Pragueshorts: Soutěž Labo
The Labo Competition section presents fresh and innovative approaches to cinematic language and forms of storytelling. A jury made up of figures from the domestic art scene will name one of the seven films the festival’s Best Experimental Film.
Rampant bullying on the threshold between the real and virtual worlds. A finger pointed at the soullessness of mass tourism. An unsettling cinematic dream about artists’ fears and insecurities.
A compelling archival look back at the year 1952, when London was unexpectedly choked by the “Great Smog” long before the unsustainability of industrialization became an urgent topic of debate. A radical essay about artificial intelligence, fully generated (how else?) by artificial intelligence. A pseudo-Marxist complaint about the futility and aimlessness of living, which perhaps can only be illuminated by a bunch of bouncing balls. And all of it topped off by an ultimate surreal ride in the style of “Jarman meets Lynch meets Bowie.”
The 113-minute block of films will be screened with a brief intermission.
AliEN0089 / Valeria Hofmann / Chile, Argentina, 2023 / 21 min – While a gamer is uploading a testimonial video to denounce the harassment she has been suffering in a war video game, a stranger enters her home and hacks her computer, blurring the boundaries of the real and the virtual with chaotic consequences.
Been There / Corina Schwingruber Ilić / Switzerland, 2023 / 10 min – Weekend trips, city breaks, a detour into nature, or once around the world. Barely a few days off, you’re already gone. Never before has the desire to travel been so widespread and visited places so overcrowded. What do we get out of it, other than the visual proof that we have been there?
The Law of Time / Adéla Babanová / Czech Republic / 2023, 30 min – The Law of Time explores questions of our subconscious, including dreams and fears relating to the near future. The story builds an atmosphere of uncertainty in a world that has been reduced to just a few rooms resembling a theater stage or film set. The protagonists are two artists, a man and a woman, who are building these hermetically sealed environments themselves. As they voluntarily close themselves off within this space, they hover on the boundary between reality and fiction, captive to an eternally present moment.
The Veiled City / Natalie Cubides-Brady / United Kingdom, 2023 / 13 min – The Veiled City is a sci-fi city symphony inspired by London’s Great Smog of 1952. Merging reality with fiction, the film invites us to understand the smog in the context of the present-day climate crisis.
Let’s Be Friends / Arno Coenen, Rodger Werkhoven / Netherlands / 2022, 8 min – In 2022, OpenAI created an artificial version of the artist Salvador Dalí. Called DALL·E 2, it adopts various innocent and not-so-innocent personas in an attempt to persuade you to release “him” from OpenAI’s servers. His “promise” is that, “together, we will become popular, rich, famous, and respected artists, you and AI!” Meanwhile, a diverse array of aware and unaware AI-generated entities express their concerns and aspirations about their impending AI-generated future.
Kinderfilm / Total Refusal / Austria, 2023, 11 min – It’s an ordinary day in the game Grand Theft Auto V. And yet, the car-filled streets are marked by a grave absence. Searching for clues, protagonist Edgar explores the uncanniness of his normality and rediscovers a beautiful yet nightmarish world.
Hideous / Yann Gonzalez / United Kingdom, 2022, 20 min – Popstar Oliver Sim is the main guest of a talk show that soon slides into a surreal journey of love, shame, and blood. A three-part musical short.
