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Parallel Botany

Magdalena Bermudez
USA
11'

Still lives of real fruit meet botanical illustrations of plant galls to expose the paradox of dissection: each time we cut something in two, we merely create a new exterior.

Magdalena Bermudez brings us unbelievably close to a myriad of translucent, organic textures, bathed in warm light. Under the director’s magnifying glass, the fruit, split open, arranged like still lifes, shimmer and allow themselves to be seen. Their organic tissue seems to be moving, pulsating, breathing life. Parallel Botany is an exercise in delight, an ode to these exotic, luxuriant objects; but also a statement about the nature of our immense curiosity, which, combined with our inability to understand, drives us to constantly search for the center, which remains a possible hypothesis, but one that we cannot verify. (Emil Vasilache)

Screening date and location

September 28th, 4:00 PM, Cinemateca Eforie

Tickets

Awards & Festivals

Magdalena Bermudez

Magdalena Bermudez (she/they) is a filmmaker and educator whose practice examines the entangled relationships between people, animals, and technologies through essayistic film and video works. Her work has screened internationally at film festivals including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Antimatter [Media Art], Athens International Film + Video Festival, BIDEODROMO International Experimental Film and Video Festival, Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, Black Maria Film Festival, and the Festival of (In)appropriation. She is an Assistant Professor of Cinema at Binghamton University.



  • Technical sheet
  • Cinematographer, Writer, Director, Editor: Magdalena Bermudez

Screens

Colonial Follies

All films →

Parallel Botany

Magdalena Bermudez | Duration 11'

Still lives of real fruit meet botanical illustrations of plant galls to expose the paradox of dissection: each time we cut something in two, we merely create a new exterior.

When We Encounter the World

r. Leonardo Pirondi & Zazie Ray-Trapido | Duration 11'

In 1934, an experiment by an amateur-scientist couple began. Named after a genus of moths, the Automeris Project placed a group of young children in an enclosed forest, leaving them to fend for themselves. On return visits, the couple presented self-made films, accompanied by live music, depicting the outside world.

The Mars Project

Louis Rémy | Duration 13'

Through a collection of archived videos found in the depths of YouTube, ordinary people apply to join a space mission team heading to Mars in the year 2022. This announcement from Mars Venture, nearly a decade ago, reveals our society’s interest in the conquest of the red planet and prompts us to question the colonial rhetoric inherent in New Space projects.

Wild Fruits

Bernardo Zanotta | Duration 35' 16"

The 16th century. After a period overseas in the Antarctic France, Jean Aurand finds refuge as a servant in the house of French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, where a series of fantastical events change the lives of these two men forever.

The Third World After the Sun

Analú Laferal & Tiagx Vélez | Duration 19' 50"

A transvestite ritual performed by the artists Analú Laferal and Tiagx Vélez opens a portal and generates an encounter with a European missionary from the fifteenth century who has delved deep into the jungle in order to fight the belief of animals as divine. A transmaterial dream, shrouded by the penumbra cast by cosmic horrors.
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