Special VIDEO WINDOW as a guest @ Videoex, Experimental Film & Video Festival Zurich, 23rd Edition 2021
Thursday, 7 October 2021, 21:15, Cinema Z3
Maria Iorio & Raphaël Cuomo, Chronicles of That Time, 2021
incl. Q & A

Festival Videoex: Programme 2021, contact & address (G / E)

Special VIDEO WINDOW presents at the Festival Videoex 2021 (1 – 10 October 2021) the last film by Maria Iorio and Raphaël Cuomo, which celebrated in April 2021 its premiere in Nyon at the Festival Visions du Réel.

Maria Iorio & Raphaël Cuomo, Chronicles of That Time, 2021
Video HD, colour, stereo sound, ARAB./I/F/e, 76 min., 16:9

Synopsis
Chronicles of That Time traces an Arabic melody. Abdelhamid, a Tunisian seasonal worker and friend of the filmmakers’, has shown them the song 15 years ago. He atmospherically awakens the melody from memory and with it fragmentary the forgotten histories of the migrants. At the same time, Abdelhamid is a witness to the inglorious chronicle of the European border and migration politics. The film set on Lampedusa, Sicily and in Tunisia links new footage with unpublished footage from older works and represents essentially the work and the concerns of Iorio and Cuomo. Ultimately, it also melancholically reminds of times when the Mediterranian was the connecting medium of a florishing cultural and economic space - and not a excluding protective trench for Europe.

Maria Iorio & Raphaël Cuomo
The artistic duo predominantly works with video and photography. Their essayistic filmic practise is received by the film world as well as the art world. In exhibitions, they show their works mostly as multimedially conceived installations. Their artistic position is based on a critical approach with a focus and perspective on migration movements and politics that concern Italy historically and currently, like the migration from Africa towards Europe. The films are based on thoughtful research in archives and on contacts with stakeholders on the ground. They stand out through considerate, reflected and poetic narration with slow rhythms and leave a lot of space for imagination, associations and thoughts to the audience. Their works transcend the documentaristic and insistently debate the conditio humana.

CV
Maria Iorio (*1975, Lausanne; CH/I) and Raphaël Cuomo (*1977, Delémont; CH/I) live and work in Geneva and Berlin. They have been collaborating for almost 20 years as a duo, from their time as students at École supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Geneva (nowadays HEAD) and at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht 2006-2007. Their works are being shown nationally and internationally in exhibitions (documenta 14, Athens, 54. Biennale of Venic amongst others), film festivals and in cinemas und have been awarded with the Swiss Art Award (2007-2009) amongst others.
Website: Maria Iorio & Raphaël Cuomo