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The Tempest

Alex Mirutziu
Romania, Poland, France, Germany
14’ 36"

A film straddling the contemporary teaser culture and the legacy of Germaine Dulac’s visual style, emphasizing absolute freedom in imagery and analogies. Its brisk pace contrasts with sloppy campness, overacting, and sharp reflections on mortality and solitude. The text and voices in the film reflect a struggle for control over bodies and desires, exploring themes of permeability, the tender and pliable nature of the male physique and the satisfaction derived from the erosion of specific bodily boundaries.

“Tell me you’re not dangerous simply by being you and not me.” Artist Alex Mirutziu engages in a poetic dialogue with the dominant narrator — the master — of the popular online poppers trainer videos: that is, hypno-like found footage pornographic films made out of hundreds of short clips most often from hardcore porn combined with orders of submission (“listen to your master”, “you’re just a hole”) and the instructions for inhaling poppers (soft vasodilators that relax the muscles). Much like a contemporary Jean Genet, Mirutziu talks to “the master” about love, sexual submission as beatification, the poetics of fluids and art as an excretion of being, occupying the screen with his first person indulged in a thrilling visual violence of the image. (Călin Boto)

Screening date and location

September 27th, 6:30 PM, Cinemateca Eforie

Tickets

Alex Mirutziu

 Alex Mirutziu creates technologies of ephemeral reciprocity. In his films, sculptures, and performances, he employs technologies of reuse, deterritorialization, and disruption of the bodily apparatus to identify the crisis of the lived body, prompting the human imaginary to modify reality. He often addresses the theme of the difficulty of dying, exploring the concept of ‘un-selfing’, understood as the responsibility of the individual. As part of his theoretical practice, the artist has lectured at The Royal College of Arts London, Von Kraal Theatre Estonia, Konstfack Stockholm, Bezalel University of Art and Design Tel Aviv, and has collaborated with artists/writers/musicians/designers/philosophers. His work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Kunsthalle Bega, The Royal Academy of Arts, London and many others.

  • Technical sheet
  • Cast & Crew: Alex Mirutziu

Screens

National Competition 1

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The Tempest

Alex Mirutziu | Duration 14’ 36"

A film straddling the contemporary teaser culture and the legacy of Germaine Dulac’s visual style, emphasizing absolute freedom in imagery and analogies. Its brisk pace contrasts with sloppy campness, overacting, and sharp reflections on mortality and solitude. The text and voices in the film reflect a struggle for control over bodies and desires, exploring themes of permeability, the tender and pliable nature of the male physique and the satisfaction derived from the erosion of specific bodily boundaries.

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