Gorodets: A Museum of Muted Talks is a documentary film-installation about the disappearance of thousands of villages in the centuries-old backlands of Russia. The project collects images and conversations in an attempt to re-construct or ‘re-invent’ a reality no longer inhabited by humans, where the camera works as a lonely, posthumous eye-witness. ‘Gorodets’ means little town in Russian and represents countless unpeopled places that soon will be erased from the map. The installation presents a film as if it were a painting, but one in need for a gaze and an engagement of the spectator, who has to actively sculpt the film and put into motion the voices of the past and the muteness of the present.
Credits: Production & concept: Valentina Stepanova in collaboration with Niko Hafkenscheid
Co-production: IDFA Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, workspacebrussel, A kind of space Brussels.
With the support of: Projectsubsidie Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, IDFA Doclab Amsterdam. Presented at: M HKA Antwerpen, IDFA Doclab 2017 Amsterdam, Kaap kunstencentrum Oostende, Kunstencentrum Nona Mechelen, Argos Kunstencentrum Brussel.
