@ Filmhuis Cavia Amsterdam

@ Limestone bookstore Maastricht
@ Focus Filmtheater Arnhem

AMN Seasonal Festival - Spring 2024
BECOMING ABUDANCE. THIS IS THE TIME FOR GRACE 

Asian Movie Night Spring edition Becoming Abundance. This is the Time for Grace, is curated by Sun Chang. To celebrate International Womxn's Day, the programme aims to create a space of belonging, a space for love and joy in womxnhood. 

The concept of abundance is formed by our affinity with each other. It travels through communities in its situated geographies. As in Mandarin language, Womxn shares the same spelling as 我们, which means We in English.

This programme connects sinophone women and queer filmmakers, through a series of film screenings, discussions, and empowering activities. It navigates from the inland birthplace to the senior house of the unmarried womxn’s group on the coast, from the synchronised dance choreography to the uncommon language we met in, from the indigenous Hmong’s land to diaspora towards statelessness.

Quoting our sister, the Black Feminist Alexis Pauline Gumbs: Thank you to those of you who have pushed through portals already, even out of this life. Thank you for those of you living and evolving, the vulnerability of your newness is an example to us all. Thank you to those who hold me accountable, who expect me to be who I need to become.

This programme is a journey for thanking You and becoming We.


Becoming Abundance, This is the Time for Grace will be screened at Cavia Amsterdam (9.3), Limestone Books, Maastricht (16.3), FOCUS Arnhem (tba).

Join us for an immersive guided meditation ‘ Weavers’ at Filmuis Cavia with Susana Pedrosa. Music by Maia Stenberg.

While walking my path, I know that I am one,  but I’m not alone. The rivers, valleys and mountains of my body carry the legacy of those who walked this earth before me. While this path that I walk is my own, the footprints of those who came before me are imprinted in my flesh and bones, blood and voice, beliefs and affections. I am because they were.

During this session we will align our heart beats for a moment and weave the invisible net of relations and legacies that we carry in our bodies.

* Everybody between 18-100 years old is welcome, no matter if you have a womb or not.

** You will be invited to take off your shoes during the meditation, so we suggest you bring warm socks.  

PROGRAM of CAVIA Amsterdam

Saturday 09.03.2024

14:00 - 14:05 Opening (5’)


14:05 - 14:45 Immersive guided meditation, Weavers, Susana Pedrosa.  Music by Maia Stenberg. (40’0’’) 
14:45 - 14:50 Waking up break (5')


14:50 - 15:40 Round 1 (50’)
Memories for the Future, Luka Yang Yuanyuan 杨圆圆 (7’35’’)
Mastr, you are marvellous! , Ye Funa 叶甫纳 (3’54’’)
The Everydayness of Being, Zhu Ming 朱铭 (1’03’’)
A Day of Gupo, Chen Jialu 陳嘉璐 (25’39’’)
Grounds of Coherence #1, but this is the language we met in, Shen Xin沈莘 (12’17’’)


15:40 - 15:55 Break (15’)


15:55 - 17:20 Round 2 (85’)
Selfie Kiss, Zhu Ming 朱铭 (0’30’’)
Master, Take me away～, Ye Funa 叶甫纳 (14’11’’)
Strongholds, Shen Xin 沈莘(70’49”)


17:20 - 18:00 Break (40’)


18:00 - 19:40 Round 3 (100’)
Virgin Blue, Niu Xiaoyu 牛小雨 (100’0’’)

19:35 End

TICKETS
€5,- / Cineville card free
Screenings are ticketed seperatelly.
It’s not possible to make reservations. Tickets can be bought at the bar half an hour before the film starts.

CAVIA


PROGRAM of Limestone Books Maastricht
Saturday 16.03.2024

15:00 - 15:05 Opening (5’)

15:05 - 15:55 Round 1 (50’)

• Memories for the Future, Luka Yang Yuanyuan 杨圆圆 (7’35’’)
• Mastr, you are marvellous! , Ye Funa 叶甫纳 (3’54’’)
• The Everydayness of Being, Zhu Ming 朱铭 (1’03’’)
• A Day of Gupo, Chen Jialu 陳嘉璐 (25’39’’)
• Grounds of Coherence #1, but this is the language we met in, Shen Xin 沈莘 (12’17’’) 

15:55 - 16:05 Break (10’)

16:05 - 17:30 Round 2 (total approximately 85’)

• Selfie Kiss, Zhu Ming 朱铭 (0’30’’)
• Master, Take me away～, Ye Funa 叶甫纳 (14’11’’)
• Strongholds, Shen Xin 沈莘(70’49”)

17:30 end of the event

The event is free

Limestone Books


PROGRAM  of FOCUS Arnhem
TBA

TBA

Focus


ABOUT

Susana Pedrosa (1983) is a European cis gendered woman born in Portugal and living in the Netherlands since 2009. She is a woman mentor and the founder of We Rise, a practice focused on healing, empowerment and co-creation, which combines somatic coaching, family systems, womb healing, ancestral knowledge and integrative health. We Rise supports women re-connecting to their bodies, breaking generational patterns, creating new habits and unleashing their power to create a healthy and abundant life aligned with their essence.

