Fluid Formations

As part of Ultima’s context programme Fluid Formations, Ultima, MIRAGE and Vega Scene present an extensive film programme on Saturday September 14. The films Taming the Garden (2021) by Salomé Jashi, Victor Kossakovsky's Aquarela (2020), and Geographies of Solitude (2022) by Jacquelyn Mills, invite reflection on how to attune to our environments amidst ongoing geopolitical crises and an accelerating climate emergency. The screenings will open with video introductions by the filmmakers.

﹏ Vega 3, 17:15 - 19:00

Taming the Garden
with an introduction by MIRAGE Film Festival

With Taming the Garden, the Georgian film director Salomé Jashi moves the concept of uprooting from its metaphorical meaning into an oppressive, tangible and yet surreal reality. A powerful man, who is also the former prime minister of Georgia, has developed an exquisite hobby. He collects century old trees along Georgia’s coastline. He commissions his men to uproot them and bring them to his private garden. Some of these trees are as tall as 15-floor-buildings. And in order to transplant a tree of such dimensions some other trees are chopped down, electric cables are shifted and new roads are paved through mandarin plantations.


﹏ Vega 1, 19:30 - 21:10

Aquarela
with an introduction by the filmmaker

“Through the lens of water you are able to experience all known human emotion,” explains Victor Kossakovsky, director of Aquarela. During a stay on the Baltic coast, he noticed how water changes from hour to hour with new colors, movements and energy. Aquarela is his attempt to capture all these different emotions, be they exquisite or unnerving. There's ecstasy and inspiration, but also destruction and human suffering. We see cars sinking into Lake Baikal, which thawed weeks earlier than normal. Caught in an intense storm, a sturdy sailing ship is no more than a helpless plaything. A wall of water surges through Miami during Hurricane Irma. Here, humans are reduced to supporting roles as Kossakovsky prioritizes the breathtaking scenes that reveal the many personalities of water – in the wild waves and gentle brooks, on melting ice caps and at the highest waterfall in the world. The scenes are amplified by the film score, composed by composer and cellist Eicca Toppinen and performed by Finnish symphonic metal band Apocalyptica.

﹏ Vega 3, 21:30 - 23:20

Geographies of Solitude
with an introduction by director and sound designer Jacquelyn Mills

For more than 40 years, Zoe Lucas has lived on Sable Island, a small sliver of land—30 by 1½ km—off the Nova Scotia coast, in the Atlantic Ocean. She lives in complete harmony with the magnificent natural environment that she studies, charts, and maintains—where possible. Filmmaker and sound designer Jacquelyn Mills follows Lucas on her daily walks across the island, in a variety of weather conditions, and captures them on 16mm film. The two women inspire one another with their interest in research and art, and this gives rise to new projects. One involves using natural materials such as horse dung, algae and plants for the recording and developing of film. The results become part of the cinematic experience accompanied by experimental music “made” by insects. But Lucas’s life on the island is not all idyllic, because pollution, especially from plastics, has reached Sable Island. A sense of impermanence intensifies the melancholic undertone and beauty of the film.