Screening view, Coming of Age, Videograms, Vilnius. Photo by Andrej Vasilenko.
Screening view, Coming of Age, Videograms, Vilnius. Photo by Andrej Vasilenko.
Screening view, B3 Festival of the Moving Image, Frankfurt am Main
Video still.
Video still.
Sacred Fire Within premiered in Vilnius in 2021 at Coming of Age artist’s moving image programme curated by Gerda Paliušytė, inspired by Lauren Berlant’s (1957-2021) philosophy and trajectories of thought.
“Berlant paid particular attention to affect, the plane of intimacy and feelings and its relationship to power structures; to that which can smother, or on the contrary – to disrupt repetition and resist control. Berlant was also highly critical of neoliberalism as an all-encompassing, repressive system, encouraging to search for a commonality that enables creativity and allows to reject normativity, preconceived “knowledge” and trivial system-imposed habits.”
The film had three iterations; the first version had a full soundtrack and voiceover, and the final version took the form of an atmospheric installation where subtitles and atmospheric sound narrated the images. This project was a transition from cinematic narrative into a focus on the image itself and its editing as the primary source of meaning. This piece helped me complete my exercise in narrative cinema and enter a new phase of work since 2023 in which I deconstruct its structures and work with its core elements. Sacred Fire Within was my first narrative film and the first time I filmed my own footage after working primarily with found footage since 2013.
“Berlant paid particular attention to affect, the plane of intimacy and feelings and its relationship to power structures; to that which can smother, or on the contrary – to disrupt repetition and resist control. Berlant was also highly critical of neoliberalism as an all-encompassing, repressive system, encouraging to search for a commonality that enables creativity and allows to reject normativity, preconceived “knowledge” and trivial system-imposed habits.”
The film had three iterations; the first version had a full soundtrack and voiceover, and the final version took the form of an atmospheric installation where subtitles and atmospheric sound narrated the images. This project was a transition from cinematic narrative into a focus on the image itself and its editing as the primary source of meaning. This piece helped me complete my exercise in narrative cinema and enter a new phase of work since 2023 in which I deconstruct its structures and work with its core elements. Sacred Fire Within was my first narrative film and the first time I filmed my own footage after working primarily with found footage since 2013.
Written and directed by: Daiva Tubutytė
Performance & choreography: Emmilou Rößling
Advisory & production coordination: Monika Lipšic, Julija Goyd
Driving assistance: Ruben Zemog
Cinematography: Daiva Tubutytė
Camera and production advisory: Désirée Pfenninger, Hee-Seong Han
Editing: Daiva Tubutytė
Voiceover & music: Daiva Tubutytė
Sound mastering: Miša Skalskis
Supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture.
Interview with Gerda Paliušytė and Gintė Regina: Screens Lit Up by One Moment, Artnews.lt, 2021. [LT] [EN]