Pedrosa holds a BA and a Masters of Arts. Next to it and amongst numerous courses, workshops and training, she completed a Professional Dance Coach training, the OSRC Fundamentals System Coaching Training, and she is a Certified Holistic Health Coach for Women. She is currently taking Yin Yoga training and specialising in biohacking techniques for women.

Next to her practice, Susana is learning afro-Brazilian percussion and supports causes which promote inclusivity and diversity.

Curator 

Sun Chang is a social artist, cultural programmer and pedagogical designer based in Amsterdam, NL. Sun’s participatory and community-based projects investigate social fabrics and assigned social roles. By using art’s autonomy to re-exemplify the values of exchange, Sun deconstructs social relations and challenges notions of intimacy, family, ethnicity, and borders.
Sun is the initiator and artistic director of to M•Others, and the core team member at Travelling Farm Museum of Forgotten Skills for Casco Art Institute (2019 – 2020) and an artist-member in The Basic Activist Kitchen in BAK (2019 – 2020). Sun is an artist in residences at Framer Framed (2023-2024), Guangdong Times Museum (2022-2023), Witte Rook (2022), CBK Zuidoost (2021) and has received talent support from Mondriaan Fund (2022 – 2023).


Supported by Gemeenten Arnhem, Prince Bernhard Cultuur Fonds.

Memories for the Future
dir. Luka Yang Yuanyuan 杨圆圆 / 2020 / CN / 8’ / Mandarin w/ EN subs

On November 21, 1990, my father captured me with a video camera for the first time. It’s like a time capsule, carrying a period of time that I have personally experienced without any memory. On August 22, 2020, you are in a dark area of 0.3 x 0.4 x 0.3cm in your first photograph. I think about you all the time, even though I can’t see you. These 40 weeks are a period of time that you and I have experienced together, but cannot be remembered by you in the future. I hope to keep this memory for you.

Luka Yuanyuan Yang (b. 1989, Beijing) is a visual artist and filmmaker who weaves documentary and archival materials into diverse mediums like film, photography, artist books, installations, and performances, often exploring themes of identity, migration, and memory.

Luka’s artwork was collected by the KADIST Foundation. She has received support from institutions such as Asian Cultural Council and Asymmetry Art Foundation. She has also earned numerous international accolades, including BVLGARI Avrora Award (2023); Art Power 100 (2019); Huayu Youth Award (2016); Rencontres d’Arles The Arthor Book Award  (2015); Magenta Foundation (2013); and the Three Shadows Tierney Fellowship (2012).

Mastr, you are marvellous!
dir. Ye Funa 叶甫纳 / 2022 / CN / 4’ / Mandarin w/ EN subs
Mastr, you are marvellous! depicts a fictional scene in which a “Master” and a group of young people arrive at a town known for its art, visit the local artist, and develop a deep admiration for them. The “Master” and the young people decided to have an intimate interaction. For this piece, Wang Qing Song and other local artists from Jingdezhen play the roles of the masters, who represent the elite of the art system. By portraying an admiration for the Master, the attempt is to break down the barriers between the marginalised Smart (a grassroot community from migrant and urban-rural areas in China. They share digital identity and aesthetics through expressing the desire of owning your own future) and the elites, in order to discuss the current value judgement in the context of contemporary art.

Mastr, Take me away～
dir.Ye Funa 叶甫纳/ 2024 / CN / 14’ / Mandarin w/EN subs

Mastr, Take me away～ refers to a folk song, “Old Driver, Take Me”, which is turned into a parody music video. The video was made on Axilixi grassland and in the nearby village of Xiaohai. In this documentary, villagers dressed in traditional Hmong costumes talking about their aspirations and where they want to go; in the montage, the artist and the villagers are dressed in both traditional and contemporary costumes, sing and dance about the transformation of urban and rural areas and the birth of a “neo-folk” soul.

Ye Funa (b. 1986, Kunming), is currently doing Ph.D. at Slade School of Fine Art And teaches at the Central Academy of Fine art in Beijing.

Funa’s practice is mainly concerned with the relationship between the realities of everyday life, the perceived connection between authority and many areas of social life such as different power structures, ethnic groups, and the fictional space of propaganda for the concept of ‘perfection’ in an ideological system, and utopian landscape. The work of Funa is rich in reference, parody, and irony of the uniform culture. Recently Funa is organizing some internet-based participatory, crowd-sourcing projects, such as Exhibitionist: Curated Nail and Peep Stream. She is using the internet to work with people, questioning how the art system may be incorporated into our private lives and social activities. Recent exhibitions include “Flow Out” Bilsart, Istanbul & isthisitisthisit.com; “We=Link: Ten Easy Pieces”, Chronus Art Center (Shanghai); Art Center Nabi (Seoul); and Rhizome of the New Museum (New York), 2020; “From Hand to Hand”, Nottingham Contemporary，2018.

