Private Project

Water and more water

A dreamlike portrait of Barcelona, shot in double exposure on reversible 8mm film, is interwoven with an intimate “I remember” voice, creating a collage of memories à la Brainard and Pérec.

The director’s personal micro-memories, as a woman, filmmaker and immigrant, evoque the spirit of a time that may never return, constructing a communal heritage.

The act of making this film, involving the hazardous double exposure and the fragility of the physical film itself, becomes a metaphor for the perpetual tension between memory and oblivion.

  • Francesca Svampa
    Director
  • Francesca Svampa
    Writer
  • Francesca Svampa
    Producer
  • Cláudia Baulies
    Sound design
  • Francesca Svampa
    Photographer
  • Francesca Svampa
    Editor
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Agua y más agua
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short, Other
  • Genres:
    videopoetry
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 12 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 1, 2022
  • Country of Origin:
    Italy
  • Country of Filming:
    Spain
  • Language:
    Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    8 mm
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Athens International Film and Video Festival
    Athens
    United States
    April 1, 2022
    World Premiere - USA Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Revolutions Per Minute
    Boston, Massachusetts
    United States
    October 11, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Catania Film Fest
    Catania
    Italy
    November 21, 2022
    Italian Premiere
    Critics Award
  • Engauge Experimental Film Festival
    Seattle, Washington
    United States
    November 3, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Bogotà Experimental Film Festival
    Bogotà
    Colombia
    August 12, 2022
    Latin America Premiere, Colombian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • San Francisco Latino Film Festival
    San Francisco
    United States
    October 12, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Festival Internacional de Cine Universitaria Lanterna
    Ciudad de México
    Mexico
    October 25, 2022
    Mexican Premiere
    Best Documentary Short Film
  • 10th International Video Poetry Festival
    Athens
    Greece
    September 30, 2022
    Greek Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Ícaro: Festival Internacional de cine
    Guatemala
    Guatemala
    December 1, 2022
    Official Selection
  • REFF - Ribalta Experimental Film Festival
    Vignola
    Italy
    March 25, 2023
  • Small Axe - Radical Short Film Awards
    Tolpuddle
    United Kingdom
    July 15, 2022
    Semi-finalist
  • Directed By Women Spain
    Madrid
    Spain
    September 11, 2022
    Spanish Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Kursaal Film Fest
    San Sebastián
    Spain
    September 15, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Cinetekton! Festival Internacional De Cine Y Arquitectura
    Puebla
    Mexico
    November 15, 2022
    Mexican Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Southampton Film Week
    Southampton
    United Kingdom
    November 11, 2022
    UK Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Top Indie Film Awards
    Tokyo
    Japan
    January 4, 2023
    Japan Premiere
    Best Experimental Short - Best Editing
  • Black Cat Award International Film Festival
    La Paz
    Bolivia, Plurinational State of
    November 11, 2022
    Bolivian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Festival de Cortos Para Tiempos Largos
    Pereira
    Colombia
    October 20, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Intermediaciones Muestra de videoarte y video experimental
    Medellín
    Colombia
    October 11, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Knowmad Short Film Festival

    Germany
    December 7, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Amity International Film Festival
    Noida
    India
    December 15, 2022
    Indian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Bienal Dona i Cinema
    Valencia
    Spain
    January 20, 2023
    Official Selection
  • La mida no imprta (Size doesn't matter)
    Barcelona
    Spain
    January 20, 2023
  • Curts en Femení
    Barcelona
    Spain
    March 25, 2023
  • Festival Extramuros
    Concepcion
    Chile
    March 25, 2023
  • Kalakari Film Fest
    Kalakari
    India
    March 18, 2023
  • Latest Vision TV
    MANCHESTER
    United Kingdom
    March 8, 2023
  • FILMINISTE
    Montreal
    Canada
    March 11, 2023
    Canada Premiere
  • 10º Festival Internacional de San Luis de Potosí
    San Luis de Potosí
    Mexico
    November 24, 2022
  • 14º Festival de Cine y Artes Visuales Bugarte
    Bugarte
    Colombia
    October 22, 2022
  • Fisura, International Festival of Experimental Film & Video Fisura, International Festival of Experimental Film & Video
    Mexico City
    Mexico
    February 13, 2023
    Official Selection
  • TRANÅS AT THE FRINGE - International Screening of Experimental Films and Videopoems
    Tranås
    Sweden
    July 1, 2023
    Swedish Premiere
    Official Selection
  • BCT - FESTIVAL BENEVENTO CINEMA E TELEVISIONE
    Benevento
    Italy
    June 21, 2023
    Official Selection
  • Dimarts Santa Monica
    Barcelona
    Spain
    July 4, 2023
  • VIDEOACTION #4
    Berlin
    Germany
    June 9, 2023
    Official Selection
  • Esto Es Para Esto - Exhibidora de Cine Esto Es Para Esto - Exhibidora de Cine
    Neuvo León
    Mexico
    June 15, 2023
    Official Selection
  • Apertura Institute x TAB-LAB darkroom screening
    Lisbon
    Portugal
    June 8, 2023
    Official Selection
  • Stories, Faces + Places
    Folkstone
    United Kingdom
    July 21, 2023
    Official Selection
Distribution Information
  • Arturo M. Merelo
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: Ship
Director Biography - Francesca Svampa

Francesca is a filmmaker born in Italy. She graduated from the Master’s in Essay Film in EICTV (Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión) in Cuba. She works in analogue and digital films and her production includes documentary, essay, experimental films and video art pieces.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

“Water and more water” comes from the combination of filmmaking fever, chance, and theft.
Since my studies in Cuba in 2016, I’ve become fascinated by experimental and hand processing film. I love the image texture, I love the state of blindness during shooting compared to video making, and the fragility of the revealing process.
When I came back to live in Barcelona after several years abroad, I was eager to shoot with my Trimax double8: an old film camera that my grandfather was using 50 years ago.
It took some time before I could make my wish come true because the camera presented some technical challenges due to its age, the lack of an instruction manual and it not being as user-friendly as Super8 home movie cameras.
Exposure was a particularly important aspect because I wanted to shoot in “double exposure”, which consists in shooting two times the same film.
First of all, I could only have an idea of how images were going to overlap, since there is no frame counter.
Second, as a double8 film, I needed to take out the film from the camera and place it back flipped on the “other side” 4 times: 2 times for the first round, and 2 times for the second round of shooting.
Third, the camera itself has a problem that I discovered while making “Water and more water”: from time to time it gets stuck, and I need to take out and put back the film roll, which I was doing in the street with a portable darkroom.
Inevitably, chance was deeply involved in this film, or even invoked onto it.
A way to put myself, as a filmmaker, in a place of openness toward a cosmic imagination, which is limitless, unlike mine. In other words, I wanted to work with a material that could inspire me and lead me through an unpredictable path.
Stealing was not in the original plan.
What I planned was to create a voice over because it was something I had never done before, yet I had no particular idea as to how to go about it.
When I actually saw the film for the first time (its digitalization to be exact), I had the intuition to create an “I remember” text about my years in Barcelona from 2006 to 2010, inspired by Joe Brainard, who had already inspired “Je me souviens” de Georges Pérec.
The collage approach reminds me of the human memory process and gives freedom of interpretation, two aspects that I look for in cinema.
I robbed with no shame, because “I remember” was what I was living when I was shooting the film. I was watching Barcelona again and I could not help but compare everything with my memory of it. The vision of my memory was overlapping the vision of my eyes, like the film images were overlapping in double exposure.
Finally, the soundtrack tries to create an alchemy of music, environment sounds and filmmaking noises. A place where the inside meets the outside.