Film Lounge: Second Sight

As part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 'Beyond EIFF' programme 19 – 30 June 
Curated by artist Valentina Bonizzi

Mare Chiuso, Director: Andrea Segre (2012) 60’ English subtitles 

The Closed Sea reveals the untold story of the endangered migrants who attempted to escape Libya to Italy during the 2011 war, only to be returned to the hands of Gadaffi. Curated by artist Valentina Bonizzi.

Beyond EIFF is a special programme through which EIFF engages with Edinburgh’s vibrant community of galleries, exhibition spaces and academic institutions to showcase the work of artists exploring the intersections among film, media and other arts. 

Stills invited film-makers to submit films about migration; whether their own story or an adaptation of a written work. We’re delighted to announce the following artists films have been selected for the 2013 programme:

All works courtesy the artist

The selected six film works recount personal stories of migration, all films are made by artists living in Scotland and each is narrated to the audience. In most, the artists also act as actors in the film-making process, creating a participatory process to question what drives us to distinguish our identity and the concept of belonging - and what's involved in the journey to define them.

The films to date, presented within the Second Sight Film Lounge programme, have employed differing storytelling approaches based on facts, the importance of the recorded image as an historical document and how this can be reinterpreted. In this new programme we encounter stories which are indisputable for their nature of being unique.

The works of Duncan Cowles, Pawel Grzyb and Olga Kaliszer revisit historical periods before, during and after WWII to unearth how events have affected their own sense of belonging, whereas the films of Sana Bilgrami and Taylor Witten tell stories of migration which start from a place in historical time and build up a story which reaches today.