The Everydayness of Being
dir. Zhu Ming 朱铭 / 2019 / CN / 1’ 


Selfie Kiss
dir. Zhu Ming 朱铭 / 2019 / CN / 1’ 

Zhu Ming captures the current lifestyles of the commoners and portrays the everydayness that Zhu is situated in through the filming technique of casual and single continuous takes. The presence of the camera approaching is light and unobtrusive to keep the framed images in a natural condition and hold a mirror to contemporary social phenomenon.

Zhu Ming (1969, Wuhan) is a mother, daughter, retired office worker and an untrained artist.

A Day of Gupo
dir. Chen Jialu 陳嘉璐 / 2023 / CN / 26’ / Cantonese w/ CN & EN subs
Self-combed women's house: The custom is now recorded as having first begun in the mid-Ming Dynasty, when women living in the Pearl River Delta of Southern China, performed a comb-up ceremony to signify lifelong celibacy and were locally known as nun (spelled in cantonese as 'gupo'). Being excluded from the patriarchal clan system, the comb sisters pooled their money to buy a house to live in, called self-combed women's house (gupouk), on a shareholding basis. Apart from being used for housing, the house is also a meeting place and a collective shrine for them. In fact, in addition to the sworn celibate women, there were also widows and other homeless women who lived in the house. It also existed in Southeast Asia as they went to work in South East Asia.

In the video, one of the gupo GUAN Libo who lives in Panyu, Guangdong, is telling her own life story of her family, being factory workers and a rupture in continuity of a self-combed women's house. The video interweaves segments of the author exploring Gupouk found in different towns across the Pearl River Delta, along with performances of daily life, to rekindle the connection with the land and engage in dialogue with the imagined Gupo.

Chen Jialu is now living and working in Pearl River Delta. Since 2020, she has been focusing on the forgotten history of women's communities in Pearl River Delta with her project "Gupouk", exploring and documenting the ruins of Comb Sisters' houses and create works in different media, to provide different narratives and experiences, exploring autonomy, the connection between people and the land and how to tell a story. She has published her own artist books, "Cold Hearted"(2022) and "Seemingly Harmless"(2022). She gained Bachelor's degree in Fine Art from Chelsea College, University of the Arts London in 2015, was awarded a research grant by the HB Station of Contemporary Art Research Center (Guangzhou) from 2016-2017, and co-organised the art group 'NZTT Sewing Co-op' from 2017-2022, during this period, she initiated and organized a number of public events, became a member of Display Distribute since 2023.

Grounds of Coherence #1, but this is the language we met in
dir. Shen Xin 沈莘 / 2023 / CN / 12’ / Mandarin, Arabic, English w/ EN subs

Protests in regional Mandarin, words for a story in Arabic, and a couple telling myth felt in English, three languages map their movements through relations. What is heard, and what is then given meaning in these connectedness of migratory and loving nature, is paired to forms, and transmitted through possible sounds.

Strongholds
dir. Shen Xin 沈莘 / 2016 / CN, UK, NL / 71’ / Dutch, English w/EN subs


The film follows a Dutch couple’s visit to Samye Ling in Scotland, the oldest and once largest Tibetan Buddhism Temple in Europe. Staying with a local buddhist, the couple explores the surrounding nature, shop and cafe near the temple. They interview the abbot, Lama Yeshe Rinpoche about sufferings concerning their lived experiences, and hold a dance performance in front of the temple. Their visit to Eskdalemuir is also inhabited by lines of texts taken from Dharma websites of posts concerning present sufferings of individuals and collectives.

Shen Xin, born in Chengdu, Sichuan to its mountains, steppes, and waterways. Shen Xin lives in An t-eilean Sgitheanach (Isle of Skye) with their life partner Ali Van, and with their family in Mni Sota Makoce (Minnesota). Through those who teach, and their relations expressed in place, meaning, and sound, Shen Xin is a student of Tibetan, Arabic, and Gaelic. In states of shelter and exile, they seek the capacities of our custodial role to coevolve, conserve, and restore in learning communities. As a maker, they tell stories through moving images, painting, performance and sound. Their practice involves making embodied stories, where objects of processes such as film engage in and is part of the encoding of relations with dynamic and sentient systems in place, facilitating the reconciliation and reclaiming of received and invented technologies. Forging terms for remembrance of transgenerational markings carried and sensed in home geographies, they work with languages of returning, ritualizing imaginations, articulations and creations towards unhurt spaces of belonging. They learn and know with land-based patterns, while bearing witness to forms of governance.

Virgin Blue
dir. Niu Xiao Yu 牛小雨 / 2021 / CN/ 71’ / Hefei dialect & Mandarin w/EN subs

After her college graduation, Yezi comes back home to spend her last summer vacation with her grandmother. The house is filled with grandma's memories that gradually begin to take shape in reality. Her grandma slowly slips into the abyss of amnesia and time begins to lose meaning. Haunted by those memories, Yezi finds herself wandering among fragments of her family history.

Niu Xiao Yu is a director and screenwriter who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy, earning both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Animation and Experimental Film. Their independently produced short films, "Summer Fever" and "Summer FeverII" were selected for the 10th China Independent Film Festival and the 12th FIRST International Film Festival, respectively.