Thursday, January 25, 2007

Visual Haiku: TehranAvenue's one shot film festival




From TehranAvenue film Festival:

In June 2005, Hamed Safaee, a graphic designer and one of the writers of TehranAvenue proposed the idea of "visual haikus," poems that broke off of their written mold and transcribed themselves on celluloid or digital media. This lyrical approach became fodder for a festival: The One-Shot Film Competition . In the following months this idea was further developed -- in the interim of a single "turning on and off of the camera," or any other recording medium, simple images could be captured, without a need for technical acrobatics and or technological props, to get to the essence of the image. The One-Shot Film Festival called for a form of haiku, a sequence of images that is neither a short film nor a photograph, neither a funny report of an incident nor a makeshift collage relying on digital cosmetics -- an uncut and fluid visual poem.

Enjoy! http://taff.tehran360.com/

8 comments:

Dr Victorino de la Vega said...

Hola Naj,

That Hamed Safaee dude sounds like a witty cum arty avant-gardiste thinker.

“We must break the monopoly of fashioned images, otherwise we wouldn't know what Saddam said and what his executioners said before the noose tightened. TAFF is a practical suggestion.”

Well said

Very well said!

Anonymous said...

found some links for Mulla Nasreddin stories...

* check out the "collections" and "references" sections in the wiki page

online collections:
* tenner's collection

* wiki_books

I checked out the TAFF. Found some interesting music and videos. I like some of the submissions. Though I could not understand any words, it has its own charm. In fact, I prefer that I don't understand words because the other elements of the film get a heightened attention... the ironic advantage of a handicap :)

What is the significance of Gold Fish(apart from NoRooz)?

Naj said...

Thanks for Mulla, yes I did delight in the wiki entry :)

Gold fish, other that sumbolism for life? Dunno. Gold fish are just like pets. People often have a little water pool and they keep fish in it.

Why?

Anonymous said...

I just remembered a movie (made in Iraq ??)... It was about a poor family with a brother and a sister... the sister needs a shoe (she gives it to him once when he needs to play or practice running and he gets it wet or torn... she is ashamed to go to school... they argue and somehow the shoe is lost... oh I forget!)... the boy comes to know that the second prize in a running race is a shoe... unfortunately he comes first and gets a cup and feels disappointed... but the father meanwhile manages to buy her a shoe (or i think he buys one for the boy this time)... (but the movie ends before the boy finds it out... so i guess the father must have bought it for the boy)... It simply ends in the boy dipping his tired and over heated :) feet into the house's little water pool where the gold fish nibble at his feet... ( I think I got reminded of this when I saw one of the videos in TAFF website.. yeah the video was titled "this weight")....

So I was just wondering what the ending meant... It was a very simple movie.. but the story was powerful...

Anonymous said...

thanks!!
Glad to know that that IS poetry :)

Anonymous said...

and thanks to wiki, some of the blanks got filled...

Naj said...

Howdy Iris;

If you like Poetic cinema; you might be interested to know that Iranian cinema is known as "the cinema of the 90s", because of that very quality.

You may want to check out Kiarostami, and Makhmalbaf, who should most easily be found outside of Iran.

Anonymous said...

howdy yourself :)
I will keep those names in mind and explore their work when the opportunity presents itself.(they don't sound unfamiliar at all!)

merci.