The School of Media and Communication will present a Showcase Screening as part of the 10th-anniversary edition of Aesthetica Short Film Festival. The event will take place on Friday 6th November through the dedicated Aesthetica streaming platform at 4pm. It will be followed by a panel discussion with selected featured students. Watch the ASFF 2020 Trailer.
The School of Media and Communication showcase delivers an intimate look at the notions of identity and self-representation and explores how they are captured on screen. From a visceral focus on the body itself and introspective portrayals of gender, sexuality, culture, and race to a spotlight on the personas we imagine and perform in front of the camera, for others and for ourselves. Multi-faceted, malleable, and shifting, identity acts as a site of discovery, creative experimentation, and play.
The showcase will present a total of 14 short films from our students and recent graduates. Here, we share a selection of the projects as a teaser:
Self / Unself: Portraying identity on screen
Hybrid by Jamila Hardy, BA Fashion Photography
Hybrid is a split-screen moving image piece that explores one’s identity. It discusses the insecurities and concerns one may have, being connected to a range of cultures which becomes a journey of self-acceptance and belonging. Watch the video.
Kalut by Firda Amelia, MA Fashion, Film and Digital Production
Overwhelmed by her new environment, Kala keeps on feeling tense in her space, creating chaos inside her. She withdraws into her garments, embrace her newfound confidence, and despite all the inner madness, she decided to move forward.
In their review, Adam and Galinsky (2012) coined the term 'enclothed cognition' and explained that clothes that we wear affect our psychological processes. We respond to the symbolic meaning and bodily experience when the garments touch our skin directly (remember when you decide to wear a suit to boost your confidence? Or colourful attire to bright up your mood?) This short film is a practical outcome exploring the interaction between enclothed cognition with personal and social space. Watch the trailer.
Ominous - Giorgia Ziliani, BA Fashion Styling and Production
"Ominous Ø means to visually represent a thorough exploration of the human figure and its relation within space. Looking at both dark and light through a series of physical and digital distortions, Ominous Ø accompanies the audience in a trip through the inner-self. Born as an introspective work, Ominous Ø, through a raw and brutal low-tech aesthetic, aims to analyse the construction and deconstruction of the human body ended up creating an intimate bond with the subconscious of the audience and the figure represented."
Gorgeously Grotesque - Alisa Tansamboon, BA Fashion Styling and Production
Tanasomboon’s playful film uses our relationship with food as a narrative device to explore the social concepts of status, power and consumption.
Life/ Death - Rubie Striker MA Fashion, Film and Digital Production
As an exploration of the complex interplay between humanity, fashion and technology, this meditative time-lapse short attends to paint a metaphorical landscape of the ebb and flow of the construct of fashion by documenting its lifespan as a carrier of messages. Here, fashion media provided a platform to create a symbolic representation that critiques the construct of fashion in order to help rethink the limits of materiality within consumption practices and its existing cycle. You can view the film alongside a digital edition of the book on her website.
