Water – Leonardo da Vinci called it ’the blood of the planet’. A group of people emerges from the water. They try to resist the current of the river and the stream of people in the city, but have to surrender to the flow and are washed ashore. On the shore, the stranded seek for hold and refuge. In the course of the film ‘against or with the flow’, ‘resistance and devotion’ manifest as a primal instinct, as a survival strategy.
Andrea Boll – direction & choreography
Peter Kadar – camera & editing
Chris Fawcett – steadicam operator
Ivan Blagajcevic, Andrea Boll, Chris de Feyter, Hella Immler, Emeric Rabot – dance
Alex Zampini – music
Nico Gutmann / unico film – producer
Cinedans – coproducer
bollwerkfilm
supported by: BAK – Bundesamt für Kultur, Kanton Zürich Fachstelle Kultur, Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Opera+ Lucie Kocuurkova, / screening in KoresponDance Festival, CZ: English translation: The Swiss film Downriver, whose performing team is personally part of the festival every day and dances in the open air, was dominated by movement in the elements. It transforms physical dance movement into a harmony with the fluid energy of water flow, a connection with the earth and its hidden and unmanifested power pulsing beneath the green surface, and the interaction of dancers with the stone walls and streets of the city, where rhythmic to frenetic movements culminate, performers bump into each other in the nervous atmosphere of a confined space, the sun blazes, and passersby undergo a focus on their own dramas. The meadow is grounding and the water is an energizing element that understandably tempts the camera’s eye to a variation on the Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia a thousand times over. The film has very good camerawork that doesn’t cause vertigo with unnecessary swooshing, but follows key moments of movement, individual expression and interaction between the dancers.
Czech original artical text:
Švýcarskému filmu Downriver, jehož interpretační tým je každý den osobně součástí festivalu a tančí pod širým nebem, vévodil pohyb v živlech. Přeměňuje fyzicky taneční pohyb do souznění s plynulou energií vodního toku, spojení se zemí a její skrytou a nemanifestovanou silou tepající pod zeleným povrchem a interakci tanečníků s kamennými zdmi a ulicemi města, kde kulminují rytmické až frenetické pohyby, performeři na sebe narážejí v nervózní atmosféře stísněného prostoru, slunce žhne a kolemjdoucí procházejí soustředění na svá vlastní dramata. Louka je uzemňující a voda je energizující živel, který pochopitelně svádí oko kamery k variaci na prerafaelickou Ofélii tisíckrát jinak. Film má velmi dobrou kameru, která nezpůsobuje závrať zbytečným švenkováním, ale sleduje klíčové okamžiky pohybu, individuálního výrazu a interakce tanečníků.
Jury Amarcort Film Festival 2012 about DOWNRIVER: Original text in Italian:
“L’elemento cinematografico viene coniugato in modo spettacolare, e con alta professionalità tecnica, al linguaggio corporeo in relazione con l’ambiente circostante evocando diverse emozioni basate anche sull’aspetto qualitativo della colonna sonora e del movimento corporeo dei protagonisti”.
English translation: The film element is conjugated spectacularly, and with high professional technique, to body language in relation with surrounding environment, evoking different emotions, based also on the qualitative aspect of the music score and the body movement of the protagonists.
Jury XII Encuentro Para Cinéfagos (Festival de CineArte en la Frontera) 2021 about DOWNRIVER:
Original text in Spanish:
“Del fondo emergen, vitales, por un instante calculan y se lanzan a enfrentar el trecho rio arriba que les toca recorrer, deslizándose y cortando obstáculos entre ecosistemas terrestres o acuáticos, o un fango espeso intermedio, aferrados a alguna roca expuesta sobre la superficie del flujo, o flotando rio abajo, o estancados, con sus cabellos bailando al son del agua que choca y se devuelve en las riberas. Encuadres y edición forman parte orgánica de este ensamble, que consigue que el espectador embarque en este viaje de renacimiento y flujo cíclico”
English translation: From the bottom they emerge, vital, for an instant they calculate and launch themselves to face the upstream stretch they have to travel, sliding and cutting obstacles between terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems, or an intermediate thick mud, clinging to some rock exposed on the surface of the flow, or floating downstream, or stagnant, with their hair dancing to the sound of the water that crashes and returns on the banks. Framing and editing are an organic part of this assemblage, which takes the viewer on a journey of rebirth and cyclical flow.
