About Film
The Film program presents the most visionary and inspiring artists’ cinema of today. It features a wide range of artistic expressions, narratives, and formats. During the Film program, artists, filmmakers, institutions and global audiences meet and come together. Screenings, survey programs, live acts, conversations, and other special events shape the Film sector, which offers a unique occasion for the discovery of art and the participation in the fundamental dialogue between cinema, visual cultures and contemporary art.
Art Basel Film 2024 entangles ecology, intimacy, history, and politics with a series of short film programs, surveys, and feature films. The Political Life of Plants looks at how the vegetal world has been a major figure of recent artists’ cinema. Pinochet Porn documents the outstanding work of late artist Ellen Cantor (1961-2013). Perfect Lives and HURRAH, WE ARE STILL ALIVE! offer a comprehensive survey of Agnieszka Polska’s filmic work. Bats and Rockets celebrate artists’ films for young audiences, from age 4 to 99. Accompanying each session, Tiffany Sia’s short film series Scroll Figure reflects on the relationship between images and the pictoric, political, narrated Real.
Film takes place at Stadkino Basel, Klostergasse 5, 4051 Basel, Switzerland. Directions can be found here.
Discover the full program below.
Wednesday, June 12, 8:45pm
Short Film Program: The Political Life of Plants (Nefeli Chrysa Avgeris, Zheng Bo, Ulla von Brandenburg, Kyriaki Goni, Tiffany Sia), 137min. Anticipated by a live Q&A with some artists and Filipa Ramos.
Thursday, June 13, 8:45pm
Film: Ellen Cantor, Pinochet Porn, 123min.
Including Tiffany Sia
Friday, June 14, 8:45pm
Focus: Agnieszka Polska – Perfect lives, 63min.
Including Tiffany Sia
Friday, June 14, 10pm
Film: Agnieszka Polska, HURRAH, WE ARE STILL ALIVE!, 85min. Anticipated by a Zoom Q&A with the artist and Filipa Ramos.
Including Tiffany Sia
Saturday, June 15, 11am
Artists' films for young audiences from age 4 to 99: Bats and Rockets (Roman Signer, Ben Rivers, Lena von Döhren & Eva Rust, Dace Rīdūze), 37min.
Saturday, June 15, 7pm
Film: Amei Wallach, Taking Venice, 103min. Followed by a live Q&A with the filmmaker and Marian Masone.
curators
Filipa Ramos
Filipa Ramos is a writer and curator with a PhD awarded from the School of Critical Studies at Kingston University, London. Her research looks at human engagement with animals in the contexts of art and artists’ cinema. Her essays and texts have been published in magazines and books worldwide. With Andrea Lissoni, she founded and curates Vdrome, a programme of artists’ films screenings. She is Lecturer in the MRes Art course at University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins, and the Master’s programme at the Arts Institute of the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Basel. She was Editor-in-Chief of art-agenda, Associate Editor of Manifesta Journal, and contributor tp dOCUMENTA 13 (2012) and 14 (2017). She edited Animals (Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press, 2016) and curated the group exhibition Animalesque (Bildmuseet Umeå, Summer 2019, and BALTIC, Gateshead, Winter 2019/20). She curates the ongoing symposia series ‘The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish with Lucia Pietroiusti’ for the Serpentine Galleries. She is curator of Bestiari, the Catalan Presence at the 2024 Venice Biennale and is co-curating Songs for the Changing Seasons for the First Climate Biennale in Vienna in 2024.
Marian Masone
Marian Masone is a film curator, writer and creative media strategist. For over 25 years at the Film Society of Lincoln Center she programmed new and retrospective series and monthly programs, organized education initiatives, established programs for emerging filmmakers and served on the selection committees for the New York Film Festival and, with the Museum of Modern Art, New Directors/New Films. She is a member of New York Women in Film and Television, serving on the committee for NYWIFT’s Women’s Film Preservation Fund and is a consultant to the Toronto International Film Festival and the annual Gotham Awards in New York City. She has been a panelist and juror for numerous international organizations and festivals, and has lectured at Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, Cinéfondation Residence in Paris, and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University and writes on film and media for various publications.
Exhibitors
See below the artists and galleries participating in this year's Film program.
Caption for full-bleed image: Ben Rivers, The Minotaur, (film still), 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Kate McGarry.