Animals in Borderlands consisted of four short films:
1. Mike Bloom: 3 Dreams of Horses (2018 – 6 Minutes)
This was a complex visual pieces with three scenes that all feature horses “remembering Jacinto” The stages goes as follows: daytime forest, rainy street in Portugal and night time fire and water.
2. Hayoun Kwon: 489 years (2016 – 11 minutes)
This film is captivating, start to finish; we enter the demilitarized zone between north and South Korea, showing us the forest as we go through life, into death. This film is haunting with the voice over of a border guard reliving his memories; this piece is raw with such depth. The visuals throughout show hidden reality’s, I struggled to remove my eyes from the screen for just a second, this film is incredible let leaves you with the overruling feeling your powerless.
3. Élénore Saintagnag & Grrégorie Motte: Les Bêtes Savages / Wild Beasts (2015 – 36 Minutes)
This piece is almost within four pieces: on the population increase of foxes on the border of France & Belgium. In Belgium thousands of parakeets colonised the city. In Columbia hippopotamuses are taken to Africa to thrive. Yet the overruling conclusion is these animals may be surviving in these habitats yet they have been displace, removed from where there belong, by humans.
4. Jamie Allan: The Iron Serpent (2018 – 8 minutes)
Part Documentary and part fable, for 25 years a deadly fence was along the soviet border separating families and the forest of the borderlands, the trauma still lingers even with the passing of the border, this is a touching tale.
Following watching the films we had a discussion with the filmmakers who spoke of the historical context between humans and animals, how complex it can be. We love the pig, yet we sacrifice the pig. Do you see? Its two separate ideas at once, Animals almost exist as ghosts within our world. “Animals as the other who you define yourself against, Nationalism is needing something to define yourself against”, a statement that stood loud and clear throughout these films and spoke volumes. These pieces asked questions about the relationships between humans and other species and the impact that us humans and our borders have effected animals and their behaviours.
Comments