Experiencing Interruptions?

STRATA

LOGLINE
In a film of philosophical, poetic action, a collective of contemporary artists root out the liminal, spectral and ritual of art in prehistoric Ice Age caves.

SHORT SYNOPSIS
A film of philosophical, poetic action, "STRATA” blends film and performance art to explore the fascinating history of caves as sites of knowledge-making and art creation. Through interdisciplinary processes, artists and researchers investigate the connection between the human body and the geological depth of subsurface environments. The project focuses on the prehistoric caves of the Swabian Jura, where Ice Age humans sought shelter and created the oldest known examples of human figurative sculptures.

SYNOPSIS
A film of philosophical, poetic action, "STRATA” blends film and performance art to explore the fascinating history of caves as sites of knowledge-making and art creation. Through interdisciplinary processes, artists and researchers investigate the connection between the human body and the geological depth of subsurface environments. The project focuses on the prehistoric caves of the Swabian Jura, where Ice Age humans sought shelter and created the oldest known examples of human figurative sculptures. The caves are the symbiotic realms to dance between embodiment and scrutiny, the unseen and the unforeseen, the oppressed and unspoken, the forgotten and the repressed. Coming together to look into the river of human civilisation and to share what they had found, the artists irradiate concepts of time, ecological intelligence and politics through performances for the camera. The film pinholes a perspective on a world where art, science and multiple perspectives nourish each other in co-creative processes. Nestled inside the dark subsurfaces of the land, the artists confront romantically distorted images of nature and naturalness to dismantle consolidated narratives and aesthetics. The human body and stratified societies are tied in continuity to the geological, beheld through a lens of diversity and queer ecology.

  • Verena Stenke
    Director
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • Andrea Pagnes
    Director
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • VestAndPage
    Director
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • Verena Stenke
    Writer
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • Andrea Pagnes
    Writer
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • Verena Stenke
    Producer
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • Andrea Pagnes
    Producer
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • VestAndPage
    Producer
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM, ANAM CARA – Mirror in the Mirror
  • Verena Stenke
    Key Cast
    "Time / Therianthrope (White Crow) / Venus"
  • Andrea Pagnes
    Key Cast
    "Angel of History / Miner / Therianthrope (Lion Human)"
  • Fenia Kotsopoulou
    Key Cast
    "They / Venus"
  • Aldo Aliprandi
    Key Cast
    "Music"
  • Marianna Andrigo
    Key Cast
    "Waterbird"
  • Andreas Bauer Kanabas
    Key Cast
    "Voice"
  • Anguezomo Mba Bikoro
    Key Cast
    "Echo"
  • Giorgia De Santi
    Key Cast
    "Troglobite"
  • Francesca Fini
    Key Cast
    "Therianthrope (Cosmoconiglio)"
  • Nicola Fornoni
    Key Cast
    "Therianthrope (Sorcerer)"
  • La Saula
    Key Cast
    "Resistance"
  • Stephan Knies
    Key Cast
    "Music"
  • Boris Nieslony
    Key Cast
    "Belief"
  • Ralf Peters
    Key Cast
    "Voice"
  • Enok Ripley
    Key Cast
    "Troglobite"
  • Sara Simeoni
    Key Cast
    "They"
  • Marcel Sparmann
    Key Cast
    "They / War"
  • Susanne Weins
    Key Cast
    "Voice"
  • Maite Weins
    Key Cast
    "Future"
  • Douglas Quin
    Sound design & Audio arts
    Plantain
  • Verena Stenke
    Cinematography
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM
  • Daz Disley
    Cinematography
  • Fenia Kotsopoulou
    Cinematography
  • Daz Disley
    Light design
  • Giovanni Dantomio
    Set director
  • VestAndPage
    Masks + Costume design
    Plantain, sin∞fin, SIGNUM
  • Balaustio
    Masks + Costume design
  • PYUR
    Music Composers
  • Woob
    Music Composers
  • J. S. Bach
    Music Composers
  • John Dowland
    Music Composers
  • Franz Schubert
    Music Composers
  • Douglas Quin
    Location Sound
  • Verena Stenke
    Location Sound
  • Philipp Seitz
    Location Sound
  • Verena Stenke
    Editing
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    STRATA
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Feature
  • Genres:
    Experimental, Hybrid, Environmental, Performance art, Dance film, Art film, Philosophy, Research, Archaeology, Science, Climate, Humanity, LGTBQI+, Nature, Adventure, Art
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 14 minutes 53 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 11, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    60,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Country of Filming:
    Germany
  • Language:
    English, German
  • Shooting Format:
    4k Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Altered States Festival
    Den Haag
    Netherlands
    February 2, 2024
    World Premiere
  • Mannheim Arts and Film Festival 2024
    Mannheim
    Germany
    Honorable Mention
  • Infinite Present Festival
    Ljubljana
    Slovenia
    January 25, 2024
    Gallery Preview
  • Stockholm City Film Festival
    Stockholm
    Sweden
    Official Selection November 2023
  • Long and Short Film Festival of Santiago de Chile
    Santiago
    Chile
    March 2, 2024
    Chile Premiere
    Video Art Award
  • San Antonio Independent Film Festival
    Ibarra
    Ecuador
    March 20, 2024
    Ecuador Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Butohpolis Festival
    Warsaw
    Poland
    April 13, 2024
    Poland Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Boden International Film Festival
    Boden
    Sweden
    May 15, 2024
    Sweden Premiere
    Semi-finalist
  • International Migration & Enviromental Film Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
    October 9, 2024
    Virtual Fest
    Official Selection
Distribution Information
  • VestAndPage
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Verena Stenke, Andrea Pagnes, VestAndPage

