Films on Loop Programme

Breathings of the moon by Leonor Serrano Rivas and Diego Delas, 2022 

Spain

16 min 21 sec 

Commissioned by TBA21-Academy with the support of STARTS, a European Commission initiative.

Breathings of the moon stems from the homonymous performance and expedition work anchored into the underwater worlds of the Venice Lagoon and its canals. Inspired by the work of 17th scholar Athanasius Kircher, the film highlights the struggles of defining the world that we live in after the eruption of the climate crisis. To respond the Venice Lagoon’s challenges, the film places the water at its core, insinuating its own agency, its breathings, movements, and multiples tides by a recreated lagoon affected by magnets and pigments in a small tank as a microcosm. The artists lean towards the potential of narratives, the role of fiction, and even magic to construct an implosion of imaginaries beyond data to conceive a world that we cannot stop to perceive by attuning to the multiplicity of bodies and breathing cycles decentering the human body and redefining the position of the so-called “nature”.

The sun does not rise in the north by Mónica de Miranda, 2023 

Portugal

30 min. 

Courtoisie de l’artiste

Moving across the shores between Ceuta (Spain) and Tangier, Morocco, a man and woman discover the present borders and past archaeologies of these lands that were once one and now exist separately. People are trapped in a limbo between Europe and the inhospitable forests of Morocco. In the incessant search for a better life, many die crossing the Mediterranean, which has become a graveyard of unconquered lost hopes. The land is cut by barbed wires, constantly expelling and containing. A separated couple travels through the desert and forests, wandering until they reach the edge of the borders that divide Africa and Europe. The travels entice the characters to deep reflection on the reality of their live. The sun does not rise in the north is a search and a dialogue between Africa and its diaspora about the contemporary complexities of immigration and displacement.