Shorts I

Films that affect the body and senses will immerse you in a world shrouded in darkness. In the film “The Sun Is Burning” by American filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson, solar eclipses captured on film in three different time zones blur the line between reality and imagination. In “History Is Written at Night”, the daily lives of people living without electricity during Cuba’s economic crisis begin to resemble one long dream, while in “The Hundred-Headed Dragon”, a voice from a monocultural banana plantation on the coast of West Africa awakens a dormant eco-consciousness in viewers. These three films sensually approach the mythological time of night, which is not frightening in its darkness, but on the contrary, opens up with its powerful potential for dreams and subconscious meanings. In today’s everyday life, filled with transience, the films invite us to relearn how to navigate the darkness of uncertainty and to rely more often on our intuition and the signals sent by our bodies.

When the Sun Is Eaten (Chi’bal K’iin)

When the Sun Is Eaten (Chi’bal K’iin) is about one-hundred-percent totality in three time zones – Mazatlán, Mexico; Carbondale, Illinois; and Cleveland, Ohio – on the occasion of the solar eclipse across parts of North America, April 8, 2024. The title is the Mayan translation of the phenomenon of the solar eclipse. Shot with multiple cameras in Super 8 and 16mm, in black and white and color, the film is the latest in a series of works featuring solar and lunar eclipses.

Kevin Jerome Everson

Kevin Jerome Everson works in film, painting, sculpture, and photography. His filmic fables articulate the profound within the ordinariness of everyday life. Kevin Everson is Professor of Art at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Recent retrospectives and solo exhibitions include the Halle für Kunst, Graz; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and many more.

A Hundred-Headed Dragon
Un dragón de cien cabezas

In the Garden of the Hesperides, there once grew a fruit capable of granting immortality. This garden, located off the coast of West Africa, was guarded by a hundred-headed dragon. Through the bio-sonification of banana trees, a monoculture crop in the Canary Islands, we discover the tale of this mythical garden in which eternal life was possible.

Helena Girón, Samuel M. Delgado

Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado (Spain) are filmmakers born, respectively, in Santiago de Compostela and in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. They have been working collaboratively since 2015, creating films, installations and performances investigating the relationship between mythology, history, and materialism, combining documentary modes with materials and photochemical processes of experimental cinema. Their films are particularly engaged with confluences of folklore, ecology, and Atlantic colonialism in the Canary Islands.Their films have won major awards from the Venice Film Festival and San Sebastián International Film Festival, among others.

History Is Written at Night
La historia se escribe de noche

A huge blackout has plunged Cuba into darkness. In the streets, the inhabitants try to escape the gloom while the bonfires seem to announce the end of an era. Taking refuge inside our house, my mother tells me about a vision that has been tormenting her for years.

Alejandro Alonso Estrella

Alejandro Alonso Estrella is a Cuban filmmaker and photographer, graduated in Documentary Directing from the International Film and Television School in Havana in 2015. His work explores territories where the relationship with history, death, dreams, and utopias puts our notions of reality into crisis. His films have been shown in over thirty countries and at festivals such as IDFA, Rotterdam, Visions du Réel, DOK Leipzig, Cinéma du Réel among others.