The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum & From The Ground To The Stars in Dhaka

UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum will finally get out of Europe for a screening at the International Short & Independent Film Festival in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Institute's friend and colleague Ghazi Alqudcy will present his experiences at Béla Tarr's film.factory along with a program of films from Bistrik7, the artist collective formed by the school's first generation of graduates. Along with Curse, Mr Cole has contributed From The Ground To The Stars - his episode of film.factory's Lost In Bosnia omnibus feature.

EVENT: UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum and From The Ground To The Stars at International Short & Independent Film Festival in Dhaka
PROGRAM: Introduction of film.factory  + Film Screening

WHERE: Central Public Library, Dhaka, Bangladesh

WHEN: Sunday 8th December, 2019, 15.00

COST: FREE

The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum

From The Ground To The Stars

The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum in Belgrade

UNIVERSAL EAR:The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum will make its next festival appearance at the inaugural and - if we might - in-AWE-gural Kinoskop Festival of Analogue Experimental Film in Belgrade, Serbia, this weekend. The ethos and programming looks astonishing, and promises:

shades of mysticism and psychodrama of Maya Deren, dealing with esoteric "thingamijigs" and alchemy of Kenneth Anger, magically mundane secret diaries of Jonas Mekas, but rest assured this will be no sheer nostalgia trip... Selection will show documentaries on subjects which haven't been touched upon in the history of cinema and witness peculiar deconstructions of sci-fi and horror genre through the creative lens and poetics of experimental film, take a trip inside nocturnal visions of the non-human world, oneirically sabotage H/B/ollywood on our found footage safari and take on you on a rollercoaster ride in the realms of non-commercial, non-compromising, personal cinema.

Sadly, the Institute will not have any agents in town for the festival, but we truly hope it thrives so that we can attend and imbibe the visual broth in future years.

EVENT: UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum at Kinoskop 1st International Festival of Analogue Experimental Cinema and Audio-visual Performance
PROGRAM: Selection IV : Film Deconstruction

WHERE: Kvaka 22, Ruzveltova 39, Belgrade, Serbia

WHEN: Saturday 30th November, 2019, 20.00

COST: FREE

The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum in Lisbon

The latest episode of our pre-constructed adventure serial of the future, UNIVERSAL EAR, will receive its world (festival) premiere at IndieLisboa International Festival of Independent Cinema this May. The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum also played in a temporary cinema during Mr Cole's solo exhibition at Bandits-Mages in November. It marks the Institute's return to IndieLisboa ten years after It's Nick's Birthday received a Special Mention from the Jury at the 2009 edition - although a tight connection has been maintained between the festival and the Institute in the interim, through our presence on the prize jury in 2013 and attendance in support of colleague Aleksandra Niemczyk's work in 2016 and 2018. From wherever you're sat, it's a good festival.

Synopsis: Time-travelling record producer Harley Byrne crash-lands in a virtual reality heritage theme park in 22nd-century France. Corrupt holograms, cyborg saints, and sentient statues haunt an absurdist Super-8 universe, digitally re-colourized for your pleasure!

EVENT: UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum at IndieLisboa '19.
PROGRAM: International Shorts

WHERE: Culturgest - Pequeno Auditório, Edifício-sede da Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Rua Arco do Cego, 50, 1000–300 Lisbon

WHEN: Sunday 5th May, 2019, 21.45 & Wednesday 8th May, 2019, 17.00

COST: €4.50
NOTES: Writer/Director Graeme Cole will be in attendance for the Sunday screening (and potential intro/Q&A duty).

Epizoda ? is now online via tao films

The Institute's 2016 absurdist detective movie - Epizoda ? - is available to watch online for the first time, streaming on tao films, an art movie platform "which specialises in previously undistributed independent and arthouse cinema from around the world."

Watch Epizoda ? online.

Mentored by Béla Tarr, with original music by Dino Santaleza of Croatian band Pridjevi, and starring Vladimir Kajević and Elma Selman, it was the first movie to be directed by the Institute's Graeme Cole while he studied at Mr Tarr's film.factory in Sarajevo, BiH.

Synopsis: A TV detective who's lost the plot drives aimlessly around the city. Negotiating time and space seem achievable next to solving a murder in a factory, the only witness a robot with the ability to get under the skin with its only two programmed lines: “That interests me” and “What are you afraid of?”

Epizoda ? premiered at Rencontres Bandits-Mages in Bourges, France, in 2016 and went on to play at L'Alternativa (Barcelona) and the Auteur Film Festival in Belgrade among others. Most recently, it showed on a looping VHS cassette during Mr Cole's solo exhibition at the Slow Short Film Festival in Mayfield, UK.

The film is accompanied, on tao films, by an interview with the director. Epizoda ? can be 'rented' for €4.99 for 72 hours, or you can take out a month's subscription for just €1 more - which the Institute recommends, since our colleague Aleksandra Niemczyk will present two new films on the site this month, in addition to the copious hard-to-see art movies the service already hosts.