News
2023
September
Upcoming Screenings and events
Video address about Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story
A pre-recorded video address by me, centred around a clip from Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story, will be played during the final session of ‘The Anatomy of Ozu’, part of the Ozu season to celebrate Yasujiro Ozu’s 120th birthday and the re-release of Tokyo Story, at the BFI, South bank, London. This final session will centre on the influence of Ozu’s work on contemporary filmmakers and artists.
Final session of ‘The Anatomy of Ozu’
Season: ‘A Family Affair: The Films of Yasujirō Ozu’
BFI Southbank, London, UK
Saturday 16th September, 12:00-17:00
Final session approximately: 16:15-16:50
CARGO
“The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) presents “Cargo in Question: Two Films about Labor, Shipping, and Globalization in the 21st Century… As part of this special event, Mae Miller-Likhethe, PhD and Charmaine Chua, PhD, both assistant professors of Global Studies at UCSB, will screen two films—Cargo (2001, 29 minutes) and All that Perishes at the Edge of Land (2019, 31 minutes)—followed by a Q&A session and discussion (a full 90 minutes). The films, which blur the lines between fiction and reality, offer important insights into the daily lives, working conditions, and dreams of the seamen and ship-breakers across global supply chains. The cost is free for all SBMM members; free for students with student ID; and the price of admission for the general public. Space is limited, registration is required.”
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, U.S
Saturday, September 16th, 2023, 1 p.m. followed by a Q&A
Recently
Screenings
The Lost Days
Starting in May 2023, the Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Vienna will be honouring the filmmaker Michael Pilz with a retrospective of approximately 140 of his films shown over the course of several years. Michael Pilz has selected The Lost Days for his 80th birthday tribute carte-blanche at the museum. Michael Pilz’s films include two of my favourite documentaries, That’s All There Is and Pieces of Dreams lengthly portraits of the legendary film and theatre director Jack Garfein, rehearsing Samuel Beckett’s late plays at George Tabori’s theatre Der Kreis in Vienna, and getting to grips with the text of Beckett’s Ohio Impromptu Austrian Film Museum, in a Viennese hotel room, in 1988.
CARTE BLANCHE #2: The Lost Days and Some Friends (Apart)
The Lost Days
Ein Film von Laura Waddington M: Simon Fisher Turner STIMMEN: Marusha Gagro,
Chantal Akerman. FR/UK/US, 2000, DCP, Farbe, 47 min. Englisch
Some Friends (Apart)
Ein Film von Stephen Dwoskin MIT: Vera Neubauer, Harry Smith
UK, 2002, DCP, Farbe, 25 min. Englisch
CARTE BLANCHE #2: “Lauras und Stephens Filme haben dieses gewisse Herzerwärmende, in ihrer Gegenwart fühlt man sich wohl, angekommen, wie daheim. Es fühlt sich wie jenes Daheim an, das überall sein kann. Vor allem in einem selbst. Schon das bloße Wissen, es gibt sie, diese wundersamen Filme, wirkt. Man liebt sie, man braucht sie. Wie einen Bissen Brot. So unterschiedlich sie auch sind, formal, inhaltlich und atmosphärisch – Stephens unverstellter Blick auf das zugewandte Lächeln seiner Freund*innen, auch auf den Schmerz, und Lauras Tagebuch, für das sie Freund*innen rund um den Erdball filmen ließ, die Aufnahmen, optisch verfremdet und durch poesievolle Sprache verbindend und gefühlte Nähe schaffend – so kraftvoll und tröstlich zugleich weisen diese beiden Filme weit über sich selbst hinaus. Somehow not enough, somehow never enough, such beautiful things,such beautiful things.” (M. P.)
CARTE BLANCHE #2: “Laura’s and Stephen’s films have this certain heartwarming quality, in their presence you feel comfortable, arrived, like you’re at home. It feels like that home that can be anywhere. Especially in oneself. The mere knowledge that they exist, these wondrous films, has an effect. You love them, you need them. Like a bite of bread. As different as they are, formally, content-wise, atmospherically – Stephen’s undisguised view of his friends’ smiles, even of pain, and Laura’s diary, for which she had friends filmed around the globe, the shots, visually alienated and connecting through poetic language and creating emotional closeness – so powerful and comforting at the same time do these two films point far beyond themselves. Somehow not enough, somehow never enough, such beautiful things, such beautiful things.” (M. P.)
Michael Pilz, Notes for the retrospective SO MUCH BEAUTY, AUSTRIAN FILM MUSEUM VIENNA
CARTE BLANCHE #2 Michael Pilz
Austrian Film Museum, Vienna
Wednesday, 28 June 2023, 18.00
Border
BORDER / BIENVENUE – mobilisation pour et avec les réfugié.e.s*
La troisième Porte à Gauche in Bordeaux will be screeening Border in conjunction with The Collectif Bienvenue to raise money for SOS MEDITERRANEE, the European maritime-humanitarian organization that rescues migrants from boats in the international waters North of Libya. The screening is free. You can also make a donation directly to SOS MEDITERRANEE if you would like, here.
