On 20 and 22 February, as part of the pre-festival events of Sonic Acts Academy 2018, Sonic Acts presents two films at EYE Filmmuseum: Spell Reel by Filipa César and Time Passes by Ane Hjort Guttu. The two extraordinary films are presented in collaboration with EYE on Art.

Spell Reel A collective film assembled by Filipa César 2017, 96 min Germany, Portugal, France, Guinea-Bissau In 2011, an archive of film and audio material re-emerged in Bissau. On the verge of complete ruination, the footage testifies to the birth of Guinean cinema as part of the decolonising vision of Amílcar Cabral, the liberation leader assassinated in 1973. In collaboration with the Guinean filmmakers Sana na N’Hada and Flora Gomes and many associates, Filipa César imagines a journey where the fragile matter from the past operates as a visionary prism of shrapnel. Digitised in Berlin and screened and presented with a live commentary, the archive convokes debates, storytelling, and forecasts. From isolated villages in Guinea-Bissau to European capitals, the silent reels are now places from which people search for antidotes to a world in crisis. Spell Reel has been screened at Berlinale (Forum), Festival International de San Sebastian (Special Mention), Doclisboa (Special Mention and José Saramago Prize), MoMa, Art Basel, BFI London Film Festival, etc. Born in Porto in 1975, now living and working in Berlin, Filipa César is an artist and filmmaker interested in the porous boundaries between the moving image and its reception, the fictional dimensions of the documentary and the economies, politics and poetics inherent to cinema praxis. Great part of César's experimental films have been focused on the spectres of resistance in Portugal’s geo-political past, questioning mechanisms of history production and proposing spaces for performing subjective knowledge. Since 2011, César has been researching the origins of cinema in Guinea-Bissau, its imaginaries and potencies, developing that research into the collective project Luta ca caba inda (The struggle is not yet over). She was a participant of the research projects Living Archive (2011–13) and Visionary Archive (2013–15) both organized by the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin. Selected exhibitions and screenings include São Paulo Biennial, Manifesta 8 (Cartagena), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Tensta konsthall (Spånga), Mumok (Vienna), Contour 8 Biennial (Mechelen and Gasworks, London), and festival screenings at Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Curtas Vila do Conde, Berlinale (Forum Expanded), Rotterdam Festival, Indie Lisboa, DocLisboa. Spell Reel Date: 20 February 2018, 21:15 Location: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam More info and tickets Time Passes A film by Ane Hjort Guttu 2015, 47 min Norway 23-year-old Damla is an art student who begs daily on the streets next to Bianca, a Roma woman with whom she gradually develops a friendship. ‘If she has to sit like that, then we must actually all do it. And, in art, you can change on the small scale what you really want to change on the large scale’, says Damla when explaining the project to her class at the art academy. Damla’s work starts as a performative art project, which is discussed in-depth by her classmates and teacher. Gradually, her situation develops into an ethical and political crisis as she struggles to justify how she can continue her project in the face of the social inequality beyond the art academy. Time Passes is a fictional story shot in a documentary style. Ane Hjort Guttu (Norway) is an artist and curator. Through video works, picture collections, sculpture, and photography, she explores issues of power and freedom in the Scandinavian post-welfare state. She is also investigating the role and responsibility of the artist, as well as the possibilities and limitations of political art. Guttu writes critical and poetic texts. In 2013, she obtained her PhD in Artistic Research from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, where she has worked as a Professor since 2016. Her films include Furniture Isn’t Just Furniture (2017), The Lost Dreams of Naoki Hayakawa (2014), Untitled (The City at Night) (2013), Freedom Requires Free People (2011), and How to Become a Non-Artist (2007). Her recent exhibitions include at the Gwangju Biennale, Bergen Kunsthall, South London Gallery, and the Whitechapel Gallery. Time Passes Date: 22 February 2018, 16:30 Location: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam More info and tickets Both films will be followed by Q&A sessions with the filmmakers.