Masha Godovannaya
2021
Ее* руки и его формы
Masha Godovannaya, Sílvia das Fadas
Do you believe in ghosts? An incantation becomes a refrain in this two-channel projection of sequences from an old film, recaptured on a Lomo lens. It’s all in her* hands shaping his form, her* labour questioning his authority.
Her* Hands and His Forms
Another Place and Yet the Same
Masha Godovannaya
It is my endeavor to stop time for a moment and to look through a different prism at things which have been around us for so long, forgotten and unnoticeable by us for so long. Forest, lake, meadow, sky... twilight... moon.
Another Place and Yet the Same
Matters of Daring
Masha Godovannaya, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
The film departs from Carl T. Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928), Sergej Eisenstein's Battleship "Potemkin" (1925), October (1928), and the Mexican film material (1930), as well as Friedrich W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). Conceptualised in three parts, it draws viewers into landscapes populated by ghostly communities, shadows, and intermediate beings acting as transitions to revolutions and dreams in the past, future, and present. Produced and realised as a framework for the que_ring drama project – Dark Revolutions which premiered on 14 Nov. 2019, at studio brut, Vienna, Austria.
Matters of Daring
An Address to Jeanne
Masha Godovannaya, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
The iconic depiction of Joan of Arc in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s film. Joan, destined to become a symbol of faith, patriotism and self-sacrifice. The separation of flesh and spirit. A little more and she would be a proto-feminist martyr. Is that too much to ask of you, Joan?
An Address to Jeanne
Без названия #1
Masha Godovannaya
A young girl’s fiery dance, accidentally caught on 16 mm film in the street. The viewer is confronted by the sacrificial and the passionate, the strong and the fragile, the fleeting and the eternal. These are the faces of femininity.
Untittled #1
A Few Drunkards at the Mars Bar
Masha Godovannaya
It was during one of our usual visits to this famous bar, or “Library” as we often call it. Jonas Mekas, Julius Ziz, August Varkalis, Moira Tierney and I were engaging in our daily activity – “reading books”, which lasted from dusk till dawn.
A Few Drunkards at the Mars Bar
Only Two Words
Masha Godovannaya
This film is based on Holes and Bone, two poems by American poet, lesbian and cult figure of the New York poetry scene Eileen Myles. The film is an exchange between two queer sensibilities and a dialogue between two women who have emigrated.
Only Two Words
You Can’t Keep A Good Snake Down
Masha Godovannaya
For a long time Saint Patrick has been touted as the redemptor of Pagan Ireland: the man who rid the country of its snake population. We felt it was time the snakes got their due – You Can’t Keep A Good Snake Down redresses this historical imbalance.
You Can’t Keep A Good Snake Down
Верни мне пропеллер
Masha Godovannaya
An idiosyncratic personal reflection on a mythical image of masculinity in cinema and the clash between cinematic representation and real life. Endlessly repeated shots of aeroplanes and paratroopers taken from Alexander Dovzhenko’s film Aerograd (1935) and an absurd anthem to mythical masculine powers are confronted by home video footage with a much less heroic intonation.
Give Me Back the Propeller
Landscapes of Nosferatu
Masha Godovannaya, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
Landscapes from Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) are accompanied by reflections on the ghosts of political struggles of the past, vision as an instrument of colonisation and the true meaning of the decolonising gaze that upends all order.
Landscapes of Nosferatu
The City Bridges Are Open Again
Masha Godovannaya, Masha Godovannaya
A found-footage film that exhilarates via virtuosic editing, this homage to early Soviet-era cinema pioneer Sergei Eisenstein reconfigures extracts from several of the maestro’s classics—such as Battleship Potemkin—into something fresh and provocative. Inspired by Eisenstein’s seminal montage theories, the director works in tandem with composer Federico Schmucler to thrillingly evoke tumult.
The City Bridges Are Open Again
MUZHCHINI
Masha Godovannaya
“MUZHCHINI”, when pronounced by emphasizing every letter, means “mature men” in Russian. It is a catchphrase of Yevgeniy Yufit, the father of the Russian necrorealist movement and the hero of the film. This word well describes his attitude towards and interest in specific elements of Russian masculinity, which have been among the several themes of his own films. The second protagonist is Yuri Zverlin, an artist from St. Petersburg and star of Yufit’s feature “Killed by Lightning”; the third, an anonymous “Lenfilm” filmmaker. We were on a trip to the sacred monastery of lake Seliger; it all started inside its ecological pyramid, built without single nail supposedly maintaining the equilibrium of the region. It has no effect on us…
MUZHCHINI
Fetish Frames #1
Masha Godovannaya
This film is a pure fascination with a filmic quality of the image captured on 16mm expired stock, hand-developed while neglecting rules of color processing and manipulated on a JK optical printer. Shot in 2008 it presents a transformed picture of Rotterdam's windmills reminiscent of Dutch Golden Age paintings and traditional Delft tiles.
Fetish Frames #1
Laika. The Last Flight
Masha Godovannaya
A letter from the dead dog Laika, the first conqueror of space. This is the story of her heroic deeds and martyrdom, a document of one of many lives it was deemed necessary to sacrifice in the name of the human plan for conquest and domination.
Laika. The Last Flight
