary, does not move and maintains a distance from is (only) two central characters. An overtly (some say obscenely) obese son of an obsessive mother makes his way to the store window as he seems to have fallen in love with a mannequin. He then walks into a park, at a speed that he can manage, to eat. When he comes home, we notice his mother is angry, who then bathes him, clothes him and helps him pack his suitcase because he is taking a flight the next morning. He misses...
Nikolay and Yelena Renard’s Mama (Russia) includes long takes where the camera is entirely stationary, does not move and maintains a distance from is (only) two central characters. An overtly (some say obscenely) obese son of an obsessive mother makes his way to the store window as he seems to have fallen in love with a mannequin. He then walks into a park, at a speed that he can manage, to eat. When he comes home, we notice his mother is angry, who then bathes him, clothes him and helps him pack his suitcase because he is taking a flight the next morning. He misses...
- 2/7/2010
- by Shekhar Deshpande
- DearCinema.com
This evening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the three Tiger Award winners were announced. The winners were:
"Agua Fría de Mar"
(dir: Paz Fábrega, Costa Rica)
"Alamar"
(dir: Pedro González-Rubio, Mexico)
"Mundane History"
(dir: Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand)
The Tiger can only be won by directors who have made their first or second film. It is not just an award for good filmmaking, but also meant as an encouragement to make more films and includes a nice 15,000 Euro (each) to help do so.
The Fipresco award from the international film press went to "Let Each One Go Where He May" by Ben Russell, while the Netpac award for promoting Asian cinema was won by the Korean film "Moscow" from director Whan Cheol-Mean. ...
"Agua Fría de Mar"
(dir: Paz Fábrega, Costa Rica)
"Alamar"
(dir: Pedro González-Rubio, Mexico)
"Mundane History"
(dir: Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand)
The Tiger can only be won by directors who have made their first or second film. It is not just an award for good filmmaking, but also meant as an encouragement to make more films and includes a nice 15,000 Euro (each) to help do so.
The Fipresco award from the international film press went to "Let Each One Go Where He May" by Ben Russell, while the Netpac award for promoting Asian cinema was won by the Korean film "Moscow" from director Whan Cheol-Mean. ...
- 2/6/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Berlin -- The East and the Far East are in focus at this year's Rotterdam International Film Festival, which unveiled its competition lineup Thursday. Of the 15 titles vying for Rotterdam's Tiger Awards, more than half are from Eastern Europe and Asia.
Japan has two contenders: Tsubota Yoshifumi's "Miyoko," a biopic based on the Manga artist Abe Shinichi and his wife Miyoko and "Autumn Adagio" from first-timer Inoue Tsuki, which focuses on the life of a middle-aged nun.
Anocha Suwichakornpong, whose short "Graceland" (2006) was the first Thai film included in Cannes' official selection, makes her feature debut in competition at Rotterdam with "Mundane History," a drama about a family dealing with their wheelchair-bound son. Scwichakornpong will also attend Rotterdam's CineMart, chasing funds for his next project "By the Time it Gets Dark."
Other Asian entries in Rotterdam this year include minimalist drama "Sun Spots" from China's Yang Heng and "My Daughter,...
Japan has two contenders: Tsubota Yoshifumi's "Miyoko," a biopic based on the Manga artist Abe Shinichi and his wife Miyoko and "Autumn Adagio" from first-timer Inoue Tsuki, which focuses on the life of a middle-aged nun.
Anocha Suwichakornpong, whose short "Graceland" (2006) was the first Thai film included in Cannes' official selection, makes her feature debut in competition at Rotterdam with "Mundane History," a drama about a family dealing with their wheelchair-bound son. Scwichakornpong will also attend Rotterdam's CineMart, chasing funds for his next project "By the Time it Gets Dark."
Other Asian entries in Rotterdam this year include minimalist drama "Sun Spots" from China's Yang Heng and "My Daughter,...
- 1/7/2010
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Trypps / Let Each One Go Where He May (Ben Russell)
Russell calls his on-going Trypps project, available online at Vimeo, “psychedelic ethnography,” the first word signaling an internal trip (head-trip), the second an external one. In other words, a phantasmagoric documentary, inspired by Jean Rouch. The first couple of Trypps are the phantasmagoria, abstractions of dots and tree branches moving faster and faster in rhythm for the viewer's own tripping. The next move further and further outside to watch the trippers and increasingly externalize the trip in the sagging mosh-pit crowd at a Lightning Bolt show slowed down and accompanied by a drone in hypnogogic simulation of the event that's being witnessed, to a Richard Pryor routine recut as Tom Tom the Piper's Son, to a sign in Dubai flashing epileptically the impossibly modern command “Happy” (ostensibly: only “App” is visible) that Russell describes as the Pryor trypp without editing,...
Russell calls his on-going Trypps project, available online at Vimeo, “psychedelic ethnography,” the first word signaling an internal trip (head-trip), the second an external one. In other words, a phantasmagoric documentary, inspired by Jean Rouch. The first couple of Trypps are the phantasmagoria, abstractions of dots and tree branches moving faster and faster in rhythm for the viewer's own tripping. The next move further and further outside to watch the trippers and increasingly externalize the trip in the sagging mosh-pit crowd at a Lightning Bolt show slowed down and accompanied by a drone in hypnogogic simulation of the event that's being witnessed, to a Richard Pryor routine recut as Tom Tom the Piper's Son, to a sign in Dubai flashing epileptically the impossibly modern command “Happy” (ostensibly: only “App” is visible) that Russell describes as the Pryor trypp without editing,...
- 10/29/2009
- MUBI
Ben Russell’s “Let Each One Go Where He May,” Anocha Suwichakornpong’s “Mundane History” and Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s “To the Sea” have been announced as part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Vpro Tiger Awards Competition 2010. The festival additionally announced that the 2010 festival jury will include Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, French actress Jeanne Balibar and Singapore International Film Festival director Philip Cheah. Two further jury members will be announced later. “Let …...
- 10/26/2009
- Indiewire
A pair of bare feet was wedged though the gap between seats in front of me, ankles casually crossed and toes silhouetted against the screen, for Let Each One Go Where He May, the third experimental Wavelengths program at this year's Toronto Film Festival. The screening was devoted to the World Premiere of a single 135-minute 16mm work by American filmmaker Ben Russell . The film has no translated dialogue and no traditional narrative. It is made up of ten 13-minute shots of two men walking and is described by programmer Andréa Picard as an "intervention" into culture and landscape. This audience was in it for the long haul. "I paid them to participate, and I paid them not to talk," Russell explained of his subjects, who are followed in...
- 9/16/2009
- by Livia Bloom
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.