Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island

Q&A

As part of the Q&A series of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021, the director Serdar Kökçeoğlu and producer Dilek Aydın met with music producer Ksenija Stevanovic to talk about their film Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island (Türkiye and USA 2020).

A talk about Serdar and Dilek’s approach to portrait two free spirits: Legendary electronic music composer İlhan Mimaroğlu and his vibrant wife Güngör who both emigrated to the U.S. from Türkiye in the early 1960s. Using the couple’s personal archives, the documentary captures İlhan’s career as an edgy artist, and the power of his life-long companionship with Güngör which started off amidst a family crisis. In a multi-layered structure, the film talks about immigration, music, love, and disappointment.

Cut: MR. LU*
Production: Christopher Blatter

Trailer

This video is part of the Q&A program of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021. The talk was recorded on January 29, 2021, via Zoom.

Biography

Ksenija Stevanovic is a music journalist and musicologist from Belgrade, Serbia. She has been specializing in New Music for 15 years and is a permanent member of the public cultural channel RTS 3 as well as president of CHINCH – Contemporary Music Initiative Belgrade. Follow her on LinkedIn.

Links

Aysel Özdilek: «Waiting Room of Possibilities» (Norient)

Published on April 22, 2021

Last updated on June 27, 2023

Topics

Belonging

Utopia

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Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

Norient Festival

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In Your Eyes, I See My Country

Q&A

by Clive Bell

As part of the Q&A series of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021, the director Kamal Hachkar met with musician and Shakuhachi player Clive Bell to talk about their film In Your Eyes, I See My Country (Morocco & France 2019).

The documentary portrays the journey of two judeo-moroccan musicians, Neta Elkayam and Amit Haï Cohen, to Morocco. From one musical encounter to another, this journey will reshape their perception of who they are and who they want to become and help them create new connections with their ancestors’ homeland.

Cut: MR LU*
Production: Christopher Blatter

Trailer

This video is part of the Q&A program of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021. The talk was recorded on January 29, 2021, via Zoom.

Biography

Clive Bell is a musician and composer specialising in East Asian musics. He studied the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) in Tokyo, and the khène (mouth organ) in Laos and Thailand. His solo album, Asakusa Follies, is on Cusp Editions. Recent collaborators include Jah Wobble, Sylvia Hallett, Sidsel Endresen, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, Kazuko Hohki, Complicite and Karl Jenkins. Based in Tottenham, London, he writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire. Follow him on his Website.

Links

Keith Kahn-Harris: «Tongues and Borders Are Immutable» (Norient)

Published on April 28, 2021

Last updated on May 19, 2021

Topic

Belonging

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Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

Norient Festival

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2021: Duality

Video

by Vanja Kovačević

This episode of our 2021 video series is a musical conversation between two piano players. The video looks for situations of duality in the spaces around us. In finding each other, the protagonists find new hope for the second year of the pandemic.

«On the ruins of the old world, new art will be born.»
Gospel according to LP Duo

The idea of this video was to film duality in the spaces around us. We used images of the city, people, objects, color, contrasts, similarities, and differences to visualize the composition «Collapse – Ostinato for Leonid Šejka». The video follows a poem by LP Duo and ends with them playing together on an old piano in a place filled with objects. Finally, they find each other.

By using QR codes, we also want to enable viewers to discover more about the work and music of LP Duo (see videos embedded below as well). This way, we aim to create an interactive video and avoid a simple, classical music portrait. The roles of «speech», «dialogue», or «dramaturgy» do not align with the obvious: In these shots and in the confrontation with loneliness, we experience duality as the solution.

The old, materialistic world is dying at the moment. This shift will change us all in 2021. Just as Leonid Šejka, the painter for whom this composition was made, was able to see beauty in garbage, this video – and the idea of finding the other and finding love – brings new hope in the second year of the pandemic.

Credits

Director & editor: Vanja Kovačević
Cinematographer: Jelena Stanković
Camera assistants: Pablo Ferro & Cem Oztufekci
Color grading: Four Grade
Props studio: Braća Limijer

Thanks to: Nikola Berček, Igor Spasić, Aleksandar Ilić, Nikola Majdak, the Mitrović family and dogs Donna & Gringo

Music

«Collapse – Ostinato for Leonid Šejka» by LP Duo
(Sonja Lončar / Andrija Pavlović)
Published by Adria High Energy Edition,
administered by Universal Music Publishing
℗ 2019 LP Duo, under exclusive license to Universal Music GmbH
Courtesy of Universal Music Serbia

Produced by Norient Film Festival 2021

Music by LP Duo

For the 2021 edition of the Norient Film Festival NFF, Norient commissioned ten artists around the world to work on short artistic media pieces. They were asked to reflect on their personal thoughts of «2021». How do they see and describe the world they live in? How do they see the present and the future? What sounds, clips, media pieces, and thoughts give hope for «2021» and for the future? What makes them angry, hopeful, depressed, suicidal, or happy?

Biography

Vanja Kovačević works as a director, editor, and producer in Belgrade, Serbia. She received her MA in film and TV editing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Currently, she’s a doctoral candidate of artistic doctoral studies in dramatic and audiovisual arts at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.

Published on April 12, 2021

Last updated on April 30, 2024

Topic

Loneliness

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Special

Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

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films

Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island

Biography

Links

Topics

Specials

In Your Eyes, I See My Country

Biography

Links

Topic

Specials

2021: Duality

Biography

Topic

Special

films

images

sounds

words