For many of us the past times have been uncertain, but in this time we definitely understand the important role films, radio shows, music and so on plays in our life. Here are some things Mattima consumed lately:

1. Øyvind shamelessly coronabinged all 4 seasons of Mr. Robot. This dark dystopian series has some crazy good photography and dialogue. Some of the episodes are totally wild. Loved it. Listening to the Norwegian deathpop hardcore punk band Blood Command at the office.

 

2. Ane-Martha listened to Mei Mei, A Daughter’s Song, a radio documentary from 1989 by Dmae Roberts about a mother and a daughter coming to terms with their cultural differences while digging into past traumas. At the moment she is devouring Susan Sontag’s Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963.

 

3. Stéphanie has been re-watching films from Bertrand Tavernier, who passed away this week. Coup de Torchon (Clean Slate) is one of her favorites, including another emblematic figure of French cinema: Philippe Noiret, interpreting the enigmatic character of a police officer in a small Senegalese town during colonial times.

 

4. Truls watched the Japanese New Wave film Pale Flower (1964, Masahido Shinoda). A mysterious, exciting look at two lost souls trying to find meaning in extremity. Wildly innovative in editing, its compositions, and its magnificent soundtrack from Toru Takemitsu (where the clicking of wooden playing-cards flow into tapdancing). To top it off it has one of the most powerful climaxes I’ve seen.

 

5. Judith has listened to recently and liked is Edges of Illusion by John Surman from the album Upon Reflection. A film she loves but haven’t seen in a while: Bella e perduta by Pietro Marcello.

 

6. Andrew watched (and lost sleep over), the BBC Series Can’t Get You Out of My Head, by Adam Curtis. Curtis, master of working solely with archival material, presents, in about 7 hours, a portrait of how 20th-century events led us to where we are now. A powerful look at power, and how it nearly always corrupts, and has led to levels of paranoia, fear, and malaise that have come to define the late 20th and early 21st century. He also learned how to make several amazing Persian dishes, and shamelessly loves the new Lana Del Rey album, Chemtrails Over The Country Club. 

 

7. Ila is working on the BBC series Hijra, as well as many other life projects. As a result, she hasn’t had the space or luxury to watch things, but she has been reading and working with a lot of somatic meditations – the book she recommend is The awakening body by Reginald Ray and here’s some music that she’s been listening to: Sevdaliza.

 

8. Lucio has been reading the obscure Dutch pages of the novel De avond is ongemak. Between chapters, he cooks shepard’s pie, makes sushi, and listens to A Common Turn by Anna B. Savage.

 

9. Kristin has watched whatever she could find from Paolo Sorrentino: The Young Pope (hot series about pope-fights), Loro (Silvio Berlusconi is a nice-ish guy anyway), Youth (some arrogant old guys at a spa resort), La Grande Bellezza (beautiful decadence at insane parties in Rome), This Must Be The Place (a retired rockstar, character heavily inspired by Ozzy Osbourne + grandmothers). Everything is over the top decadence-wise, the photo and production design insane, the characters very cleverly made and the sound design (and the music) make his films pretty darn close to perfection. She’s also discovered NRK’s wealthy archive where she’s seen the Kings new years speeches from 1970 up to today, plus some aerobics videos from the early 90s.

 

10. Eili has already attended more film festivals this year than she normally would in a whole year (online, of course). It started out with Tromsø International Film Festival where the Norwegian film Him (Han) by Guro Bruusgaard made one of the biggest impressions on her. Then there was the Recontres Internationales – a festival for new cinema and contemporary art, which had interesting screenings and talks. The Grrl Haus Cinema has regular screenings of short films by women filmmakers that she also enjoyed. This week she is visiting the Toronto queer film festival from her sofa, and last week she went to the BFI Flare, which is the biggest LGBTIQ+ film festival in Europe. Among the films she saw was Tove, based on the life of the Finnish artist and author Tove Jansson, best known as the creator of Moomins. Tove Jansson did so much more than what she is known for, therefore both her work and the movie (directed by Zaida Bergroth), are worth checking out.

 

11. Helene watched The Norton Lectures with avant-garde multimedia artist Laurie Anderson live on zoom: Spending the War Without You: Virtual Backgrounds, The River and The Forest. These mind-bending virtual reality performances dwell on the challenges and possibilities in life and art, in a time of reinvention and transformation, and leads us to imagine a different world and a different way of being. Lecture 2: The Forest is still available and the rest of the series is coming up in the spring and fall of 2021: https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/norton-lectures. She also took part in Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2021-, which took place in a hybrid live version online this year from the Louvre in Paris. It explored the theme of hybrid spaces through screenings, exhibitions, and performances: Carte Blanches by Laurie Anderson and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and thematic programs such as Queer Landscapes and Intimate Distances. The second part of the festival will take place in Berlin from August 25 to 29, 2021. http://art-action.org/site/en/index.php