Autoritratto all'Inferno / Self-portrait in Hell

This hybrid piece is a collage created assembling both analog and digital material.
Several layers of 8mm films merge to create a camera-less self-portrait of the filmmaker.

The first layer is an 8mm orphan film (found footage) from the 1970s of a woman dancing.

The second layer is an 8mm found footage film that has been buried in earth for some months. While being covered in earth, the film emulsion has been eaten by the bacterias in the ground, plus some bacterias from yeast and sugar. This technique was originally used by the Schmelzdahin group in Germany.
After several weeks in soil, the film gets extracted, rinsed, and scanned via a 4K digital scanner.

The third layer is an 8mm home movie that has been first decayed in soil, using the aforementioned technique, then hand-painted with ink.

  • Federica Foglia
    Director
    Originate and Recompile / Fantassút / Rain on the Borders , Exit/Entrance or Trasumanar
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Short, Student, Other
  • Genres:
    experimental, animation, cameraless, Documentary
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 30 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 18, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    400 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Language:
    No Dialogue
  • Shooting Format:
    8mm
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - PHD CINEMA STUDIES - YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO
Director Biography - Federica Foglia

Federica Foglia is a transnational visual artist and writer. She holds a BA in Multimedia Languages and Digital Computing for Humanities: History of Art, Theatre, and Cinema from the University of Naples L'Orientale, an MFA in Film from York University, Toronto and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Cinema and Media Arts at York University.

She is interested in issues of immigration, citizenship and identity, displacement, women of the diaspora, migrant temporalities, and finding a visual language to investigate these experiences. Her practice revolves around recycled cinema, amateur filmmaking, imaginary archives. She works within the domestic space to remediate found-footage films. She is currently working on a project that involves eco-friendly emulsion lifting techniques of 16mm orphan films from private estates and family archives.

Her works have been exhibited and won awards in several art galleries and film festivals, including Images Festival, Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, Anthology Film Archives, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alicante MACA, BIDEODROMO, BilbaoArte Foundation, Toronto International Film Festival, Antimatter [Media Art], Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Mostra Internazionale del Cinema di Genova, Vancouver International Film Festival, Reykjavík International Film Festival, Visions in the Nunnery - Whitechapel UK, Groupe Intervention Vidéo Montreal, SCAD Savannah International Film Festival, ULTRAcinema Festival Mexico, Muestra de Video Arte Faenza, MIMESIS Documentary Festival, Camerimage.

She has recently received the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarships and the RBC Arts Access Fund Award for newcomer artists. Her films are distributed by Light Come, Paris - Canyon Cinema, San Francisco and CFMDC, Toronto

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