Dushanbe

Kandis Friesen / Canada, United States / 2018 / European Premiere / 5 min.

synopsis

Through the use of animation, the backlit photographs blend with the director’s aunt’s memories of the mountains, the local views, and the inside of the home from which she was forced into exile. The fragments of memory offer insight into life in the diaspora through architectural projects by which the aunt has recreated her native Tajikistan in her new home in Darmstadt.

"Film is grounded in found footage through the photographic, constructing an assemblage from fragments of exile. I focused on colour, texture, and materiality in both image and sound, resuturing diasporic time and space through the slowed-down gesture of animation." K. Friesen

biography

In her work, interdisciplinary artist Kandis Friesen (1978) combines various artistic forms – video, drawing, audio, animation, and graphics. Her projects are a mixture of video installation and documentary collage. In terms of subject matter, she is interested in the interaction between public memory, cultural identity, and personal stories from marginalized communities. Her film Katyusha: Rocket Launchers, Folks Songs, and Ethnographic Refrains was shown at the 2016 Ji.hlava IDFF.