Through the eyes of cinema, the participants were invited to explore the topic of man’s identity, identity which, in essence, is defined by relations, an ontological «we». Rubén de la Prida Caballero, Spanish film critic , who conducted a 3-day workshop during the residency, shares his opinion on the short films made by the participant.

To view the videos, click on the name of the movie or go to the Vimeo-Catenart account: 

An international group of young artists gathered together between February 5^th and 17^th in Berlin, in parallel to one of the most important Film Festivals of the world: the Berlinale. The critic signing these lines had the pleasure and unexpected gift of sharing with them some reflections and thoughts about the way of expressing the problematics of identity through the means of expression of filmic form and language. When watching the works they performed during their stay in Berlin, one can only wonder about the amount of talent put at the disposal of true art, in an attempt of answering through beauty the most decisive of all questions: who am I?

Among the movies presented there are some that describe with precision the identity of some individuals like Oksana and Feelings (Sofiya Lupul), a joyous sensual look at one of the artists (Oksana Fedchyshyn) with a seamless junction between form and content, or Two Portraits (Denys Struck), an oneiric piece of harmonic contrasts taking the most authentic gestures of two of the participants (Sofiya Lupul and Darya Paschenko), showing their respective personalities through slight movements that appear like a tender dance of the both women with their own lives and the beauty itself. Denys Struck is also the author of Nobody, the most narrative of all works presented, a postmodern short film noir about the fragility of relationships in the digital world. Some other works reflected on the issues of group identity and the matter on individuality and distinction, like i (Arthur Soletskyi), which makes a surprising exploration on the possibilities of the soundtrack, Same The Same (Marta Trotsiuk), an approximation to the topic of identity with a provocative and powerful aesthetic, close to the art of videoclips, blur (Galya Boyko), a free piece of art that would have delighted -and maybe is inspired by- John Cassavetes or Béla Tarr, or the original stop-motion work Sheeps (Marta Melnykovych). Other artists decided to get inspired by the global identity of the city of Berlin itself, deeply analyzing the impact of the big city on the individual perception of self. Among them we find Moon (Oksana Fedchyshyn), an impacting short movie about the contrast between the times of nature and the times of men,  the movie Timewill say nothing but i told you so by Myroslava Klochko, an amazing piece of associative editing of picture and soundtrack worth the best of Peter Greenaway, I’m Ghost (Serhiy Savchenko), a fresh colorful mixture of real image and animation playing constantly with the smile of both the viewer and the unexpected actors, and the masterpiece Noise (Darya Paschenko), a visual poem about the need of peace and harmony in the gray stressed noisy life of the big city.

Besides these works the artists made some group movies full of experimentation, showing once again that art and creation are inseparable of having fun and breaking the limits of the represented. One can only expect to see some of these young artists once presenting their works at the Berlinale itself. They have much to tell the world through their art. In some of them the seeds of geniality, of permanence, of the bubbling of new filmic languages are present, and need to be developed. For the sake of cinema. For the sake of art. For the sake of beauty.

Rubén de la Prida Caballero, master of film criticism, ECAM (Escuela de Cine de Madrid) ; film critic, writes for Caimán Cuadernos de Cine (former Cahiers du Cinéma Espagne); Professor at the University of Carlos III in Madrid

To see more videos:
Asya Gefter (UK)
Arthur Soletsky (Ukraine)
Camila Rioseco (Chili)
Daria Pashchenko (Ukraine)
Denys Struk (Ukraine), Nod
Galyna Boyko (Ukraine), Biswhen, Terсофі
Marisol Crawford (USA)
Marta Melnykovych (Ukraine)
Myroslav Klochko (Ukraine), Plus one
Marta Trotsiuk (Ukraine)
Nina Gross (Österreich)
Oksana Fedchyshyn (Ukraine)
Serhiy Savchenko (Ukraine)
Sofia Lupul (Ukraine)
Juan Pablo Asanza Colmont (Equador)

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Berlin , 5-10 & 10-17 February 2019

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In the words of their mentor, Serhiy SAVCHENKO, speaking about his own experience, to be an artist means « to keep one’s soul open and free. »

And for that, what better place than Berlin? A city highly cultivated, it was inflicted such deep physical and mental wounds that one might have thought they’d be lethal. The scars themselves proved fruitful.

I was honored to play a piece of piano for the participants of the residency in the dazzling setting of our friends’ Judith and Jan Montag’s apartment. I was impressed by the quality of their silence, so different from the empty presence of so many blasé audiences.

The final exhibition of all the works created in Berlin offered an intense and deeply moving visual conclusion to the residency. It was permeated with a warm atmosphere of friendship between of those present.

Accompanied by an Iranian musician and his thousand-year-old string instrument, our hosts’ daughter, Helena Montag, led us with her flute on a dream-like and fantastic journey –yet another one! A fleeting moment of true communion between the artistic form and its interpreters…

I am full of gratitude for these young artists who brought us such deep and rare emotion. We left Berlin different, richer.

Philippe Languin

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The program of the workshop will alternate times of individual and group work in workshops (lithography, sculpture, photo-video, living nature…), cultural visits and meetings with some of the city’s artists such as Hans Scheib, Diana Obinja, Axel Pahlavi, Peter Hermann…

The workshop will be animated by the Ukrainian painter Serhiv Savchenko.

Download the flyer

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