Norient Film Festival: Program Release

TITLEPress Release 11th Norient Film Festival 2022 + 20 Years Norient
UPDATED 24.11.2021

Norient Film Festival: Program Release
Curated by an International Team from
India, Lebanon, Switzerland, and the U.K.

The Norient Film Festival is co-curating its upcoming 11th edition (12–16 January 2022,
Bern + online) for the first time with a multidisciplinary team, working from India,
Lebanon, Switzerland, and the U.K. NFF pushes forward its experimental nature and
celebrates Norient’s 20th anniversary (2002–2022) with a big step forward. The program
is broader than before, with strong regional focus on the U.K., the Arab World, India,
and Switzerland, including live performances, installations, and audiovisual lectures.
The vision of the new NFF and Norient is to work towards a festival of the future and to
become a stronger, innovative, co-curated hub for upcoming artists and thinkers, film,
new audiovisual formats, music, and sound.

«In 2002, Norient was an attack on Orientalism and Exoticism. It was about opening up to
contemporary music and expressions from the non-Western world. Now it is about creating a true,
international community of thinkers and artists, to co-curate and co-produce new audio-visual formats
to tell stories of our time» Thomas Burkhalter

The NFF Program

After two years of social distancing and a very successful online edition in 2021, the NFF returns to the
big screen, audience in tow. With a mixture of fiction and documentary films, Norient created a festival
program that speaks the language of diversity, with films from South and North America, Africa, India,
the Arab world, and Europe. The program emphasizes ideas of sensation, perception, and the senses;
life and death, politics and romance, music and dance, silence and noise all make appearances.
Audiovisual performances, live concerts, panel discussions, and DJ sets feature many renowned artists
from the U.K. and beyond, such as multidisciplinary artist Mark Fell, electronic acts Rian Treanor and
Giant Swan, drummer Julian Sartorius, and singer-songwriter-duo Ruth and Res Margot from Bern.

 All films and live acts with short texts and trailers can be found online at https://nff-bern.ch
 The program of the festival’s worldwide online version will be communicated in mid-December.

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The festival will open on Wednesday, January 12, 2022, with a psychedelic performance by London-
based audiovisual duo Sculpture and the Oscar-awarded film «Sound of Metal» by Darius Marder, a
fictional film about a heavy metal drummer who suddenly turns deaf. Further selected program
highlights are a documentary about punks in Indonesia (A Punk Daydream), a film about the struggles of
a female background singer in Bollywood (Shut Up Sona), and an archive-documentary on the Italian
cantautore Lucio Dalla (For Lucio). Co-artistic director Chafic Tabbara will discuss present-day
filmmaking in the Arab World with Lebanese sound designer Rana Eid (Beirut: Traces of a City – a Pod
Poem), and Moroccan director Ali Essafi (Before the Dying of the Light) and Delhi-based co-curator
Radha Mahendru will present histories of resistance from India through words and songs in an
afternoon performative lecture.

Curated by an International Team
The NFF 2022 sees video and sound artist Rebecca Salvadori (London, resp. for the music/live section)
and film critic Chafic Tabbara (Beirut, resp. for the film section) as artistic directors working together
with an international team of curators: associate professor in film and television history Dr. Monia
Acciari (Leicester), photographer and filmmaker Claudia Popvici (Zurich), curator, arts manager, and
cultural producer Radha Mahendru (New Delhi), and independent filmmaker Tamara Milosevic (Bern).

Something Personal in the Hands
Tabbara and Salvadori decided to consider individual backgrounds and the varied approaches and
interpretations around film, moving image, and sound encouraging the redefinition of individual
viewpoints. «There is something personal in the hands» is the thematic backbone of this year’s festival
edition and is to be understood as the desire of considering individuality. The idea developed into
having each curator in charge of a part of the program, coalescing in a constellation of varied
contributions representative of the different approaches and interests.

Info, Links, and Contact
Program, Trailer, Ticketing, and further Information: www.norientfilmfestival.com

Access to online screeners and interviews with Norient, the curators Rebecca Salvadori and Chaf
Tabbara, and/or Norient director Thomas Burkhalter, or directors and musicians involved: on request

Press material on films and live acts, festival promo: https://press.norient.com

Contact: Jessica Goodchild, jessica@goodchildpr.com

The NFF 2022 Is Supported by
Kultur Stadt Bern, Swisslos / Kultur Kanton Bern, Burgergemeinde Bern, Stiftung Temperatio, BEKB Förderfonds,
GVB Kulturstiftung, Gesellschaft zu Ober-Gerwern

PRESS RELEASE NFF NOVEMBER 2021 2/5

About the 11th NFF and 20 Years of Norient

The NFF explores the contemporary world through music and sound and is often
termed a leading festival for film and sound worldwide. Founded ten years ago by
Thomas Burkhalter (director of Norient, ethnomusicologist, and AV-artist) and Michael
Spahr (video artist, co-director of editions 1–4), the NFF intended from the beginning to
present deep stories, research, and thought from across the globe through captivating,
experimental, and at times challenging films, AV performances, concerts, DJ sets, video
lectures, and other digital formats.

The festival often sold out, presented films in various cities in Europe, and reached 4,000 people all
around the globe in its last digital-only edition. After the 10th edition, festival director Thomas Burkhalter
decided to hand over the curatorial direction and decision-making to an international and
multidisciplinary group of people, who from now on are the artistic directors and the new faces of the
festival. For Norient, the organization behind the festival, this is a logical step:

Norient started to increasingly give more editorial and curatorial power to artists and thinkers from
various places. We strongly believe that stories of our time need to be told from different perspectives,
by people from various backgrounds.

