Videopals create a new language

Until 19 February 2012 The CCCB (Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona) holds “The Complete Letters. Filmed Correspondence”, an exhibition co-produced by Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco (Mexico), La Casa Encendida(Madrid), Acción Cultural Española, and the CCCB. 

 

“The Complete Letters” is an experience which brings together filmed letters exchanged by six pairs of filmmakers. Filmed correspondence is a new and experimental format for communication between directors who, despite being thousands of kilometers away, wish to share their views and reflections about their job. Through these dialogs they express their ideas and reveal affinities and differences, always in an atmosphere of mutual respect and shared interests. 

 

The impetus to this new cinematographic format was first given by the creative relationship between the Spanish director Víctor Erice and his Iranian colleague Abbas Kiarostami, which generated the exhibition “Erice-Kiarostami. Correspondences”, hosted by the CCCB in 2006. Two years later, after such a good experience, the CCCB invited other directors to explore this format creating a project named “Cinergies” (2008-2009).

 

Now, “The Complete Letters” shows the six filmed correspondences produced by said initiative, presenting the exchange of ideas by these great twosomes: 

 

Víctor Erice (Madrid) - Abbas Kiarostami (Teheran)

José Luis Guerín (Barcelona) - Jonas Mekas (New York)

Isaki Lacuesta (Girona) - Naomi Kawase (Nara)

Albert Serra (Banyoles) - Lisandro Alonso (Buenos Aires)

Jaime Rosales (Madrid) - Wang Bing (Shaanxi)

Fernando Eimbcke (Mexico City) - So Yong Kim (Pusan/New York)

 

Definitely, this art project gathers a very distinguished group of filmmakers who, in tune with their artistic couples of the world, open the door to experimentation as a whole and bring new views about the film language.