35mm motion-picture film to HD ~ color & sound ~ 10 min. 

 

a film by Ralitsa Doncheva

montage ~ Ralitsa Doncheva

sound design ~ Robin Pineda Gould

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Thank you ~ Richard Kerr, The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema

 

Unfortunately It Was Paradise (2016) begins with an idyllic picture reminiscent of a postcard; spring waters emerge in a lake surrounded by buildings. Almost motionless, human figures slowly appear in the foreground, walking through fields of grass. We hear a distant echo. A female voice whispering and singing in Serbian.

 

Composed of 1970s Ukrainian documentaries and propaganda film, Unfortunately It Was Paradise transforms daily rituals and repetitive gestures into intimate and dream-like architectures, a space of dreaming and contemplation. Focusing on material traces and textures in the images, the film seeks to unravel their hidden histories and capture their shadows in new light. A sense of the past in the present landscape. 

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SCREENINGS

 

2014

Cinéma Excentris, La Distributrice Group Screening, Montréal, QC

Visions, Microcinema Etre, Montréal, QC

 

2013

RIDM Film Festival, Montréal, QC

La Maison de l’Architecture with Groop Index & Nyctalop Mélodie, Poitier, France

Daïmôn Center, The World You Know as One Piece After Another, Gatineau, QC

The Light and Shadow Salon with Groop Index, London, UK Cinéma

Excentris, Made in Montréal Vol. II, organized by Double Negative, Montréal, QC 

 

2012

FOFA Gallery, exhibition, Montréal, QC

The Unending Silence of Space, exhibition, Eastern Bloc New Media & Interdisciplinary Art, Montréal, QC