In Dakar, a disturbing friendship between the filmmaker Khady Sylla and Aminta, two women who are caught in depression or madness. A moving mirror portrait that attempts to express an inescapable desperation.

In 1943, at the request of the American army, the University of Minnesota implements a psychological test for officer recruitment. The same test is later used internationally to recruit staff for private companies. "Relax, try to be sincere".

4th  Independent Vídeo Show & Interactive Phenomena

/ CONTEXT 1994 - 2020

4th  Independent Vídeo Show & Interactive Phenomena

IDENTITY vs MEDIA / 4th  Independent Vídeo Show & Interactive Phenomena / OVNI 1997

The MVI&Fi presents an extensive theme-based programme that is not exclusively dedicated to new audio-visual productions. The Mostra is non-competitive and all the participants are paid for their contributions. These are the specific criteria that distinguish the Mostra from other festivals.

As in previous editions the audio-visual works presented in the MVI&FI are selected in two ways. On the one hand, a rigorous selection of works received through a public call for entries and the other, works selected from a variety of archives and programmers or through direct contact with the authors.

The theme of identity , once again, is of central importance in the Mostra; identity, in this cases, at the cross-roads of the social, sexual, emotional and familial with the interior world of madness, pain and the intimate, ...A spectrum amply illustrated in the four programmes of the Dark Night of the Soul .

In this edition, for the first time, the Mostra presents two monographic sections: An extensive selection of the work of the Canadian Steven Reinke and more limited programme dedicated to Joe Gibbons.

We are also presenting an extended version of the William Burroughs monographic programme that was projected at the MACBA, consisting of works that go beyond the strictly videographic, and representing both a way of understanding visual experimentation and a radical critique of contemporary culture and society. There are works in with Burroughs actively collaborated, such as the films of Antony Balch and Gus Van Sant and others in which his writings or voice served as a point of reference, such as the shorts of Francis Ford Coppola, Herbert Distel, Philip Hunt, ...

We are especially pleased to be showing The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord , with Keith Sanborn ’s English translation.

The 4MVI&FI also includes two programmes of Experimental Television compiled by Andy Davies and during the Mostra Barcelona Television will broadcast a especial programme of ambient tv by Park 4 dtv.

This year the Mostra has two sections dedicated to Interactive Pieces and Quicktime Movies . The first is both wide-ranging and informative and the second, more specific, consists of multimedia works from ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlshure- Deutschland and 10 representative CD roms of the archaeology of mass media from the Rick Prellinger Archives in New York.

Each the programmes that make up the MVI&FI work as a route intended to transport the viewer through a series of emotional and mental landscapes as if in a ritual or journey, in which each of the stages influence and alter the others. The programmes consist of works that are formally diverse, that flow in a way that excludes neither contradiction nor paradox, that may be read over and above the significance of each specific piece.

Thematical screenings

Hall and Auditorium.  Simultaneous Screenings

Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

Montalegre 5. 08001 Barcelona

One of the tapes of Anne Charlotte Robertson’s five-year-old diary, a cathartic, devastating, delicate and meditative story. The extraordinarily frank and revealing self-portrait of an artist and a woman struggling to understand the dark desires and shadows that define her world.

Algeria is a young country, made through a long history. The 20th century was full of unprecedented historic upheavals that brutally affected societies and cultures, casting doubt on value and belief systems that had been constructed over the centuries. “Aliénations” is a modest attempt that looks at the suffering that Algerians can experience today, as they face a crisis in many senses: religious, political, economic and within the family.

A new episode of the author's personal video diary. Every day life seen through psychological problems. Available online until December 20th, 2020. Courtesy of Harvard Film Archive.