Eija-Liisa Ahtila at Sundance

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The film jumps back and forth between two narratives, and death plays a role in each. The first, set in 1950s Algeria and inspired by an account in Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, features the story of two Algerian boys who murder their young French friend to avenge the French army’s atrocities against Algerians in the War of Independence. The second, set in an allegorical present, features a visit from black-robed Death (“a classical Northern Death, kind of the Ingmar Bergman death”) to the home of a poet, just as the latter begins to conceive of and write the story of the two Algerian boys.

Where Is Where? employs four images on a split screen (or six separate screens, if shown in an installation), is in constant flux between its two stories, and frequently mixes different types of shots (black-and-white and color, staged and documentary), but for all its postmodern subversion of form, narrative, and genre, the film is held together by a strong, old-fashioned moral core. Ahtila’s work takes on such hot-button issues as colonialism, religion, and indiscriminate violence, and it culminates in an unforgettable sequence in which the two boys, attempting to explain why they committed murder, reveal their naivete and despair without ever being let off the hook for their simplistic notions of justice.

Where Is Where? will have five separate screenings over the course of Sundance’s nearly two-week run (January 15–25). Here are five other films Ahtila recommends you check out at the festival:

1. The Casting, by Omer Fast

"I saw this at the Whitney Biennale and thought it was really interesting. I love to see multiple-screen works; it allows me to follow what other artists are doing in the field. At Sundance I should have more time to see this from the beginning to the end and compare it to my own work, to my own ideas. I love to see how others artists have solved the problems associated with telling stories in space."

2. Burma VJ, by Anders Ostergaard

"This is a documentary about the Buddhist monks who led a rebellion in Burma last year. The monks shot what they were doing with small video cameras and then smuggled the materials to Thailand, where they were sent to Norway and then broadcast back to Burma via satellite."

3. Exit, by Sharon Lockhart

"I saw her film Teatro Amazonas (1999) in Berlin [several] years ago, and I’m just really curious to see what she’s doing now. I don’t know anything about this film, but I’m very interested in Lockhart as an artist, based on what I’ve seen before."

4. Agency of Time (Part 1b), by Leighton Pierce

“This [installation work uses film to present] a description of time. It’s a manipulation of time with a moving image. That always interests me.”

5. Evolution of Fearlessness, by Lynette Wallworth

“This is an interactive work, which I always find interesting. According to the press material, the viewer ‘enters a dark room to learn about stories about women who have survived war zones. Afterward, the viewer can walk up to a threshold in the room to meet and touch to the women.’”