MIKA TAANILA | The Future Is Not What It Used To Be / Return Of The Atom (FIN D 2015)
Okay, let’s complete the programme of our MIKA TAANILA hommage with the last two items.
On the last day of our festival we will have the German premiere of
“Return of the Atom“—one Taanila’s most recent films. In this documentary, Taanila covers the on-going construction of the nuclear power plant Olkiluoto in Southern Finland and the proccesses of change that it brings with it, on a larger ecological as well as on the level of the individuals in the region—geo-political processes like these will be of great interest in the rest of GEGENkino’s 2017 programme as well, as you will soon see. You can watch a teaser to “Return of the Atom“ over at The Wire magazine‘s vimeo channel.
Before “Return of the Atom“, which will conclude GEGENkino 2017, we will have another short film programme. The “The Future Is Not What It Used To Be“ entitled programme is partly also Taanila’s tribute to Finnish electroacoustics weirdo Erkki Kurenniemi and will give you a chance to see some more of Taanila’s unique linking of technology, science and art. Fortunately, we will have the opportunity to see some of Taanila’s films from analog film rolls (16mm & 35mm), thanks to UT Connewitz being well equipped for this.
Get more information about the films below.
…and don’t forget about the other two days of our MIKA TAANILA hommage:
14 April 2017, Luru-Kino in der Spinnerei: “Futuro“ short film reel & Mannerlatta (Tectonic Plate) + The Sad Song of Hard-Edged Transition Wipe Markers
15 April 2017, UT Connewitz: CIRCLE + Mika Taanila — SSEENNSSEESS
Short film reel II: The Future Is Not What It Used to Be
The Zone of Total Eclipse (FIN 2006, 6’, no dialogue, 2 x 16 mm), A Physical Ring (FIN 2002, 4’, no dialogue, 35mm), Future Is
Not What It Used To Be (FIN 2002, 52’, OV/English subtitles, 35mm), Spindrift (FIN 1966/2013, 14’, OV/English subtitles, 35mm)
The Future Is Not What It Used to Be (Tulevaisuus ei ole entisensä) is not only the most beautiful film title of this year’s festival, but first of all a portrait of the 1941 born, obsessive electronical music pioneer, futurologist, programmer and all-round genius Erkki Kurenniemi. Being a gifted tinkerer, he dropped out of university in the 1960s to build electronic musical devices like the “sexophone”(!), with which several people could create tones by touching each other. At the same time, Kurenniemi believed that a virtual kind of humanity would abscond to the universe while the earth would continue to exist only as a museum planet. Nevertheless, he obsessively records his life on camera and in speech, because future generations’ pastime will be nothing but reconstructing the past—our present. In regard of this look back into the past, one can easily recognize a prophetic anticipation of our information age in Taanila’s work. Spindrift is Taanila’s attempt to reconstruct Kurenniemi’s only complete film—Finland’s first computer animation. Kurenniemi was not able to help him due to his huge gaps in memory induced by excessive consumption of LSD. The Zone of Total Eclipse is a 16mm double projection based on material of an unsuccessful attempt to measure the exact distance between two continents by filming a solar eclipse.
16. April, 8pm – UT Connewitz
€ 6,5 (5,5 red.) / € 9 (8 red.) for a double ticket incl. Return of the Atom
German Premiere
Return of The Atom
FIN, D 2015, 105’, Doc, D: Mika Taanial & Jussi Eerola, OV/English subtitles, BluRay
Being a documentary long-term-study, Return of the Atom observes the peculiar and strain-afflicted nuclear comeback in the Finnish countryside, without any anti-nuclear movement to speak of, over a course of 11 years. In 2004, superlatives find their way into the scene there: the construction of the world’s most efficient atomic plant on Europe’s biggest construction site along with the first Western European new building project after the MCA of Chernobyl throws the small local community into turmoil. Eurajoki—”the city with electrical vitality”—promises the welcome sign at the roadside in addition. The reactor was meant to provide power already in 2009, but since then the completion and start-up of Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) was delayed several times and held out in prospect for 2018. When not talking to reckless public relation spokespersons and construction area pastorates who compare the workers to Jesus’ parents, Taanila and Jussi Eerola meet the few people who utter their doubts and raise their voices. Despite numerous cases of leukemia, the precarious seismology of the area and in defiance of the triplication of costs since construction started—meanwhile somewhere else, the catastrophe of Fukushima took place as well—the Finnish government voted for the edification of yet another reactor.
16 April, 10pm – Luru Kino in der Spinnerei
€ 6,5 (5,5 red.) / € 9 (8 red.) for a double ticket incl. Short film reel II: The Future Is Not What It Used to Be
