For this year’s Main Focus: Beyond the Frame, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur has teamed up with the Oskar Reinhart Collection «Am Römerholz» to enable an unforgettable encounter between two prominent institutions from Winterthur’s cultural landscape.
The Main Focus explores the interplay between the disciplines of fine art and film. Works from the Oskar Reinhart Collection served as inspiration. The former mansion of art collector Oskar Reinhart (1885–1965) houses over 200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures of European art. The core of the collection consists of French Impressionist paintings and their immediate predecessors, supplemented by important examples of older art.
The period covered by the Oskar Reinhart Collection ends around the time when film emerges and spreads worldwide. Our aim is to break down the boundaries of the two disciplines and bring short film programmes into dialogue with artworks from the collection. The first phase of the project consisted of a lively exchange with the museum’s deputy director, Katja Baumhoff. We looked at some exemplary works to establish thematic clusters for our joint format. Examining the content and form of these exhibits, we mapped out artistic concepts from the visual arts and transferred them to the medium of film. Our main interest was not in tracking down transmedia counterparts or reassessing historic materials. Rather, we were surprised by the fact that these images dating back to the 15th century are full of contemporary themes, enriching our view of the present. Some of the connections we have identified are more associative, others more direct. We invite you to join and continue this dialogue with us. We also encourage you to view the artworks in person at the Oskar Reinhart Collection «Am Römerholz». Our hope is to inspire an exchange of ideas – not just at the festival but also in front of the originals.
Ten film programmes have emerged from this interdisciplinary collaboration; we have selected six of them to be screened at this year's Kurzfilmtage. These programmes can be considered cinematic interpretations, discussions, or complements to the artworks. They contain the blood, sweat, and tears of filmmakers, artists, curators, and film and art scholars.
In Landscapes of the Mind, the boundary between the mental world and the outside world is blurred – interiority becomes visible, finding expression in diverse cinematic forms. I Want to Break Free addresses power structures and imbalances: the films question, rebel, and give artistic expression to resistance. The shorts in Puzzle Me don’t tell conventional linear stories; instead, they meander, twist, and turn, containing little secrets to be deciphered. In Look at Me, cinematic portraits explore the self and how it is staged in front of the camera, playing the eternal game of representation and self-presentation. Ghosts of Objects experiments with cinematic motifs like life and death, movement and stillness, telling stories that point beyond themselves. And our selection in He’s Got the Look revolves around the objectification of men, offering glimpses – some serious, some tongue-in-cheek – behind the façade of toned bodies and six-packs.
Our Main Focus: Beyond the Frame is a visual journey across media, prompting reflection on the social value of art and promoting an understanding of cultural diversity and artistic expression. It also aims to spark a dialogue that reaches far beyond the timeframe of the works, addressing both historical and contemporary discourses.
Curated by John Canciani and Ivana Frigo
Gustave Courbet’s painting
«The Hammock» shows a woman in a relaxed pose, dozing in a hammock, surrounded by a lush forest. While the background is kept in dark colours, the slumbering figure in the foreground captivates the viewer’s gaze as a bright counterpoint: Her body is prominently displayed, with the tight, unbuttoned bodice revealing the unsuspecting sleeper’s breasts, while the pulled-up skirt exposes her bare calves.
There is no sign of a male presence, which suggests that the woman herself has made the wreath on her head and opened her bodice – and that she is enjoying the partial nakedness of her own body in the absence of an admirer. Or are we perhaps assuming a voyeuristic role here, as viewers outside the frame?
With view to cinema, the seductively portrayed woman calls to mind the wide discourse on the cult and objectification of the female body. By contrast, our programme centres the man and his body as an object of observation, judgment, and desire. The pressure to optimize one’s body is especially high among young men. The virtual world of social media promotes beauty standards that very few can ever achieve. Male followers are encouraged to pursue a lifestyle dominated by restrictive diets and rigorous workouts. While this pressure is no longer exclusive to women, the countermovement of body positivity or body neutrality doesn’t seem to have reached men yet. Does it need to?
«Arnold Schwarzenegger – The Art of Bodybuilding» uses unprocessed 16 mm footage from the 1970s to convey the former bodybuilder, actor, and governor’s views on classical sculpture, the body, mind, and beauty standards. In «Audition», male actors realize during screen tests that the female director is looking for something they are unwilling to reveal. In «Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves», the world of a wolf who has a decent job, a pregnant wife, and two adorable children is turned upside down when his good looks lead to his undoing. In the age of body positivity, «Les Dieux du supermaché» serves as a tribute to mainstream images of the male body as an unattainable fantasy. And «Alpha Kings» explores the dichotomy between an exaggerated online persona and the private person behind it, addressing desire, masculinity, sexuality, power, and performance over the course of one night.
The idealized and erotic-aesthetic presentation of the male body in the media has increased in recent decades. What has changed is not just the representation of men, but also how such images are seen. Our film selection revolves around this objectification of men, offering glimpses – some serious, some tongue-in-cheek – behind the façade of toned bodies and sixpacks.
Curated by John Canciani and Ivana Frigo
