Evergreen

Following last week’s White Coal directed by Georg Tiller, the LOCAL/LOCALE season continues on Sunday 22 November at 7pm with two films by Russian born, London based artist Sasha Litvintseva, Alluvion (2013) and Evergreen (2014). Litvintseva’s films explore the industry, tourism and history of specific places, commenting on the way culture, leisure and work are documented and valued.

In Alluvion a family holiday at a Turkish coastal resort, taking in skating and gliding activities in between predominantly passive leisure time. Around them the work of shipbuilding and night time entertainment represent a contrast of labour, but it’s their essentialness to Turkey’s culture and economy that Alluvion appears to question.

Evergreen meanwhile explores the constructed spaces, abandoned buildings and natural environments of Japan, where an immortal traveller attempts to understand each through their status as spectacle. We see tourists gather around a geiser, the endless unpacking of containers at a port and the image-making of costume players. All well documented by the ever present camera. Litvintseva asks what happens to a civilisation seeking perfection, when perfection means former utopias are replaced; ‘people were unwilling to abandon what they’d committed years of drudgery to acquire.’ Using still shots and soundtracks leaning towards the atmospheric ambient, both Alluvion and Evergreen have a languid pace that underlines the pleasure of looking that their subject references.

Litvintseva’s films have screened at the AC Institute in New York, Wroclaw Biennale and Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival (among others) and her short film immortality, home and elsewhere (2015) screened as part of the programme Shorts: Secret Corners at the 69th Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Alluvion and Evergreen continue White Coal’s themes of travel, the unreliability of the image and the documentation of industry, and point towards the following week’s Our Beloved Month of August, a film by Tabu director Miguel Gomes that usurps its own assumptions about documentary.

With three screenings (and four films) left in the season, if you haven’t been able to attend yet, there’s still time to take advantage of the £20 season ticket price. Below is the full run down of the season and you can find more information on the Facebook page here and EFG page here.

Sunday 8 November: MAN OF THE STORY (KATHAPURUSHAN). Adoor Gopalakrishnan/India, Japan/1995/102/Malayalam with English subtitles.

Sunday 15 November: WHITE COAL. Georg Tiller/Austria, Poland, Taiwan/2015/70 min/English and Chinese with English subtitles.

Sunday 22 November: ALLUVION/EVERGREEN. Alluvion/Sasha Litvintseva/UK/2013/31min. Evergreen/Sasha Litvintseva/UK/2014/50 min.

Sunday 29 November: OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST (AQUELE QUERIDO MES DE AGOSTO) Miguel Gomes/Portugal, France/2008/147 min/Portuguese with English subtitles.

Sunday 6 December: TIRED MOONLIGHT. Britni West/USA/2015/76 min.