SPIRIT PICTURES


3hd celebrates its tenth year by engaging with the alien and the otherworldly for its “The Shadows That Linger” edition. In working through the past to imagine a better future, the three-week interdisciplinary festival dives deep into the hauntological space between the familiar and the unfamiliar. The “Spirit Pictures” moving-image program evokes themes around 19th-century ghost photography to summon the specters of time and memory, and beaming into multiple bygones via narratives around the social and political, physical and metaphorical spirits that haunt our every day.

Five artists capture the poignancy of temporary existence by sharing a snapshot of their own unique world views. Abdessamad El Montassir’s “Galb'Echaouf” wanders the Sahara to uncover the truth of an event that profoundly changed its landscape. Haunted by a history its human inhabitants are unable to tell, the artist-storyteller and “researcher without archives” brings form to the silence surrounding this unspoken account by giving agency to the vast desert’s plants, rocks, and other inanimate entities. Meanwhile, Cihad Caner explores these silences and amplifies the narratives of the marginalized via a CGI-animated version of the serpentine slab that sits behind the podium at the UN General Assembly. A deep melancholy pervades as this sad stone describes the events that compose the collective memory from his spatially restricted, though temporally-expansive perspective. A rumination on the psychological and emotional impact of structural violence, “I, The Green Marble; The (Hi)story Of My Witness and Memory” contemplates the unending cycle of forgetting and tyranny.

These omnipresent architectures of oppression and control carry further into Micaela Durand & Daniel Chew’s “38,” the last of a trilogy of short films navigating the entanglement of desire, sexuality, race, and class, filtered through the distracted, overloaded, and constantly-documented reality of hypermediation. But rather than representing the internet on screen, this invisible other world only exists through its impact and implication. The theme of technology as a ghostly presence, or shadow that lingers on the periphery also comes through in Stephanie Comilang’s “Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso (Come to Me Paradise),” a sci-fi documentary that considers social connections in this age of economic migration and modern technology. An all-seeing drone spirit is summoned every Sunday into the heart of Hong Kong as an intermediary between Filipina workers and their place of origin. Another speculative documentary from April Lin 林森 imagines a near-future of climate catastrophe and a new species of tree—engineered as a solutionist approach to the harsh conditions—that survives through its intricate ancestry and ecological memory, stored deep in its enduring roots. “TR333” creates a new framework of collective storytelling and mythmaking, offering a living narrative that invites us to see our capacity for reinvention, both in our relationship with the environment and in how we envision our place within it.

GALB’ECHAOUF
Abdessamad El Montassir


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Oct 19--:--:--

GALB’ECHAOUF
Abdessamad El Montassir

While investigating an event that profoundly changed the landscape of the Sahara, Abdessamad El Montassir was faced with the silence of previous generations who remain haunted by a history that they are unable to tell. With “Galb’Echaouf,” El Montassir focuses our attention on landscapes, plants and poetry, in search of answers or elements that could participate in the reconstruction of this collective amnesia and its narrative transmission.

The artist-storyteller speaks the unspoken to the forgetful landscape of the stunning Sahara Desert. Portraying this harsh expanse with an open-ended-ness and a freedom of imagination, El Montassir wanders vast landscapes and explores that which remains elusive with the eyes and ears of a researcher without archives. Bringing form to silence, “Galb’Echaouf” blends scientific inquiry with poetry to create an oral history passed down through generations, while giving agency to those plants and inanimate entities that interact with, transform, and impact the world around us.

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I, THE GREEN MARBLE; THE (HI) STORY OF MY WITNESS AND MEMORY
Cihad Caner


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Oct 19--:--:--

I, THE GREEN MARBLE; THE (HI) STORY OF MY WITNESS AND MEMORY
Cihad Caner

Amplifying the narratives of marginalized figures from complex, transnational histories, Cihad Caner's "I, The Green Marble; The (Hi) story Of My Witness and Memory" is a research-driven challenge to dominant worldviews, revealing the hypocrisy and shifting roles in global politics. A CGI-animated version of the iconic green serpentinite slab behind the podium at the UN General Assembly calmly and didactically admonishes his audience in a deep Italian-accented voice. Embodying over seventy years of silent observation, and having watched countless world leaders and revolutionaries, this sad stone character sees all these events blur into a collective memory that refuses to be forgotten.

An imaginative critique of the ongoing drama through the notion of a deep, pervasive psychological and emotional impact of colonialism and systemic oppression on colonized or oppressed peoples. Structural violence becomes palpable in moments of silence through slab’s micro-expressions of a deep, unresolved tension over the unending cycle of forgetting and tyranny.

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LUMAPIT SA AKIN, PARAISO (COME TO ME PARADISE)
Stephanie Comilang


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Oct 19--:--:--

LUMAPIT SA AKIN, PARAISO (COME TO ME PARADISE)
Stephanie Comilang

Paraiso, an all-seeing drone spirit, is summoned every Sunday into the heart of Hong Kong where Filipina migrant workers gather to socialize. In the artist’s words: “The ghost or spirit in my film is called Paradise. She acts as an intermediary between the women and their place of origin. Often, when ghosts are portrayed in films, they try to find their way to the other side, and humans act as mediators to facilitate this passing. But in my film, it is the opposite. Paradise is the mediator who sends the women’s messages back home to their loved ones.” As the women claim the public space, Comilang’s sci-fi documentary considers social connections in today’s age of economic migration and modern technology.

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38
Micaela Durand & Daniel Chew


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Oct 19--:--:--

38
Micaela Durand & Daniel Chew

Vivid interruptions of sound and images fragment the psychic landscape of a 38-year-old woman who becomes obsessed with the social media presence of the young woman who broke up her relationship. The latest entry in a series of short films, “38” explores the entanglement of desire, sexuality, race, and class as filtered through the distracted, overloaded, and constantly-documented reality of hypermediation.

Durand and Chew continue to examine the embodied experience of our hybrid online-IRL existence by mining contemporary life’s nuanced exchanges between longing and looking, voyeurism and the desire to be seen. Themes of the invisible infrastructures that not only replicate, but also reinforce and intensify existing cultural bias are foregrounded as an invisible online world that only exists through its impact and implication.

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TR333
April Lin 林森


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Oct 19--:--:--

TR333
April Lin 林森

In collaboration with ecologist Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, artist-filmmaker April Lin 林森 presents “TR333,” a speculative documentary which imagines a new species of tree based on scientific literature on plants and climate hardiness. Their hybrid forms and body parts a patchwork amalgamation of different tree types, this tree is a climate adaptative response, a lifeform born out of resilience and hope. 

As the spirit inhabiting the tree emerges to converse with the viewer, they share with us their experiences of ecocidal generational trauma, urging us to reflect around the ways all the beings on the planet are deeply interlinked, and to honour our collective responsibility towards one another. Using a blend of 3D animation, found footage, and a musical score based on data sonification, “TR333” uses the speculative to recast the ecological crisis, asking “Why is this important?” from a multispecies and affective gaze.

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