Tenderflix Film Festival 2012 at Tenderpixel

Premiere: Thursday 1 November

Friday and Saturday 2-3 November, 2pm – 6pm
10 Cecil Court, London

www.tenderpixel.com

With films by Justin Ascott, Helen Benigson, collectif_fact, Calvin Frederick, Stephen Gunning, Tom Jobbins, Kim Kielhofner, Kim Stewart, Matthias Tharang and Sean Vicary

Tenderpixel 

It was partly by accident that I found myself on Cecil Court, coming to pick up something for a friend, but I was glad it led me to this small gallery space in such an unlikely location to find small gallery spaces. But I’m always drawn to a bit of competition, and tonight’s ‘Tenderflix’ festival, which also screens Friday the 2nd and Saturday the 3rd of November, presents 10  videos selected by a jury, with the only criteria being that the work be under 10 minutes.

So there was variety, and small portions. Like visiting a delightful wine and cheese sampling, my palette was intrigued but never bored, my artistic appetite piqued but not stuffed. You had the sense that these were ‘tasters’ from each artist, first impressions that communicated a little about the interests and style of each.

There were almost-empty cityscapes and drab buildings with rubbish blowing poetically in grey concrete corners (Ascott), contrasting with beautifully overcast horizons of Welsh countryside and fluttering sunlight against darkened cottages (Vicary).

I was transported into virtual reality spaces, encountering a mix of sterile architectonic environments threatening to swallow up the last human woman (Stewart), to computer game landscapes and war fields where the men run around with guns, while the blank-faced cgi damsel silently declares: ‘Boys I don’t want to be saved’ (Benigson).

Sometimes I found myself falling into an abstract space of sound and movement, caught in an accelerating digital kaleidoscope of colour, whose drama and style would have made an amazing opening credit sequence for a movie (Frederick).

Other times I found myself listening to a story, told though the eyes of a young boy’s embellished remembrances of adolescent heroism (Jobbins), or a dramatic dialogue constructed entirely of movie quotes, with heart-pounding trailer music to boot (collectif_fact).

Screening room downstairs

The most visceral and arresting video for me was ‘Dream Scream’ by Stephen Gunning, which pared archival footage of women receiving primal scream therapy, their bodies rigid and convulsing and their eyes wide with terror, with the agitated, rhythmic staccato of Italian football commentators excitedly calling the goal.

Another strange and quietly alarming work was Matthias Tharang’s ‘Strength -Through Joy’. Shot against the green fields of an idyllic Swiss valley, pretty girls with long brown hair and short white dresses laugh and play with giant red bouncy balls, their giggling excitement unceasing and growing ever creepier, becoming sickeningly juvenile and even threatening.     

Still from Matthias Tharang's, Strength Through Joy

I had to leave before the champagne was cracked and the winner was announced, but as with most competitions, it’s not the end result that matters so much as the entertainment of the chase, and the potential of each to inspire us with their fight.