Obscuro Barroco Film Screening + Q&A | 7 June 2024 | 19:30 | Netherlands Film Academy (Amsterdam)
Join us for a screening of Evangelia Kranioti’s film Obscuro Barroco, for our first collaboration with the Netherlands Film Academy Master in Film! The film will be introduced by art-filmmaker and PhD student Cyan Bae in the context of Evangelia’s body of work. After the screening, there will be an extended Q&A that will locate Obscuro Barroco in relation to Evangelia’s other films, led by Cyan Bae and Diana Toucedo.
Date & Time
Friday 7 June 2024
Location: Netherlands Film Academy (Markenplein 1, 1011 MV Amsterdam)
19:30 – 21:30
Event Description
We are thrilled to announce our first collaborative event with the Netherlands Film Academy, centered around the screening of Obscuro Barroco (60’, 2018). This is the second feature length film by filmmaker Evangelia Kranioti. Obscuro Barroco premiered at the Berlinale Panorama to critical acclaim and received the TEDDY Jury Award, as well as has two Iris awards from the Hellenic Film Academy (Best Documentary & Best Editing) among other accolades. It was also nominated for the Glashütte Original Documentary Award (Berlinale), the Art Doc Award (Sheffield Doc/Fest), the Heterodox Award (Cinema Eye Honors) and the Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Award of the American Society of Cinematographers.
Obscuro Barroco is an audiovisual project on the dizzying heights of gender in a land of extremes, a photographic series and a two-channel video installation (Ecstasy Must Be Forgotten, 31’). The project as a whole explores the many facets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at a time when carnival and political struggles are converging. Since its immemorial origins, the carnival has been a moment of metamorphosis, when evil spells are countered against a background of inversion and social upheaval. Following the path of iconic transgender activist Luana Muniz (1961-2017), Obscuro Barroco addresses body politics, post-colonialism and identity issues, while questioning the desire for transformation of the body, both intimate and social.
Cyan Bae (filmmaker and PhD student at Leiden University) will be introducing the film in the context of Evangelia’s body of work. Together with Diana Toucedo (filmmaker and core team member of the Master of film), they will have a conversation with Evangelia about her process and methods of work, locating Obscuro Barroco in relation to Evangelia’s other films. The conversation will center the themes of identity, gender and queerness that resonate throughout Evangelia’s body of work, including her latest film, “The Rites of Spring”.
About the Artist
Evangelia Kranioti is a Greek-born award winning visual artist and director based in Paris and working with film, photography and installation. She studied law (National University of Athens) and piano (National Conservatory of Athens), as well as visual arts (École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris) and cinema (Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, Atelier Scénario La Fémis).
In 2016 she received two Hellenic Film Academy Iris awards (Best Directorial Debut & Best Documentary) for her debut documentary feature Exotica, Erotica, Etc. (73’, 2015). The film premiered at the Berlinale Forum and screened in various international festivals (IDFA, BFI London, Göteborg IFF, Karlovy Vary IFF, Sarajevo IFF etc) receiving numerous awards (Emerging International Filmmaker Award at Toronto Hot Docs, Audience award at Films de Femmes Créteil etc).
In 2019, her solo show The Living, the Dead and Those at Sea at Les Rencontres d’Arles, was awarded with the Madame Figaro Women in Motion Prize. More recently, Evangelia Kranioti was a resident fellow at the Villa Médicis, Académie de France à Rome (2021-22) and an invited artist at the 75th anniversary edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2023).
Image Credit: Still from Obscuro Barroco (Evangelia Kranioti 2018)