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Lina Sieckmann, Miriam Gossing

Souvenir

Doc. expérimental | 16mm | couleur | 20:50 | Allemagne | 2019

Souvenir explores the deserted inside of contemporary 36-hour- minicruise ferry ships between the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and the UK. As a low-budget replica of luxurious Caribbean cruises, the ship is in a constant state of transit, never arriving at a final destination. On board settings and décor bear reference to a European history of seafaring and trade while the actual ocean remains distant – in surveillance monitors, the on-board cinema and panoramic window fronts. A female voiceover is composed out of different interviews with seamen’s widows somewhere in between dialogue and inner monologue, circling around topics of distant love, fake luxury, colonial artifacts and a departure from society’s expectations. Starting from a documentary observation of the inside space, the limits of outer and inner reality become blurred over the course of the film. Single souvenirs as fetishized objects turn into a unified ornament as the point of view shifts from the individual to the collective. The film as a souvenir itself opens up memories of a colonial past, drawing a connection between the ship as the largest arsenal of imagination and the nautic space of the cinema.

As a directors duo they have produced several short films on 16-mm film, in which urban and private architecture, hyper-staged environment, subcultural individuals and the notion of desire are examined – combining documentary imagery with fiction and found footage.Their works are characterised by the depth of research and contact with communities and individuals, as well as by the clear lines in their approach to architecture and the worlds which shape desire, fear, anxiety, and alienation. There films have been awarded with numerous grants and scholarships and are shown internationally on film festivals and in art institutions, among them International Film Festival Rotterdam, Edinburgh International Film Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Anthology Film Archives New York City, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart Berlin, MoMa Antwerp, Julia Stoschek Collection)