Vostok ’5 – Jan Andersen
France, 2008, 35mm > video, 03:40 min
“Vostok’” takes a humorous look at the USSR’s Vostok program, which was designed to put the first human in space. Andersen recreates the launches with a dilapidated station wagon. He conveys a sense of the ramshackle nature of each launch with
his makeshift launch pads, sparklers and wooden beams propping up the station wagon. The astronaut’s spacesuit looks like someone had taken a winter coat, insulated pants and a biker’s helmet, and wrapped it all in aluminum foil. Actually, it looks a little better than the suit Yuri Gagarin wore. Andersen uses visual repetition to great ef- fect. With just a few elements and a simple visual gag — the wagon catches fire and falls down during launch — it creates an expectation where the “punch line” of Vostok 7’ is surprisingly rewarding.
Please Note: Vostok part ’1, ’2, ’3 and ’4 are screened as part of ‘Panorama 8: On The Shoulders of Giants’

Farewell East Germany – 22 Years Later – Elisabeth Smolarz
USA, 2007, video, 05:15 min
At the age of 19 Peter S. became a soldier in the National People’s Army of East Germany. One of the most important skills which a soldier would learn during the basic training was to disassemble and to reassemble an AK47 in absolute darkness. This elementary skill assured the functionality of the weapon and therefore the completion of the mission. 22 years later Peter S. was asked again to disassemble and to reassemble an AK47 in absolute darkness.

Vostok ’6 – Jan Andersen
France, 2008, 35mm > video, 03:00 min

Over the Land – Deborah Stratman
USA, 2008, 16mm > video, 51:40 min
With the excuse of freedom, we lose so many things. Silvio Barile. A meditation on the milieu of elevated threat addressing national identity, gun culture, wilderness, consumption, patriotism and the possibility of personal transcendence. Of particular interest are the ways Americans have come to understand freedom and the increasingly technological reiterations of manifest destiny. The piece is simultaneously a critique of violence, a rumination upon our national psyche, and a ritualized celebration of colossal forces beyond our control. It is interrupted by the story of Col. William Rankin who in 1959, was forced to eject from his F8U fighter jet at 48,000 feet without a pressure suit, only to get trapped for 45 minutes in the up and down drafts of a massive thunderstorm. Remarkably, he survived. Rankin’s story represents a non-material, metaphysical kind of freedom. He was vomited up by his own jet, that American icon of progress and strength, but violent purging does not necessarily lead to reassessment or redirection. Over the Land is concerned with the sudden, simple, thorough ways that events can separate us from the system of things, and place us in a kind of limbo. Like when we fall. Or cross a border. Or get shot. Or saved. The film forces together culturally acceptable icons of heroic national tradition with the suggestion of unacceptable historical consequences, so that seemingly benign locations become zones of moral angst.