train journey

A simple video work about maybe a bit hackneyed message. About a group of people with different culture backgrounds are waiting for the train. The train arrives and they start their journey. However during the journey the train encounters an obstacle. The rail is broken. All the passengers and the machinist leave the train looking at the rail and try to repair it. Finally they succeed in fixing the rail and the train can continue it’s journey. At the beginning they do not know each other, but through a problem they begin all work together, regardless of their culture background, status, colour or gender. As it’s mention above the message is a bit hackneyed and the film is simple. Just reflecting a wish within a vicious epoch. Because in the Reality of daily life many times just the opposite happens

  • Johannes Christopher Gerard
    Director
  • Martin Toloko
    Key Cast
  • Marlene G Prinz
    Key Cast
  • Amudzi Mawuenya
    Key Cast
  • Johannes Christopher Gerard
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 1 second
  • Completion Date:
    March 18, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    Ghana
  • Country of Filming:
    Ghana
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital, H264, 1920x1080, 24 p
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Johannes Christopher Gerard

Born 1959. Studied at School of Printmaking and Design , Cologne, Germany and at Dun Laogharie School of Art and Design, (IADT) Dublin, Ireland. During his art career lived and worked among others in Ireland, Spain, Argentina, Taiwan, Australia, India, Russia, Armenia and Mexico . Currently lives in Berlin, Germany and The Hague, The Netherlands Since 1981 participation in exhibitions, projects, video/film festivals including : Europe, Far East and South Asia, Australia, North and South Americas and Africa. 2007 photography, installation, printmaking became main disciplines. In 2010 first photography installations. In 2014 first video films. At the same time became interested in performance arts. Since than conducted several video, photography and performance collaboration projects with artists from Taiwan, Russia, Netherlands and Germany. 2016 developed together with the theater teacher Denise Dröge a concept for an interdisciplinary and particapatory performance/workshop for school children (Here & Now). In 2017 developed this performance workshop further for adults audience (Unfolded & Unwrapped). In 2016/2017 made a series of videos (Anticipating You) related to the poems of the Russians poets Alexander Blok and Anna Akhmadova. Between 2018 and 2019 collaboration video, photography and performances projects (Yerevan in March / Conecta – No Conecta) with theater students and artists in Yerevan, Armenia and Mexico City , Mexico

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Director Statement

Most of the video works are short audio-visual essays that incorporate the moving image, musical elements and textual insertions. The laconic and almost wordless stories that develop on the screen are narrated by a traveler undertaking a life-long journey. They often combine cityscapes, studio shots and choreographic/theatrical scenes involving models and sometimes the artist himself. In many of the works one can feel a considerable influence of the Eastern cultural tradition. Several video works included footage from earlier works, which is connected to the ‘ongoing’ strategy of the artistic creation. This approach implies re-using materials from previous projects and producing new bodies of work based on re-arranging and re-thinking past experiences from a new perspective. The subjects of the videos are the same as by the work from other disciplines: identity, relations (between humans, human – cultures, human- nature and locations), sexual issues, transition, boundaries, lost, loneliness, inner strife, time, destruction, death.