One of the world's leading digital film festivals, onedotzero makes a long overdue return to Taiwan five years after first landing on the island. Since its inception in 1996, the festival has commissioned, produced, championed and showcased innovative moving-image works that cross the boundaries of design, music, architecture, interactive media, computer gaming and live audio and visual performances.
Onedotzero's cross-over approach is embraced by an unprecedented range of talent from mediums traditionally outside the category of film, gaining it a rare platform to share their boundary-breaking visions with international audiences, as the expanding digital film showcase makes regular travels to over 60 cities worldwide each year.
To celebrate its 10 years of adventure in moving images, the production and distribution company put together the onedotzero_10 international tour. Its Taipei stop features curated screening programs and live visual and audio explorations by VJs from the UK.
First to bring on the digital craze is the moving-image installation and sound art performance by DJ Scanone and two VJ collectives from the UK, known as United Visual Artists (UVA). Proficient in art direction and software engineering, UVA is known for its groundbreaking amalgamation of science and art to deliver real-time and responsive experiences in any given live situation. UVA's evocative oeuvre includes collaborations with music giants such as Massive Attack, Basement Jaxx, U2 and the Rolling Stones.
Minivegas is another energetic new-media collective that delves into a broad range of digital experiments. From CGI, motion graphics, 2D and 3D animation to documentary and film, this group of media wizards has worked on high-profile projects with businesses such as Apple and Nissan. The technically savvy group also writes their own interactive software and has created interactive installations and produced music videos and concert visual installations for John Cale and Bloc Party.
Both UVA and Minivegas will join tomorrow's panel discussions along with onedotzero president Shane Walter and vice-president Anna Doyle to share their experiences and expertise on the new-media industry.
The one-week long moving-images screenings will kick off this Sunday, grouping works by over 200 artists and art collectives from around the world into eight sections. Terrain reconstructs contemporary city concepts and experiences in a new-media landscape from the built environment of capital and migration flows to surreal urban zones and imaginary technoscapes. Wow+flutter presents the driving force of onedotzero by illuminating new approaches to graphic filmmaking across a wide rang of disciplines from music, graphic design, illustration, fashion, architecture and beyond.
Acclaimed digital shorts and animation from across the globe that blend live action with animation to seek new forms of storytelling are compiled in extended play, while perspectives_new directions in documentary employs motion graphics, animation and live action as a means to contest the old models of factual filmmaking.
This year, onedotzero also focuses on exciting creations by Japanese moving imagemakers, whose skills can be seen in groundbreaking music videos.
The affinity between music and moving-images is further highlighted by the two feature-length collaborations between British band Saint Etienne and director Paul Kelly. Presented and scored by Saint Etienne, the first work Saint Etienne Finisterre: A Film About London is a hymn to London and takes viewers on a journey from the suburbs to the heart of the city over an imaginary 24 hours.
With an original score by the pop group, the second collaboration What Have You Sone Today Mervyn Day? is a creative documentary about the Lower Lea Valley, an industrial wasteland in east London that is about to be transformed into the site of the 2012 Olympic games.
Also traveling with the 10th digital film festival is onedotzero’s latest project — a collaboration with MTV in the form of a global competition for new talents. Budding filmmakers can enter by sending organizers a short film that explores identity and community. Winning works be screened on MTV channels worldide and will be featured on onedotzero’s film tour programs. For more information about submissions, visit www.mtvonedotzero.com.
A note about film submissions: According to organizer Royal Elastics, the deadline on the submission page of the Web site can be ignored as it will be moved to either the end of February or the end of March.
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