Waterscapes 2

Programme of experimental short films. Open-air screening, free admission.

H2O

USA, 1929. Made by Ralph Steiner. 12 minutes.

This famous cinepoem captures the reflections and modulations of water in all kinds of abstract forms and patterns that interweave and are in continuous transformation.

The Reflecting Pool

USA, 1977–1979. Made by Bill Viola. 7 minutes.

A man's body appears in the background from the forest behind. He stands for several minutes in a contorted posture at the edge of the pool in the foreground, and time dilates. The body becomes progressively more imperceptible, until it disappears entirely back into the forest, the reflections of light and the undulations created on the surface of the water remaining the only dynamic elements of the visual plane.

Water and Power

USA, 1990. Made by Pat O'Neill. 55 minutes.

Combining image superimpositions, sound textures, fragments of text and archival images with virtuosity, Pat O'Neill condenses the ecology and mythology of the city of Los Angeles into a succession of abstract tableaux. In perpetual motion, from day to night, from the desert that surrounds the metropolis and the network of pipes that supplies it with water to urban traffic and the ghostly interiors haunted by the shadows of Hollywood, Water and Power constructs an extensive sensory poem about the exchanges of energy between the city and the ecosystem that sustains it.

What the Water Said no. 1-3

USA, 1997. Made by David Gatten. 16 minutes.

What the Water Said is a cinematic experiment made without a film camera, in which segments of unexposed film were left for several days in a crab trap submerged in the Atlantic Ocean. Salt water, sand, shells and stones intervened directly upon the emulsion, the image and sound being produced by the traces left by the marine environment on the cinematic support.