Vivian Ostrovsky

Durante os anos 1970, junto com um grupo de artistas, Anna Bella Geiger foi pioneira no uso do vídeo como linguagem e suporte. O impacto do seu trabalho advém também da multidisciplinaridade de sua obra e de seu ativismo político e social. Neste ensaio audiovisual, ilustrado com trechos de vídeos, documentos correlatos e outras obras de arte do período, Geiger discute, em entrevista realizada em 2017, sobre seus vídeos preservados pelo Brazilian Film and Video Preservation Project, realizado pela Ostrovsky Family Fund.

Going through my mini DVs shot over the past decade, I rediscovered a forgotten night sequence of Chantal Akerman and Sonia Wieder-Atherton leaving a brasserie where we had dined together in Montparnasse. The excerpt stayed with me for a while. This prompted me to focus on Chantal’s sound work in her films and her very close collaboration with cellist, Sonia Wieder-Atherton with whom she made more than 20 films. And, since New York, Paris and Moscow were places the three of us had in common, I intertwined some of my images with hers.

A Russian can say, “I hear the smell…” A maestro has a vision of what a symphony should sound like. In a silent film how can one make the spectator see the sound? A vivid and noisy assemblage of archival and contemporary imagery meditating on the past and presence of film audio.

A fragmented tribute to Ukranian-Brazilian novelist and fashion journalist Clarice Lispector that interrogates the idea of 'in-betweenness', the intermission, a hiatus.

Statues of dictators fall in the wind of history, a very pissed off Silvana Mangano is surrounded by scenes involving Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd, who are themselves in conversation with Truffaut's 400 Blows and Medvedkine's Happiness.

A new short film by Vivian Ostrovsky remembering Chantal Akerman, beginning with their first meeting in the early 1970s. Using her own footage of Chantal Akerman, the filmmaker remembers a few moments that illustrate Chantal's personality. Forty years of friendship condensed into four minutes...

A new short film by Vivian Ostrovsky remembering Chantal Akerman, beginning with their first meeting in the early 1970s. Using her own footage of Chantal Akerman, the filmmaker remembers a few moments that illustrate Chantal's personality. Forty years of friendship condensed into four minutes...

A new short film by Vivian Ostrovsky remembering Chantal Akerman, beginning with their first meeting in the early 1970s. Using her own footage of Chantal Akerman, the filmmaker remembers a few moments that illustrate Chantal's personality. Forty years of friendship condensed into four minutes...

Starting out with super 8 reels of Paris catwalks I shot in 1979/1980, what was supposed to be an experimental short on couture culture turned into a study of style. Deleuze’s definition of style: “creating a foreign language in one’s own language”, was the catalyst, inducing me to loosen the initial threads of fashion and to search for other textures. Stitched together, these intertwined images of Coco Chanel, Courrèges, Cole Porter, and Kaiser Karl, speak of style, films, fashion and fun. Seamlessly Losing the Thread.

Portrait of Brazilian artist Ione Saldanha.

"A sketch on skis - in memory of my father, an urban snowman [...] December 2012"

An intimate film made on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Vivian Ostrovsky's father, Rehor Ostrovsky’s death. The film is pasted together using artifacts from and footage of places and situations that form a part of the everyday nature of traveling between large cities: the experience of constant travel and disrupted communications. Objects stand for stories from the road; family memories about traveling between countries and cultures remind us of the movement of history.

A delightful update of Jacques Tati’s classic Les Vacances de M. Hulot (Mr. Hulot’s Holidays). Seagulls squawk, waves crash and swimmers cavort in endless summer days spent on the beach. TATITUDE suggests that sand, water and sun are the basic elements in a happy, carefree life, and maybe even the secret to eternal youth.

Composed of fragments from over 25 films dating from the 1920s to the 90s. A faced-paced, heart-pounding cinephilic farce.

