Retakes programs
Monsieur Sélavy, by Peter Volkart (Switzerland – 2008)
To cap off the Swiss retrospective, two “Courts de Rattrapage” programmes will give us the opportunity to fully experience the powerful universes of Rolando Colla and Peter Volkart.
Rolando Colla, son of Italian immigrants, was born in Schaffhousen in 1957. His entrance in the world of cinema began in Zurich in the 1970’s, where he attended a series of conferences given by Viktor Sidler, who inspired an entire generation of filmmakers. After honing his scriptwriting and acting skills in his brother Fernando Colla’s films, he made his directorial debut with Hunting Season (Jagdzeit) in 1993 (Leopards of Tomorrow Award at Locarno), the intense and intelligently structured story of a complex and brutal social reality that set the tone for his films to come. He moved on to feature length films with Le monde à l’envers (1998), Oltre il confine (2002), Marameo (2007), The Other Half (2008), Summer Games (2011), A Better Life is Elsewhere (2013), Les sirènes de Levanzo (2016), Io Sono Gaetano (2016), but continued making short films through his undertaking of the great Einspruch series in 1999 that consists of six short films to date, of which two have received awards at Clermont-Ferrand: Einspruch III (CANAL+ International Award, 2002) and Einspruch VI (Special Jury Award, 2011).
Inspired by the defining experience of the death of an asylum seeker, this series sends a just, powerful and activist message that recounts the revolting and tragic stories of these refugees without ever falling into pathos. Rolando Colla not only wants to denounce what is happening to these rejected asylum seekers, but also hopes to disturb us and make us uncomfortable. He focuses on what happens to us, us who are left. And even if the message stays the same, each film in this series is unique as Colla reinvents his cinematographic language from film to film in order to find the best approach to telling each one of his stories.
Whereas Rolando Colla confronts us with reality, Peter Volkart gives us the opportunity to escape, to dream and to take a journey through an unusual and poetic parallel universe that awakens the explorer in all of us as we discover a world without limits or borders. Together, we enter into an intermediary zone where the space-time continuum has been interrupted and all of our established reference points seem to intersect and mix. Through six short films, of which three have been selected for competition in Clermont, forgotten spaces reappear and the viewer flies away towards previously undiscovered lands well beyond existence.
Peter Volkart’s career began in the 1970’s after decor studies at the School of Experimental Design in Zurich, and then at the School of Visual Arts in New York where he created his first short film Suburban Wildlife in 1982. He was soon recognized in many festivals worldwide thanks to his short films influenced by surrealism, collage, pop art and his love of everyday objects that he gives life to beyond their normal form, a practice that he calls “Instant Archaeology”.
*Screenings followed by a meeting with Rolando Colla on Wednesday, 7 February at 8:15 PM, and with Peter Volkart on Thursday, 8 February at 8:15 PM in the Frères Lumière Theater, subject to the number of available seats.
