"Dearest Fiona" by Fiona Tan, Netherlands, 2023, 100 minutes (English version).
As part of the event "FILM - HISTORY / ANALYSIS / THEORY: Ping Pong - Correspondences, video letters and other essay films (with exercises) - Jan Peters / Anna Berger / Michel Klöfkorn". The film "Dearest Fiona" will be followed by a film talk with the filmmaker Fiona Tan via Zoom.
"In the collection of the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, Fiona Tan researched silent, documentary archive material from before the 1920s. Her findings show everyday life and, above all, hard work that is only slowly being made easier by machines. Dutch women in traditional dress, winter scenes, harvest work, fishing, land reclamation, trade and port work. Tan, who has Indonesian ancestors, came to Amsterdam from Australia to study in 1988. Her father's letters to her date from this time, in which he vividly reflects on private events, the family dog, his grandson, world politics and the competition between economic systems. The combination of these letters off-screen with archive material from a completely different time is initially irritating. The images here do not serve to illustrate or authenticate what is being said. Instead, a kind of audiovisual stream of consciousness is created - also through the artistic soundtrack - that is open to associations, coincidences and the discovery of subtle connections: between image and sound, then and now, the Netherlands and Indonesia, trade and colonialism, father and daughter. (From the catalog of this year's Berlinale 2023, where the film premiered as part of the "Forum des jungen Films")
Fiona Tan
Born in 1966 in Pekanbaru, Indonesia. She studied art and works as an artist and filmmaker in the Netherlands. Her work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions worldwide and many of her works have found their way into public art collections. After History's Future (2015), which was shown at the Rotterdam Film Festival, and Ascent (2016), which premiered in Locarno, Dearest Fiona is her third feature-length film. Filmography: 1997 May You Live in Interesting Times; 60 min. 2000 Kingdom of Shadows; 50 min. 2015 History's Future; 95 min. 2016 Ascent; 80 min. 2023 Dearest Fiona; 100 min
Trailer: www.youtube.com
Date & location
11.12.23, from 13h - 17h
Room 0232 (in the atrium)
hybrid if required