Shovel, Hammer, Axe

Hosted by WET

May 31st, 2024 - Doors 20:00, Screening 20:30

Hillevliet 90, The Garden


Shed is happy to announce Shovel, Hammer, Axe a screening of short films by our studio, hosted by WET. In this curated screening, the moving-image is a tool for taking apart and reconfiguring worlds we inhabit. A tool does not dictate a single intention, let alone a single outcome. The shovel can unearth or conceal. The hammer can build or break. The axe can shape or split. The camera takes on multiple roles as well, observing, questioning, interpreting and reproducing realities. Each of the films invites the audience to reflect on the versatility of the camera in shaping perspectives.


Program:



Machine Moet Blijven Draaien (Machine Must Keep Turning) - Antoni Czarczyński
20 mins | 2024 | 2K video | Dutch-English with English Subtitles

An experimental documentary following the working lives of Rotterdam floor cleaners. The director, an ex-employee of the same cleaning company, attempts to fit his experience into a frame by pointing the camera at his colleagues. The film is a search for the real fruits of their labour and a sensory portrait of cleaning work in the area of Rotterdam.


Will Thy Kingdoms Not Persist - Martin Osowski
28 mins | 2023 | 2K video | Polish and English with English Subtitles

A semi-diaristic film exploring the Canadian-born filmmaker’s relationship to the place in rural Poland where his mother is from, and where his grandparents currently live. Meditative portrayals of this landscape are interspersed with narratives of regional history, Catholicism, and science fiction. The film looks at the totalizing yet fragile dualities of these narratives and how they reflect or become reflected in the natural and constructed elements of a landscape, as well as the filmmaker’s own fragmented relationship to these worlds as a second-generation immigrant.


Surge of Transference - Geo Barcan
15 mins | 2023 | 4K video, found footage | English with English Subtitles

Tracing the expansion of the internet in a small town in Romania, this video essay travels through the place's past, present and utopian future. Influenced by the rapid transformation of the internet, from the early days of peer-to-peer networking to the upload of online late capitalism, the dynamics within the town’s community change. “Surge of Transference” imagines a hyperlocal future where a de-platforming of the internet could enhance community building. Structured in three parts, the video shifts through documentary, speculative fiction and surrealism. All parts have been shot in Buhusi, Romania.


5 Strings, 5 Strengths - Mónica Ruiz van Hattem
19 mins | 2022 | 2K video | English

In a city devoid of contact, a cellist discovers the dark side of the lack of human touch and opens up to the beauty of the emptiness in her inner world and the city of Rotterdam.
5 strings, 5 strengths is a project made only by women, in which film images formed the basis for the music compositions.
Lauriane Ghils (Ngoni), Nabou Claerhout (Trombone), Simone van der Weerden (Bandoneon), Elena García Verduras (Cellist), María Martínez (Marimba), Maureen Ghazal (Palestinian poet), Marta Gonzalez (concept and 5 strings cello) & Monica Ruiz (filmmaker)


Little Robot - Ollie Paterson
2 mins | 2023 | 4K video | English

A disembodied mechanical creature gets lost in the city. What it finds are faceless materials, made of the same metals and alloys as itself, but with which it cannot communicate. The film is a poetic sketch that explores alienation in contemporary cityscapes, posing the individual experience as inherently fragmented and elliptical.