News, 04.03.2023

Winner Short Film Competition 2023

Jury Statement

No matter how hard I try

you keep pushing me aside.

And I can’t break through

there is no taking to you.

The film describes a contemptible relationship worthy of love. How else does one discover authenticity in a world of AI-chatbots, well-meaning friends and the dominance of the healing industry?

In a post-anthropocene world, post-human, post-emotion, post-red pill, what use do we have for one another? We all know that the government is onto us, even if it´s pathological. The protagonists, Hazel and Helen, remind us that humor and violent antagonism is the only way out of the naive platonist cave. With or without good special effects. Lizzy Deacon and Ika Schwander are unabashedly nostalgic for the present, with a mythical folklore of a farmland lost.

We are pleased to announce that the winning short film of the competition is Precautionary Measure by Lizzy Deacon and Ika Schwander. (Carla Lehner, Ayoto Ataraxia, Johannes Grenzfurthner)

Precautionary Measure

Lizzy Deacon, Ika Schwander • NL 2021 • 14min

After winning a life coaching session in a raffle at her local village hall, Helen is guided through the help she never really needed. Together with her life coach Hazel, they explore healing strategies to cope with fear, rejection and grief, raising the important question as to whom this pain really belongs to.

Director, Writer Lizzy Deacon, Ika Schwander

Biography

Lizzy Deacon, Ika Schwander are an artist duo working both in London and Maastricht. Their practice spans performance and moving image and explores ideas surrounding wildness, care and biological horror. They have performed/ exhibited at LUX Moving Image in London, Over Het IJ Festival, London Short Film Festival, The Lethaby Gallery, Tweetakt Utrecht, AUST Lisbon and The BF Artist Film Festival. They have also written for 3:AM Magazine, Columbia University’s Journal for Art Criticism, Random Access Magazine, and the Central Saint Martins; Key Lessons in Art and Design book.