March 23: Aliona van der Horst

After shooting two films right after each other, the time was ripe for the director to return to both her personal history and her development as a filmmaker. The reason was concrete: after the passing of her father, she found a student film she made in which she had interviewed people about their first memories. “Many people had strong sensory memories. My husband described the sound of the wheels of the stroller he must have ridden in as a toddler, on a seashell path under the moonlight.” And so, memory arose as the overarching theme for her program. 

“I wanted to look at the theme from both a personal perspective as well as reflect on our collective memory of war images and the role that archive plays in it. It is said that when we remember something, we only remember the memory, and each memory is recorded on top of the previous one. I am also intrigued by the relationship between film and memories.”

Based on the short films from the evening program Pavilion Shorts: Remembering, Aliona van der Horst talks to filmmakers and artists about our personal and collective memories and how to capture them in film. “Especially in times of war when the future seems invisible, it is good to look at the past.” She also draws inspiration for her new films from other art forms. Therefore, she invited Ukrainian composer Maxim Shalygin, who lives in the Netherlands, to talk about how his music has changed due to the war in Ukraine. Following this program, musician Fuenanta Mendez will sing about her experiences as a child in the Mexican jungle. There will also be drinks from 4:30 PM.

This program runs from 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM, followed by a drink during Doc Drinks.

Memories, or the act of remembering, are key to this composition of short films. The starting point is Van der Horst's own student film Memorabilia, in which she asks people to describe their earliest memories. What is the first thing that stuck in their mind, and what does it mean that this particular image is etched in their memory?

In Ten Minutes Older (1978) by Herz Frank we see a continuous shot of a child watching a puppet show, as a range of emotions cross her face. Van der Horst: “You see memories take shape in real time.” 

The short film 200000 Phantôms (2007) by Jean-Gabriel Périot will also be shown in this composition. This film consists of a rapid collage montage of photographs and postcards dating from the 1930s to today of the Genbaku Dome in Hiroshima—the only building that survived the atomic bomb. “Especially in times of war, when we are overwhelmed by images of Mariupol and Gaza, and the future seems invisible, it is important to look at the past.”

Finally, the short science fiction film in photo stills La jetée (1962) by Chris Marker will also be screened: “I can watch that film endlessly. It’s about someone’s first memory, but also about World War III. What fascinates me about the film is the simple fact of a memory can be so strong, it can throw you in a time loop.”

The films are English-spoken or subtitled. Aliona van der Horst will introduce each film.

Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar - 2023 - Asmae El Moudir - 96 min.

Filmmaker Asmae El Moudir takes an unorthodox approach for her reconstruction of a painful period in the history of her homeland Morocco, and of her own family. Her father has built a miniature replica of the house and neighborhood where she grew up. El Moudir situates family members and neighbors in this set, where they recount what happened during and after the Casablanca bread riots of 1981, which the government brutally crushed.

This film will be shown with English subtitles.