This video was made for an exhibition in Rio on Paulo Werneck, one of Oscar Niemeyer's collaborators. Werneck was the first to introduce mosaics in Brazilian Modernist architecture. P.W. shows the context of the artist's work in Rio and Belo Horizonte in the 50s and 60s as well as Brasilia at the time of its construction in 1960. It's an inventive collage of archival footage, music and Werneck's modernist mosaics.

This video was made for an exhibition in Rio on Paulo Werneck, one of Oscar Niemeyer's collaborators. Werneck was the first to introduce mosaics in Brazilian Modernist architecture. P.W. shows the context of the artist's work in Rio and Belo Horizonte in the 50s and 60s as well as Brasilia at the time of its construction in 1960. It's an inventive collage of archival footage, music and Werneck's modernist mosaics.

This video was made for an exhibition in Rio on Paulo Werneck, one of Oscar Niemeyer's collaborators. Werneck was the first to introduce mosaics in Brazilian Modernist architecture. P.W. shows the context of the artist's work in Rio and Belo Horizonte in the 50s and 60s as well as Brasilia at the time of its construction in 1960. It's an inventive collage of archival footage, music and Werneck's modernist mosaics.

Fone Fur Follies is the English version of Télépattes.

Fone Fur Follies is the English version of Télépattes.

Fone Fur Follies is the English version of Télépattes.

Fone Fur Follies is the English version of Télépattes.

A felinosophy of life.

A felinosophy of life.

A felinosophy of life.

A felinosophy of life.

Funny collage of sea, sun and ice. A show from the beach with skiers, tigers, mermaids and much more.

Funny collage of sea, sun and ice. A show from the beach with skiers, tigers, mermaids and much more.

Funny collage of sea, sun and ice. A show from the beach with skiers, tigers, mermaids and much more.

The film is a travelogue of sorts. Ostrovsky’s personal family footage meets the archives of Soviet propaganda footage. The result is a kind of Khruschev-era mix with a collage of Soviet music and a voice-over of my reminiscences of the Cold War era.

The film is a travelogue of sorts. Ostrovsky’s personal family footage meets the archives of Soviet propaganda footage. The result is a kind of Khruschev-era mix with a collage of Soviet music and a voice-over of my reminiscences of the Cold War era.

The film is a travelogue of sorts. Ostrovsky’s personal family footage meets the archives of Soviet propaganda footage. The result is a kind of Khruschev-era mix with a collage of Soviet music and a voice-over of my reminiscences of the Cold War era.

The film is a travelogue of sorts. Ostrovsky’s personal family footage meets the archives of Soviet propaganda footage. The result is a kind of Khruschev-era mix with a collage of Soviet music and a voice-over of my reminiscences of the Cold War era.

The film is a travelogue of sorts. Ostrovsky’s personal family footage meets the archives of Soviet propaganda footage. The result is a kind of Khruschev-era mix with a collage of Soviet music and a voice-over of my reminiscences of the Cold War era.

A trip to Russia by two filmmakers in 1990, forms the bulk of this twin-screen projection, finished some 9 years later; Their super-8 footage mixed in with archival material (and a sprinkling of the classics such as Vertov and Eisenstein).

A trip to Russia by two filmmakers in 1990, forms the bulk of this twin-screen projection, finished some 9 years later; Their super-8 footage mixed in with archival material (and a sprinkling of the classics such as Vertov and Eisenstein).

A trip to Russia by two filmmakers in 1990, forms the bulk of this twin-screen projection, finished some 9 years later; Their super-8 footage mixed in with archival material (and a sprinkling of the classics such as Vertov and Eisenstein).

A trip to Russia by two filmmakers in 1990, forms the bulk of this twin-screen projection, finished some 9 years later; Their super-8 footage mixed in with archival material (and a sprinkling of the classics such as Vertov and Eisenstein).

