Global Conflicts 2
1:Frozen War 2: White Balance 3: Aftermath
1: FROZEN WAR
John Smith, UK, 2002, 11
A spontaneous response to the bombing of Afghanistan triggered by a
disorientating experience in an Irish hotel room.
2:WHITE BALANCE
François Bucher, 2002, 32'
White Balance (to think is to forget differences) is an effort to uncover the geographies of power, the frontiers of privilege. Media and internet footage is intermixed with images shot in downtown Manhattan before and after the September 11th attacks
3:AFTERMATH
GNN, VS, 2002, 35'
Narrated by Hip Hop legend Paris and featuring interviews shot by GNN syndicate producers in six cities, AFTERMATH features nine (9) people answering eleven (11) of the most pressing questions that emanate from the terrible and, as yet, unexplained, events of that day. As you will see, these are questions that continue to overshadow and critically challenge the official 'version' of the story.
1: FROZEN WAR 11:00, UK, 2002
by John Smith
A spontaneous response to the bombing of Afghanistan triggered by a
disorientating experience in an Irish hotel room. Shot early in the
morning, just after the U.S. and Britain started bombing Afghanistan,
it's narrated by Smith, who describes how he worried about a blown-up
transmitter when he found only a static face on TV. The slow pace and
rambling form become apt correlatives for Smith's own confusion.
Making good points about the media, censorship and the potential
inaccuracies of what we see on Œthe box¹ he also launches at times
into a slightly "Derek and Clive" style rant about the furnishings of
his rooms.
2:WHITE BALANCE (to think is to forget differences) 32:00, US, 2001
by François Bucher
An effort to uncover the geographies of power, the frontiers of
privilege. It revisits this problem from different angles, creating
short circuits of meaning which are hosted by improbable audiovisual
matches. Media and internet footage is intermixed with images shot in
downtown Manhattan before and after the September 11th attacks. The
video presents a question that needs to be visited over and over, a
question that is always and necessarily larger than ourselves. Yvonne
Rainer asked this question in her film Privilege: "...is 'permanent
recovering racists' the most we can ever be?" In this sense, offering
a meta narrative that would pretend to describe the issues at stake,
is a failure to understand the layers of unspeakability that are
hidden in the question of whiteness. The piece opts for a poetic
language, an address that seeks to arouse thought by concentrating on
the openings of the audiovisual experience, in the short-lived moment
of the in-between.
3:AFTERMATH Unanswered Questions from 9/11, VS, 2002, 35'
by GNN
With the ongoing controversy over the federal probe into the
September 11 terrorist attacks, GNN decided to pre-empt the
government and produce its own version of a 'truth commission'.
Narrated by Hip Hop legend Paris and featuring interviews shot by GNN
syndicate producers in six cities, AfterMath features nine (9) people
answering eleven (11) of the most pressing questions that emanate
from the terrible and, as yet, unexplained, events of that day. As
you will see, these are questions that continue to overshadow and
critically challenge the official 'version' of the story.