Since 2006, German artist Verena Stenke and Venetian-born artist and writer Andrea Pagnes have been working together as VestAndPage internationally in performance art, performance-based film, writing, publishing and temporary artistic community projects.

Since 2010, they have been devoted to experimental performance-based filmmaking, producing four feature-length films, a silent film, a trilogy of shorts, and numerous other shorts, art videos and interview series. In 2020, they published their manifesto on performance-based filmmaking: “Poetics of Relations”.

They are the founders and directors of the Venice International Performance Art Week, and their poetic writings and research articles have been extensively published and translated for international readers. They share their methodology on performance-based filmmaking and collaborative performance and in masterclasses at art academies worldwide.

www.vest-and-page.de / IG: @vestandpage

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

We have been devoted to experimental performance-based filmmaking through which to examine the evolution from original documentation of performative acts toward complexly contextual, non-linear storytelling. Our film works are produced on-site as direct and visceral performances, which are never rehearsed or staged and happen in response to often extreme environments “familiar as a dream” (London City Nights) such as Antarctica, Patagonia, Kashmir, secluded areas, underground cave systems or military enclaves. We usually work alone or with a small team of collaborators and use minimal non-invasive equipment.

In a constant search through a reflexive mode for new images of interior landscapes, we consider the world our studio and host. We do not go to a place to tell a story; we go to a place to find its story. This approach contains the essential discourse of decolonisation — the land holds us; we never own land. All persons, beings, spaces, environments or non-human bodies are equal partakers in the co-creation of a film.

Our films are outcomes of broad creative experience and research processes in which we explore “thin places”—locations-in-between, where the veil between different temporalities, occurrences and stories is porous. To perform in these thresholds where the visible blends with the invisible, we have developed a psychogeographical method to activate memory and uncover layers of information and imagery stored in the human body, psyche, spirit, and environment.

In our ongoing “Poetics of Relations”, we apply endurance, sublimation and risk-taking with a poetic bodily approach to art practice and a focus on universal human experiences. We consider performance-based filmmaking an artistic practice that serves the body’s capacity to generate knowledge, convey meanings and shape concepts of intimate archiving, with the perceptual acting as a lens on how we view reality and the spectrum of relationships to address the social nature of representation. For us, film can delude space-time, open the unconscious as a resourceful vessel, and reveal processes and relations by linking apparently disconnected persons, objects and happenings.

Our production process involves recollecting different elements or “shards”: a series of disconnected filmed, non-staged performance actions, poetic texts produced as stream-of-consciousness writing, foley sounds and elaborate musical soundscapes. In assembling them, these shards are placed together organically in the editing process. The new whole that is the film work aims to reveal the existing connections between these previously scattered fragments. Reduced use of digital effects such as dissolve, reverse and layering serves to unveil perceptions of realities that are not feasible in real life but that we consider elemental.

Rooted both in film history and performance art history, our aesthetic has been termed magical realism, surrealist, hyperrealist, and psychomagical. It reflects the poetic and conceptual influences of masters such as Maya Deren, Béla Tarr, Agnès Varda, Sergei Parajanov, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Godfrey Reggio or Werner Herzog.

We further commit to film as a mnemonic archive for testimonial purposes and produce conversations and interviews on existential topics with people from the arts, culture and science.