Originally a text in fragments, more or less biographical, of different characters. Crossed stories, mixed times, memories and inventions. Coming from the voices encountered. They look like text like sisters. They are the voices of memory, the shadows cast by the characters, the voices of girls, the voices of indecision and evocation. We begin with this work: to read, to record (in analog, it takes breath). Here comes a place, a place found: the foliage of a vine in the South, crossed by the wind Mistral: a landscape. Where are we? Where the boy dies, would we see what he sees? Where was the child playing in the neighborhood? At the heart of the narrative, at the heart of the written word? That would happen. Harvesting images, shifting gears, Multiplying the generations with the listening of the voices, even in memory sometimes.

Absorb these images, “breathing slowly, quietly, and very calmly. Sinking softly, silently…” Drift into a relaxing reverie.

Absorb these images, “breathing slowly, quietly, and very calmly. Sinking softly, silently…” Drift into a relaxing reverie.

Absorb these images, “breathing slowly, quietly, and very calmly. Sinking softly, silently…” Drift into a relaxing reverie.

Brooklyn boxers and boucing balls.Catalan dancers and Provençals dogs. The Douro, the Danube, Biarritz, Brazil. In super 8 colours and black and white sounds.

Brooklyn boxers and boucing balls.Catalan dancers and Provençals dogs. The Douro, the Danube, Biarritz, Brazil. In super 8 colours and black and white sounds.

In 10th. Century Japan, Sei Shonagon, lady-in-waiting to the Empress, wrote of the goings-on at the Japanese court. Fearing vengeance, she hid these secret notes in her pillow. UTA MAKURA is also a collection of humorous observations on modern-day Japan ranging from waterfalls to shopping malls, from kids in kimonos to fresh makimonos, from ancient wisteria to teen- age hysteria, from homemade noodles to live painted poodles.

Readings. Heinrich von Kleist / Robert Walser. Contiguous. They talk about imagination. Walser imagines Kleist, Kleist nobody, but Penthesilea. In the new desert islands that are the enclaves of flowers of the city. Roses of sidewalks. Wild spaces with anonymity, truncated and without paths, in the banal stones of any career, inscribe and break the voices of an abrupt literary, hermetic and arid fragments in the image of places, almost no of place. Images figures of writing. In the blind corner. Without access. Very few signs.

"Vivian Ostrovsky's intriguing film focuses on the French dancer- choreographer Mathilde Monnier, now the director of the National Choreographic Center of Montpellier. Like the dance film it is paired with, M.M.in MOTION exhibits a surrealist sensibility but the mood is playful and the movements full of quirky and ironic juxtapositions" (Film Society of Lincoln Center)

"Vivian Ostrovsky's intriguing film focuses on the French dancer- choreographer Mathilde Monnier, now the director of the National Choreographic Center of Montpellier. Like the dance film it is paired with, M.M.in MOTION exhibits a surrealist sensibility but the mood is playful and the movements full of quirky and ironic juxtapositions" (Film Society of Lincoln Center)

"Vivian Ostrovsky's intriguing film focuses on the French dancer- choreographer Mathilde Monnier, now the director of the National Choreographic Center of Montpellier. Like the dance film it is paired with, M.M.in MOTION exhibits a surrealist sensibility but the mood is playful and the movements full of quirky and ironic juxtapositions" (Film Society of Lincoln Center)

"Vivian Ostrovsky's intriguing film focuses on the French dancer- choreographer Mathilde Monnier, now the director of the National Choreographic Center of Montpellier. Like the dance film it is paired with, M.M.in MOTION exhibits a surrealist sensibility but the mood is playful and the movements full of quirky and ironic juxtapositions" (Film Society of Lincoln Center)

The voices say a story. forget it. Of what time. And who speaks. Both of them. One or the other. later. Others may be. Of chance. Which would cross in this narrative. When. The times have intermingled. The winds meet. History. Pictures. The summer. Humble vacancy with furtive foliage. Fragile memory. Light is a trace of forgetfulness.

An observation of humans' and animals' table manners as they gulp down breakfasts, lunches, cocktails and dinners in a variety of situations.

An observation of humans' and animals' table manners as they gulp down breakfasts, lunches, cocktails and dinners in a variety of situations.

