Signs of Life: Looking, Slowness, Wonder

A film program at Zawya in October and November 2021

In the early days of COVID-19, Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul shared a letter titled “Signs of Life” on Dutch film magazine de Filmkrant, which entailed his poetic and humorous reflections on cinema and moviegoing in a time of confinement and isolation:

“I imagined a scenario. Perhaps this current situation will breed a group of people who have developed an ability to stay in the present moment longer than others. They can stare at certain things for a long time.[...] They have mastered the art of looking; at the neighbors, at the rooftops, at the computer screens. [...] When the future is uncertain, the now becomes valuable.”

Taking its title from this letter, this film program reflects on the art of looking through a selection of 5 films: CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FIRE WILL COME by Oliver Laxe, KRABI 2562 by Ben Rivers and Anocha Suwichakornpong, STILL LIFE by Jia Zhangke and THE WONDERS by Alice Rohrwacher. In these films, it is as if the camera were an extension of the filmmakers’ eyes, an instrument for contemplative inquiry which invites us to slow down our gaze amidst the quietly unnerving social/ political/environmental frame in which the films’ stories take place. Characterised as fiction films, they interweave narrative as well as documentary traditions, taking a deeply observational engagement with the stories’ characters and landscapes as a starting point. It is perhaps within the slowness and the everyday offered to us in these still-moving images, that a vital space for enchantment and wonder is opened up.

Read the letter here: https://filmkrant.nl/.../signs-life-a-letter-from.../

This program is supported by AFAC and NAAS