Title: A FORMAL FILM IN NINE EPISODES, PROLOGUE & EPILOGUE
Format: Documentary / 35mm / Multiple channel HD video InstallAtion . Stereo . color
Length: 50 Minutes
year: 2010
Countries of Production: India, Germany
Producer /Director: Mario Pfeifer
Co-Producer: KOW
credits
Director of Photography: Avijit Mukul Kishore
Sound Design: Thomas Wallmann
Assistant Director / Research Assistant: Sujata Venkateswaran
Sound Operator: Suresh Rajamani
Casting: Mario Pfeifer / Sujata Venkateswaran / Parul Wadhwa
Production /Location Manager: Dhiraj Singh
Production Assistant: Parul Wadhwa
Translation: Ragunath Vasudevan
Colorist: Emilio Batungbacal
supported by: Kodak mumbai, werkleitz gesellschaft – centre for media art, Frankfurter Kunstverein, MMK MUseum für moderne kunst frankfurt am main
A FORMAL FILM IN NINE EPISODES, PROLOGUE & EPILOGUE describes a contemporary Asian Metropolis through an observational, anthropological approach to filmmaking. The scenery depicted in the nine episodes portrays landscape, architecture, interiors or humans from rural communities to factories, medical facilities or ancient and religious sites. The sites all share miraculous beauty, yet the film explores a critical, self-reflexive and aesthetic exploration of the cities development as well as its cultural phenomena. Slowly establishing two characters, the film leaves its’ documentarian nature and progresses into a narrative, which follows two humans, sharing their movements in time and space letting us remember a cinema of love in the Asian context.
Shot on 35mm in only single takes, the production of the film attempts to be aware of its outsider position looking at a contemporary, vastly booming Third World Country and it’s cultural history of 5,000 years by capturing and re-enacting experienced situations. Trying to avoid a clear genre definition to this film, it is entirely shot on location in the city of Mumbai and it’s suburbia. Both performers, Gopal and Nandani, work regular day jobs and live in Bombay’s suburbia - and have never participated in a film project ever in their lives before.
Selected Screenings
London International Documentary Film Festival, 2011 [World Premiere]
Migrating Forms, New York, 2011 [North America Premiere]
World Film Festival, Bangkok, 2012
MoMA PS1, 2013
More details on the project and the exhibition history can be found here.