An observation of humans' and animals' table manners as they gulp down breakfasts, lunches, cocktails and dinners in a variety of situations.

"Readings. A place. Purity of lines. Fine angles. Dominance of whites and blues. Fragility of tapered glasses." A visual evocation of the writing of Katherine Mansfield.

Sarah and Paul leave their native California once a year to eat their way through France. They test the Michelin guide’s recommendations for three-star restaurants (the top rating) and between meals still have time to do some wine tasting at the best cellars. The filmmaker follows them around in a second car.

USA + USSR = USSA. My film is about blurred boundaries, probably due to my own personal history. I was born in New York, to Russian and Czech parents, raised in Brazil and educated in France. As a result, the film is a cultural cocktail shot on super 8 in New York, Berlin, Milan and Paris.

USA + USSR = USSA. My film is about blurred boundaries, probably due to my own personal history. I was born in New York, to Russian and Czech parents, raised in Brazil and educated in France. As a result, the film is a cultural cocktail shot on super 8 in New York, Berlin, Milan and Paris.

USA + USSR = USSA. My film is about blurred boundaries, probably due to my own personal history. I was born in New York, to Russian and Czech parents, raised in Brazil and educated in France. As a result, the film is a cultural cocktail shot on super 8 in New York, Berlin, Milan and Paris.

A month in the country. In summer, a group of friends rent a house in southern France. People come and go, making their way through chickens, dogs and cats. Playful sounds and a wacky collage of music make up the soundtrack.

A month in the country. In summer, a group of friends rent a house in southern France. People come and go, making their way through chickens, dogs and cats. Playful sounds and a wacky collage of music make up the soundtrack.

A month in the country. In summer, a group of friends rent a house in southern France. People come and go, making their way through chickens, dogs and cats. Playful sounds and a wacky collage of music make up the soundtrack.

An unknown writer written under the pseudonym of Laure at the beginning of the century. Readings. Geography. The places of a writing. The forces that create, traverse and lose it. The two image strips will be contiguous on the same screen. Their continuous and simultaneous operation. Two mirrors. The voices and their silences are reflected in it. Fade away.

A humorous glimpse of what happens every morning on the wavy sidewalks of Copacabana Beach. Physical fitness, Brazilian style, with a dash of soccer and hints of Carmen Miranda.

A humorous glimpse of what happens every morning on the wavy sidewalks of Copacabana Beach. Physical fitness, Brazilian style, with a dash of soccer and hints of Carmen Miranda.

A humorous glimpse of what happens every morning on the wavy sidewalks of Copacabana Beach. Physical fitness, Brazilian style, with a dash of soccer and hints of Carmen Miranda.

With a super 8 camera from Paris to Berlin, from Amsterdam to Rio, from Jerusalem to New York shooting only at night. Hungarian crooners, Indian tribal chants, opera arias, and an occasional samba make up the sound track of this “hand-held” diary.

With a super 8 camera from Paris to Berlin, from Amsterdam to Rio, from Jerusalem to New York shooting only at night. Hungarian crooners, Indian tribal chants, opera arias, and an occasional samba make up the sound track of this “hand-held” diary.

With a super 8 camera from Paris to Berlin, from Amsterdam to Rio, from Jerusalem to New York shooting only at night. Hungarian crooners, Indian tribal chants, opera arias, and an occasional samba make up the sound track of this “hand-held” diary.

Portrait. She dances in the center of her area. Obscure to the look. She abandons us to her limit. Turn. Count the chips. Conjugate. Turn on yourself, in a blind echo. Cross the already deserted space.

Vivian Ostrovsky is a nomad film-maker, born in New York. Student in Brazil then in Paris, which takes its camera of continent in continent since 1980. Her work, in the border of the documentary and the experimental, touches the filmed journals and is interested in the individuals rather than in the masses, in the physical language, in the unusual of the situations and in the sensible editing of the images and the sounds.