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
The
portraits of Johannes and Anna Cuspinian are masterpieces of the German Renaissance and can be admired in the Renaissance room of the villa «Am Römerholz». The diptych is considered among the most innovative works by Lukas Cranach the Elder. The sitters are not shown in front of a landscape but embedded in it, sitting on a grassy bank, surrounded by nature and abundant symbolism. Many miniature stories are told in the background – little secrets that require specific knowledge to be deciphered. For example, the fire in the woman’s portrait not only complements the elements of earth, water, and air, which are also present in the landscape, it also points to other meanings, such as the fire of love, the purifying fire, and the «deus igneus» (fiery god).
The two panels, which were originally connected by a folding hinge, most likely served to entertain the upper classes with their mysteriousness: the diptych would provide a topic of conversation as it was ceremoniously presented, openly admired, and debated, essentially prompting acts of participatory art reception – albeit mainly in exclusive intellectual circles.
Like the diptych, the films in this programme resemble hidden object pictures, featuring various subplots full of details to be discovered. Their stories are not told in a classical manner, nor are the characters your typical narrative agents. Transcending conventional cinematic forms, the shorts open up a wide terrain for audiovisual experiences that playfully stimulate our senses and imagination.
«One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean» reflects on not being able to see the world with depth perception. In «Sun Dog», the camera accompanies a young locksmith in Murmansk, as he wanders from customer to customer through the concrete landscape, in dream-like episodes and driven by a fantasy. In «Glass Life», we encounter a dizzying configuration of images and videos flooding us with sensory impressions of our consumerist visual world. «6000 mensonges» is the story of a missing detail, told in thousands of untrue images – and a single true one. «DUCK» is a deepfake short film that plays with elements from Hollywood movies, video games, film noir, and science fiction, constantly raising new questions about truth and power. In «Hymn of the Plague», an eerie and frightening phenomenon causes utter chaos in a studio where musicians are in the process of recording a composition.
These films tell nonlinear stories that meander, twist, and turn, offering a plethora of details to be discovered. Through temporal shifts in action, multiple narratives within a single image, and aesthetic abundance, they demonstrate how varied viewing experiences can be.
Curated by John Canciani and Ivana Frigo
