Selection #3

Living Skin

76 mins

In this program, language tends toward inscription: a trace for itself, connotation rather than denotation, as an act that goes beyond narrative. Detached from significance, it drifts toward the non-human—skin, a body exposed to the outside. Through gestures of unselfing and camouflage, the films move between intimacy and exclusion, where displacement meets maternal ties to land and belonging. Perception unfolds in pulsation, repetition, and mechanical rhythm: images stutter, dissolve, and vanish within themselves.

TICKETS

Fri 29 May

16:30 - 18:00 / ACUD KINO

Jiayi Chen
SEE THROUGH THE HOLLOWED BLUE HELLEBORE

USA, 2026, 18’ 00”, 16mm, DCP

The summer light endlessly scatters across river rocks, moss, and lichen, flickering on a land breathing under its own memory. Shot in the remote wilderness of southeastern Alaska, See Through the Hollowed Blue Hellebore draws from local oral narratives tied to glaciers and the land, intertwining echoes of Tlingit language. Floating, utterance stretches, repeats, and resonates, summoning a sensory journey through flora and fauna. Beneath each surface: a glacier receding, a body remembering.

Yuliya Tsviatkova
IN THE ANIMAL’S SKIN

Poland / Germany, 2025, 14’ 10”, DCP

I dreamed that I turned into an animal. I could cross the border freely, through the forest. I entered that land unnoticed — the land I miss and fear at the same time. I met my grandmother, whom I haven’t seen for several years. She didn’t recognize me, but we stood very close to each other, in silence. The film "In the animal’s skin’’, explores borders — both political and ecological. The film focuses on the Belarus-Poland border, which runs through the Białowieża Forest. On one hand, "Białowieża" is a protected ecological area, on the other, it has become a physical space of control, detentions, and fear. In recent years, a border wall was built to stop refugees from crossing, cutting straight through the forest and separating animal habitats in the process. The wall not only disrupts ancient migration routes of wild animals, but also stands as a brutal symbol of division and exclusion. Alongside this physical barrier, violence against people in need has escalated — through illegal pushbacks and the systematic prevention of civilian humanitarian aid. A central moment in the film takes place in the Tatar village of Bohoniki, near the border, where the local Tatar community has buried refugees who were found dead in the surrounding forest. Their quiet acts of care and dignity contrast starkly with the broader political neglect and hostility. This work not only documents current political events and the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe at the Polish-Belarusian border, but also explores the connections and parallels between human and non-human animals — how spaces of free movement become deadly labyrinths, and how the forest itself becomes a silent witness.

Magdalena Bermudez
HIDING PLACES
USA, 2025, 12’ 00”, 16mm, DCP, Berlin Premiere

Women pretend to be rocks. Military operations masquerade as art education. One woman deserts to pursue a more radical act of unselfing.

Yongha James Hwang
THE OPPOSITE OF TADASHII IS LEFT
Japan, 2025, 11’ 00”, DCP, European Premiere

I injured my right hand, and I live with my left hand for a while. I attend a Japanese language school with friends from Myanmar, and I go to meet a white dog. My left hand is awkward and imprecise as a foreign language. The left hand temporarily forgets the lives left behind by the right hand, offers food to the white dog, and slowly traces things that the right hand cannot reach.

Shen Xin
BEARING FRUIT OF FONDNESS
UK / China, 2026, 5’ 40”, 16mm, DCP, German Premiere

Filmed in Northern Isle of Skye, bearing fruit of fondness is a 16mm black and white film hand processed with a type of invasive cotoneaster that is native to Eastern Asia, and was brought to the UK in the 19th century as an ornamental plant. Working with elemental kinship, the process guides a capacity to relate to pain while grounded in the understanding of interdependence, where concept of belonging erodes through patterns of mother-child relationships that extend to nation and citizen, land and dweller. The film features a single-take vocal performance of the script in Chinese by Shen Xin, interspersed with breath and stillness against the Southwest storms heard from their home.

Siegfried A. Fruhauf
FLIM FLAM
Austria, 2026, 15’ 00”, DCP

A study of cinematic deception. Pulsing grids of exclamation marks form unstable patterns, while mechanical rhythms and archival footage dissolve into abstraction. Perception falters as image and illusion collapse into one another.

Living Skin

Fri 29 May

Wed 27

Thu 28

Fri 29

Sat 30

Sun 31