LAND OF WARM WATERS

Super 8 mm, 2022. Czech film premiere.

Summer screening, artist talk and welcome of the artists-in-residence.

Can a person be changed into a cactus? How far can human consciousness be expanded? Each of the film’s protagonists seeks their own path through the labyrinths of an apostate world to reach new and different life forms via alternative channels in an attempt to resolve the intolerability of their existence. Whether through psychopharmacology, mind expansion or ayahuasca, these methods help them to break away from the hierarchical value system and liberate their self-consciousness from oppression. They finally become attuned to the new revolution through the teachings and mentoring of plants. The story not only symbolizes the hopelessness of our world convulsing in the crossfire of opposing ideologies, but also points to
a more hopeful future where green anarchism enables humanity to look ahead to a brighter destiny.

As the harbingers of a supra-human world, the Buharovs blend their instinctive cosmos with a kind of quiet poetry to lead the viewer into the Land of Warm Waters and onwards to new dimensions of storytelling. This is another cinema, alien and fascinating, that uses fantastic elements to conceal a critical and satirical streak referring to their country’s current situation. Land of Warm Waters (2022) has been shown at 12 international film festivals, winning main prizes in Belgrade, Genova and Paris.

Igor and Ivan Buharov (Kornél Szilágyi, 1971 and Nándor Hevesi, 1974) are an artist duo working across disciplines, whose practice fuses analogue filmmaking, performance, and experimental music. For almost thirty years they have been making experimental films—ranging from feature and short films to documentaries and animations—for which they also compose music. They mainly work with super 8 and 16mm, experimenting with expired raw material and developing film in unusual ways, e.g. with caffenol technique using instant coffee and Vitamin C. Alongside their cinematic work, they create improvised, surrealistic audiovisual performances in collaboration with like-minded performers and musicians, in which the image, the music and the words become an organic whole after chaos. Their work has received numerous international awards.

From 13 August to 3 September 2023 Igor and Ivan Buharov will be artists-in-residence at Alfred ve dvoře, together with the independent curator and dramaturg Katalin Erdődi (currently, co-curator of the 2024 edition of the Biennale Matter of Art in Prague) thanks to the Visegrad Fund Performing Artists Residency program. They will be working on an audiovisual performance as well as shooting new footage in Prague, inspired by interesting figures and stories of Czech anarchist movements, from the early 20th century until today. On 2 September 2023 they will share the results of their residency in a work-in-progress showing with live performance, projection and music.

https://buharov.hu