Culture.ee’s weekly recommendations: 18–24 Mar 2019

World Film Festival is an event dedicated to the documentary cinema. The festival develops an interest in anthropological, analytical approach to cultures and societies, welcoming film entries from all over the world.

Our film programme turns attention to cultural exchange as well as cultural representations of everyday life across the world. World Film Festival takes place annually since 2004. It is a meeting point of documentary filmmakers with anthropological spirit.

On Monday, March 18, 2019 at 6 p.m., Inga Heamägi opens her personal exhibition PS. The Psalms and Prophet Jonah in the Belly of the Whale at Draakon Gallery.

“The meaning of the title of the exhibition – PS – is ambiguous – first, PS is postscript or an afterthought. Second, it means Psalms or songs. Today, PS is also a powerful programming language. And finally, PS is also the official abbreviation of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia. The second part of the title – The Psalms and Prophet Jonah in the Belly of the Whale is inspired by, or rather, it is my response to the global migration crisis and its consequences, but specifically about one of the world’s most tragic events – the story of a three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurd, in September 2015 in Turkey.

The annual exhibition of Estonian Painters’ Association

How to carry on creative work in a situation where ideals and reality seem to meet on the crossroads? Is this apparent position of a loser really the reality or should the artist indeed let some hot air out of the dream balloon every once in a while and come in terms with what is given here and now?

The reality, itself a construction of our senses and conceptions, aims instinctively towards ideals. How to coordinate one’s thoughts and find an ideal in the turbulent modern world where reality is everything but encouraging, where the criteria of morality and ethics have transformed? Sculptor Louise Bourgeois has said that to be an artist, you need to exist in a world of silence. Do painters have the luxury to dwell in their inner world or is this the decisive moment to manifest one’s message?

So, what’s going on? The Rabbit and The Bear look how The Wolf has set up the drum set. They join him to help. And make slapstick jokes while doing so. Everyone seems to be embarrassed.

Try to imagine this: Ahto falls out of the wedding cake and the tambourine starts to rattle, Rivo joins him with hand puppets and I adjust my hairstyle. This Third Man still does not understand a thing of what is going on and looks worried. I send him my energy in support. But it’s Ahto who gets hit with it and starts ‘bossa nova-ing’.

Performers:
Ahto Abner (drums)
Rivo Laasi (bass, electronics)
Tarvo Kaspar Toome (guitar, electronics)
That Third Man

The exhibition brings together the creative themes of an artist that has been seeking the elementary essence of painting for several years, and sheds light on issues yet to be resolved, will be open at Tartu Art House. The exhibition is curated by Siim Preiman

Mihkel Ilus has been working in a uniformly monochromatic pictorial language since his 2017 exhibition Stick It In Your Wall at Hobusepea Gallery. Resisting a conventional manner of depiction, Ilus separates the classical tools of the painter from each other and creates independent objects using oil paint, timber painting frames and primed canvas. In addition to the physical composition of the painting, Ilus has also questioned its surrounding conceptual rules or etiquette. Could a bucket made of primed canvas placed on the gallery floor be called a painting? And what if it was filled with sawdust? What about gallery walls that are left empty to accommodate the effect of the painting? Are walls also part of the painting?

At the age of 84, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon.

But without a definitive Ginsburg biography, the unique personal journey of this diminutive, quiet warrior’s rise to the nation’s highest court has been largely unknown, even to some of her biggest fans, until now.

Free of charge!

Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia invites you to a screening The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

Inspired by science fiction as a thought experiment on the future, the program draws connections between the increasingly rapid technological progress and man-made environmental damage. With a diverse selection of filming styles and techniques, it maps the emotional atmosphere of our present – the almost hallucinatory interplay between utopia and destruction, and the wild mood swings between the promise of a sustainable future and a dystopian existence in the hands of technology and human exceptionalism.

“The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel” is the opening sentence in William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer, published in 1984.

Curated by Vanina Saracino
Artists: Mark Leckey, Basim Magdy, Kristina Õllek, Agnieszka Polska, Semiconductor, Andrew Norman Wilson

The screening will be followed by a discussion with artist Kristina Õllek and Vanina Saracino.

Free of charge!

How to hammer nails into wood? How to learn to speak? How to open a door? How to show empathy? How to correctly pull on a sock and get rid of all the suffering caused by guilt?

Learning is something that already begins from an embryo and continues for decades until the human molecules dissolve into non-existence. We are not born human; we learn to become so. We learn how to turn our obscure biological body of cells into a human being. Pouring the foundation. Cleaning the bathroom so there aren’t any unsightly stains. Brushing teeth at the right angle. Expressing love. Having the right breathing while giving birth and maintaining our dignity on our deathbed. Come. We know.

In Estonian.

Director: Peter Farrelly

When Frank Anthony Vallelonga, aka Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), a New York City bouncer from an Italian-American neighbourhood in The Bronx, is hired to drive and protect Dr Don Shirley (Mahwershala Ali), a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on The Green Book — a travel guide to safe lodging, dining and business options for African Americans during the era of segregation and Jim Crow laws — to steer them to places where Shirley will not be refused service, humiliated, or threatened with violence.

The ENSO chamber music concerts, which have received excellent feedback from the audience over the seasons, will continue with the Slavic/Italian chamber music evening Serenade for Spring.

The String Sextet by Borodin, of which only the first two parts have survived, and Serenade for Strings by Dvořák are among the most famous chamber music works of the composers.

Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence is the last chamber music piece written by the composer. At the concert, it will be performed by a string orchestra. Its light-heartedness and joyfulness strongly contrast with the moods of the opera The Queen of Spades, which was completed at the same time.

4th concert of the Romanticism series:
Alexander Borodin’s String Sextet
Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings
Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence
ENSO string orchestra