Special VIDEO WINDOW as a guest @ Videoex, Experimental Film & Video Festival Zurich, 22nd Edition 2020
Monday, 14 September 2020, 21:15, Cinema Z3
Monica Ursina Jäger, Forest Tales and Emerald Fictions, 2019 (Premiere in Switzerland)
Christoph Oertli, Sensing Bodies, 2020 (Premiere in Zurich)

VIDEO WINDOW presents in cooperation with Videoex the new films by Monica Ursina Jäger and Christoph Oertli. The locations are Singapore and Tokyo. The Asian megacities are among the world's most important economic centers with high living standards, state-of-the-art infrastructure and architecture. The two contributions meet in the reflection on nature, civilization, living worlds and being human in an urban context.
Festival Videoex: Programme 2020, contact & adresse (G / E)
Programme indications to both films (G / E)

Forest Tales and Emerald Fictions deals with this change, combining city and forest views and animated chlorophyll paintings with two interwoven narrative strands: the scientific-looking report of a narrator offstage about the meaning and functioning of the rainforest's ecosystem, which has been growing since time immemorial, and the emotional memories of an older woman about her childhood with the forest as a natural habitat and mysterious animistic parallel world to the city.

Monica Ursina Jäger, Forest Tales and Emerald Fictions, 2019
Video HD, colour, sound, E/e, 1-channel, 19:18 min., 16:9
Monica Ursina Jäger: Information & CV (E)

Sensing Bodies by Oertli consists of a flow of snapshots in Tokyo's public space along the course of a day. The protagonists are businessmen who can be seen individually or collectively pausing for a moment in parks, squares, sidewalks, passages, and fumoirs of a business district or the subway. The film subtly traces the silent, dialogue-free presence of people and – unexpectedly volatile – refers to the internalization of social norms and control as well as the experience of social distance and loneliness, but also to possibilities of individual freedom.

Christoph Oertli, Sensing Bodies, 2020 (shots of 2018)
Video HD, colour, sound (without dialogues), 1-channel, 48 min., 16:9
Christoph Oertli: Information & CV (G / E)

Successful Premieres
VIDEO WINDOW celebrated at the Festival Videoex 2020 with Monica Ursina Jäger the Swiss premiere of Forest Tales and Emerald Fictions (2019) and with Christoph Oertli the Zurich premiere of Sensing Bodies (2020).

Q & A after the screening with Bruno Z'Graggen, Patrick Huber, Christoph Oertli & Monica Ursina Jäger
More impressions