Donkey

The eclipse of/on an eggshell.

An elephant’s proboscis in action.

An encounter at Jardim Zoológico de Lisboa shot in 16mm by JMG+PP.

A rite of passage.

Short silent film.

Fried eggs as a cosmic event.

A silent 16mm film vertical portrait on sleeping flamingos.

16mm film, colour, no sound, 2’25” colaboration with lamu palm oil factory, production museo marino marini

The head of a turtle coming out of her shell. The slow motion provides for bizarre analogies: a child coming out of her mother’s wombs, an alien birth, as if you could only speak of an absolute stranger being born. 16mm film, colour, no sound, 2'40" Produced by Frac Île-de-France/Le Plateau, Paris

16mm film installation, 5 projections composition, 120 meters of silent 16mm color film

Short film by João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, filmed at Lohmuehle Leustetten.

16mm film, colour, no sound, 2'47" Produced by Brodbeck Foundation, Catania, Italy

A profile portrait on a “nicotine dream” travels along with the frame of the camera while everything else is moving. The hair fashions a trimmed motive of a pipe, or is it Nike’s logo? the immobile head puffs away the smoke from a lit cigarette butt. 16mm film, colour, no sound, 2'29" Produced by Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan.

A glassmaker removes an amber piece of molten glass from a high-temperature oven, rolls the glass in a tube, and lets a drop fall down in one continuous stretch to the floor.

35mm film transferred to 16mm, colour, no sound, 2'42"

João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva have produced a series of silent films in 16 mm and 35 mm that, scientifically yet with a touch of irony, present small physical actions and particular optical phenomena. Their inventories of nature and their perspective respond to a physical world that is visible and yet invisible, where the concrete is always presented as something concealed. Something that the filmmakers call “abyssology, a transitory science of the indiscernible”. The simple compositions and the tricks they adopt, such as the use of slow motion or superimposed images, are reminiscent of the silent films of the early days of cinema and the chronophotography of Étienne-Jules Marey.