Norient (https://norient.com) was founded in 2002 – a play on words meaning No Orientalism, and an
allusion to Edward Said’s influential book Orientalism from 1978. Our concern was and is not only to
program films, music, sounds, and audiovisual works from outside the Euro-American world, but also to
make a perceptive selection and to share the power of curation with actors outside Europe. According
to the composer and musicologist Georg E. Lewis, the internationalization of curatorial decisions makes
an important contribution to the project of decolonization in general. Norient has already gained
experience regarding methodology and challenges with collective curation in several projects (in the
podcast series «Timezones», the exhibition «DisOrient», the publication «Sonic Traces: From Italy» as
well as in the planned virtual exhibition series «Norient City Sounds»).

Norient is an audiovisual gallery and a community (of practice) for the sound of the world: for
contemporary music, quality journalism, cutting-edge research, projects, and events like the Norient
Film Festival (NFF). Norient conceives music, sound, and noise as seismographs of our time, facilitating
space and place for thinkers and artists from (currently) fifty countries to tell new and different stories of
the now and tomorrow. The goal is to support (sub)cultural diversity, broaden horizons, and open up
dialogue across people, continents, and disciplines.

Our post-critical world needs visionary thinkers and artists – and strong, independent,
non-profit platforms – to promote their work and thought. Only together can we defy
algorithms and filter bubbles – and tell new stories that are heard far and wide.

Research must be made public! Good journalism is important! We need new voices,
perspectives, and positions – from Africa, Asia, Europe, Switzerland, from everywhere.

PRESS RELEASE NFF NOVEMBER 2021 3/5

Program NFF 2022

Wed, Jan 12, 2022 Fri, Jan 14, 2022

19.00 Live 1 Kino REX 17.30 Block 1 Kellerkino
Sculpture live AV (UK) The Devil’s Harmony (UK, 15’)
 Eli (USA, 11’)
20.45 Single Film 1 Kino REX Rez Metal (USA, 75’)
Sound of Metal (USA, 121’)
 18.30 Single Film 4 Kino Reitschule
Thu, Jan 13, 2022 That Cloud Never Left (IND, 65’)

17.30 Block 1 Kellerkino 18.30 Single Film 5 Kino REX
Desert Lights (MEX, 30’) A Symphony of Noise (DEU, 96’)
Flow (NLD/FRA, 14’)
That Cloud Never Left (IND, 65’) 20.30 Live 2 Dampfzentrale
 Firework Rhythms (Jack Dove, UK)
18.30 Single Film 2 Kino REX Era, Adesso, Più Volte (Real-Time
In Pursuit of Silence (USA, 139’) Sunrises) (Sandro Mussida, ITA/UK)
 Thalassophobia
20.00 Block 2 Kino Reitschule (Mark Fell feat. Julian Sartorius, UK/CH)
Shut Up Sona (IND, 85’)
Lima Screams (PER, 76’) 20.15 Block 4 Kino Reitschule
 A Punk Daydream (NED/IDN, 65’)
18.30 Single Film 3 Kino REX Burning Casablanca (MAR/FRA/BEL, 121’)
Max Richter’s Sleep (USA, 99’)
 21.00 Single Film 6 Kino REX
 For Lucio (ITA, 78’)

 23.00 Single Film 7 Kino REX
 Speak So I Can See You
 (SRB/HRV/QAT 73’)

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Sat, Jan 15, 2022

13.00 Block 5 Kellerkino
Hell (LEB, 11’) 22.00 Live 3 ISC Club
The Odor of Elephants after the Rain Static Light: Jack Dove (UK)
(LEB, 38’) Rian Treanor (UK)
Podcast Beirut: Traces of a City – a Pod Giant Swan (UK)
Poem (LEB, 24’) Princess P (Zukunft, CH)
Q&A live w/ Rana Eid
 00.00 Live 4 Kapitel
15.00 Single Film 8 Cinematte Voicedrone
Here We Move Here We Groove (NLD, 91’) b2b James Newmarch (FOLD, UK)
Q&A online w/ Sergej Kreso Anabel Arroyo (FOLD, UK)
 Phrex (Midilux/Dubtopia, CH)
15.15 Block 6 Kino Reitschule
The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs
(IND, 99’)
Kheyal (BGD, 24’)
Performative Lecture Sounds Like a
Revolution (IND, 60’)
 Sun, Jan 16, 2022
17.30 Performative Lecture SoSo Space
Sounds Like a Revolution (UK, 90’) 13.00 Single Film 13 Kellerkino
 PICO: Un parlante de Africa en America
17.45 Single Film 9 Cinematte (COL, 61’)
For Lucio (ITA, 78’) 15.00 Single Film 14 Cinematte
 Cumbia Around the World (ARG, 87’)
17.30 Talk SoSo Space
Representing & Representation: a 15.15 Block 8/1 Turnhalle im PROGR
Conversation about Club Culture (90’) Sandro Mussida Live (UK/ITA)
 L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat
19.45 Single Film 10 Cinematte (FRA, 1’)
A Punk Daydream (NED/IDN, 65’) My Cousin (USA, 50’)
 Muted (9’)
21.30 Single Film 11 Cinematte Talk
Burning Casablanca (MAR/FRA/BEL, 121’)
 19.00 Block 8/2 Turnhalle im PROGR
21.30 Single Film 12 SoSo Space Ruth & Res Margot Live (CH)
Flight of the Giant Swan (UK, 27’) Leah Walker DJ-Set (UK)

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