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Wild Fruits

Bernardo Zanotta
The Netherlands, France
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.

Based on Montaigne’s essay Of Cannibals, Bernardo Zanotta’s film is a cheeky work of reinterpretative and speculative historical fiction, embellishing and reclaiming narratives set around the 1500s and the French colonial expeditions to Brazil. Disillusioned by the colonial project after witnessing crimes against the natives, a fictional Jean Aurand joins the court of Montaigne and develops an intimate relationship with him. Wild Fruits dislocates the decorative megalomania of colonialism and the obsession with the “exotic” and subverts them into a theatrical, artificial expression of grandeur and lushness, reapropriating and liberating them through queer subjectivityAlso subverting the genre of costume drama itself — in cinema, a most problematic ideological catastrophe that often upholds colonial narratives — Zanotta uses the unexpected use of time-travelling as, he cites, a tool of decolonial intervention.

Screening date and location

September 28th, 4:00 PM, Cinemateca Eforie

Tickets

Awards & Festivals

Bernardo Zanotta

Bernardo Zanotta (b. Brazil) is a filmmaker and visual artist based between Amsterdam and Paris. His films blend historical and fictional narratives that subvert genre and convention. His work has been exhibited internationally at art venues and festivals, including FID Marseille, Rotterdam, Queer Lisboa and Locarno, where he was awarded the Pardino d’Argento for his film Heart of Hunger (2018). Alongside short and mid-length projects, he is currently developing his first feature film.

  • Technical sheet
  • Production and distribution
  • With: Andy Smart, Thiago Antunes, Hinke Ann Eleveld, Diogo Da Silva Pinto, Igor Pedroso, José Marcal de Jesus, Mavi Veloso, Camila Rosa
  • Director and screenplay: Bernardo Zanotta
  • Editor: Paul Nouet
  • Cinematographer: Ville Piippo
  • Focus puller: Lichun Tseng
  • Sound recording and sound design: Sergio González Cuervo
  • Music score: Gunnar Gunnsteinsson
  • Art director and costume design: Esther van de Pas
  • AD: Leandro Lefa
  • Produced by: near/by film (Manon Bovenkerk), Venin Films (Flavien Giorda & Yann Gonzalez)

Screens

Colonial Follies

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Parallel Botany

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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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