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
In the European art tradition, the term «still life» refers to images of inanimate or motionless objects. In the vanitas subgenre, the depiction of inanimate items – often accumulations of earthly treasures and epicurean food arrangements – is supplemented by symbols of transience. This reference to the fleeting nature of earthly existence simultaneously contains an invitation to enjoy life: «Remember your mortality and seize the day!» Desirable commercial goods were also frequently integrated into still lifes, for example porcelain from China, which pointed to a high status and wealth. In addition, the genre generally served to demonstrate craftsmanship: the more illusionistic and realistic the painting was (in the sense of a trompe-l'œil), the higher the level of artistry.
The Oskar Reinhart Collection contains various still lifes that present everyday objects from bygone times in simple arrangements. Francisco de Goya’s
«Still Life with Three Salmon Steaks» is especially minimalistic: just three slices of salmon – isolated, raw, and bloody, without any further context. And yet, the painting has a strong effect, as it points to the act of killing the animal without depicting it directly. Perhaps it is precisely because of this indirect reference to the killing that the still life leaves a lasting impression – the horror unfolds in the viewers’ minds. Most likely, this was the effect intended by Goya – as a regime critic denounced by the authorities and constantly under surveillance, the painter sought ways to express his views indirectly.
The medium of film sometimes draws on traditional still life motifs, typically focusing on expressions of temporality. The symbolism of the vanitas genre is given new meaning, distorted, even negated. The objects in the selected short films function as metaphors, transferred from their original context of meaning to another context. Going beyond the boundaries of the representational, the resulting narratives gain clarity and richness of content.
«Nocturno para uma floresta» describes how monks in 15th-century Portugal built a wall around a forest to prevent women from entering – but there are no borders in the invisible world. «Souvenir» is about the totemic power of souvenirs that sailors brought back from long journeys to the farthest corners of the earth. In «Living Still Live», a woman brings dead animals back to life through photographs – until one day, a widower knocks on her door. «The Living Need Light, the Dead Need Music» is a visual and musical journey through the eccentric funeral traditions of southern Vietnam.
A referential act of pointing elsewhere characterizes these films. They explore the boundaries of life and death, touch on mortality and transience, then suddenly pause again. They experiment with motifs like stillness and motion, the visible and invisible, telling stories that point far beyond themselves.
Curated by John Canciani and Ivana Frigo