BORDER / BIENVENUE – mobilisation pour et avec les réfugié.e.s*
La troisième Porte à Gauche, Bordeaux, France
13 April 2023
Book extracts recently published on this site
Christine Ross’s” ART FOR COEXISTENCE “Unlearning the Way We See Migration” has been published by MIT Press, US (2022)
“… In Art for Coexistence, art historian Christine Ross examines contemporary art’s response to migration, showing that art invites us to abandon our preconceptions about the current “crisis”—to unlearn them—and to see migration more critically, more disobediently… Alejandro González Iñárritu, Laura Waddington, Tania Bruguera, and others, demonstrate art’s power to mediate experiences of migration. Ross argues that art invents a set of interconnected calls for more mutual forms of coexistence: to historicize, to become responsible, to empathize, and to story-tell…”
Rcently published Books that include discussions of my work
‘Esthetique du signal. Hacker le filmique’ by Bidhan Jacobs, publ. Éditions Mimésis, France, 2022
Rcently published Articles
Bima, Cecilia. “Calais. Estetiche di una frontiera” TBD Ultramagazine, 4th Issue, Cattiva Luce, Volume 1 Buio!, Italy, May 2023
My Favourite Films watched in 2022 for DESISTFILM 2022 FILM ROUND-UP Lists
Notturno – Gianfranco Rosi (Italy, France, Germany, 2020 )
In Front of Your Face – Hong Sang-soo (South Korea, 2021)
Drive my car – Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Japan, 2021)
Stendali (Suonano ancora) – Cecilia Mangini (Italy, 1960)
Decision to Leave – Park Chan-wook (South Korea 2022)
Mouvement de libération des Femmes Iraniennes: Année zero – Sylvina Boissonnas, Claudine Mulard, Michelle Muller, Sylviane Rey and Iranian women (France, 1979)
The Cordillera of Dreams – Patricio Guzman (Chile, France 2019)
El Sopar – Pere Portabella (Spain, 1974/2018)
War is in the Air (Crown Letter) – Manuela Morgaine (France, 2022)
Les Porteurs – Sarah Vanagt (Belgium, 2022)
In response to the request: “to share your ten best films you have seen this year on any platform… As always, our spirit has always been to highlight independent, underground, and experimental cinema, so, although it is not an imperative, your expert eye and inclusion of all types of films will be greatly appreciated” (José Sarmiento Hinojosa, Desistfilm)
You can find the other film lists here
2022
December
Recent and upcoming projects
More information on my graphic novel set in Iraq (a very slow project because I had to teach myself to draw) and a written book, available here soon. These books carry on the thread that I took up with Border
My votes for the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time Poll 2022
Every decade ‘Sight & Sound’ magazine contacts film directors and critics around the world and asks them to vote for the 10 greatest films of all time or their 10 favourite films
Here are my votes for 2022 (in no particular order)
Tokyo Story – Yasujiro Ozu (1953)
Sansho Dayu – Kenji Mizoguchi (1954)
Spirit of the Beehive – Victor Erice (1973)
Roma città aperta – Roberto Rossellini (1945)
The Passion of Joan of Arc – Carl Theodor Dreyer (1928)
Close-up – Abbas Kiarostami (1990)
Au Hasard Balthazar – Robert Bresson (1966)
Mirror – Andrei Tarkovsky (1975)
Spring in a Small town – Fei Mu (1948)
Chile, la memoria obstinada – Patricio Guzman (1997)
All films are available on DVD, except to my knowledge, Chile, la memoria obstinada (Chile, Obstinate Memory) which is not sold separately but as an extra on the DVD ‘Salvador Allende: un film de Patricio Guzman” by EditionsMontparnasse, Paris or in the box set by Icarus Films, NY
Full results of the 2022 Sight & Sound Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time
You can find my votes for the 2012 poll here
Articles and Book extracts recently published on this site
Artivismo: Arte, politica, impegno (Italian original)
Artivism: Art, Politics, Commitment (English translation)
Vincenzo Trione, Artivismo: Arte, politica, impegno p.71-72 (publ EINAUDI, Italy 2022)
VISUAL GAPS. LOW DEFINITION FOR AN ETHICS OF BEARING WITNESS. Conclusions: Three Paradigmatic Examples For an Aesthetic of Opacity
Cecilia Bima, translated from the Italian by Marguerite Shore
Georges Didi-Huberman and Film: The Politics of the Image.
Alison Smith, Georges Didi-Huberman and Film: The Politics of the Image. Chapter 4 Anachronism, Survival and Filmic Fireflies, (publ. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).
Between crossing and darkness: notes on (im)migrant specters in Border
Ricardo Lessa Filho and Frederico Vieira, LOGOS 52 VOL 27 N 01 DOSSIÊ INSTABILIDADE E CONFLITO DAS/NAS IMAGENS, Brazil, 2019. (Translated from the Portuguese).
Accidents of Material and Chance: A Conversation with Laura Waddington by Pamela Cohn
Pamela Cohn, Non Fiction Journal Issue 01: Power, UK, 2020.