ABSTRACT NOTIONS was made up of six shorts (in screening order):

THE OPERA SINGER [2010] dir Nadaav Soudry {2 mins} - This short is a satire of an opera singer giving her best performance whilst selling out. I found it funny and truthful, short and sweet. Soudry has managed to make a statement with a 2 minute short mainly mostly made up of a slow zoom of the title character's face. 

FROG IN THE WELL [2010] dir Ken Ochiai {15 mins} - A man who just lost his mother, who requested he scatter her ashes across Japan. He undertakes the journey, taking a month to complete it. He begins in the northernmost town of mainland Japan, where his mother was from and ends in Okinawa, the southernmost point of Japan, where his mother never had the opportunity to go. He visits Kyoto and Hiroshima in between. He begins to realise that his mother didn't just want to have her ashes scattered, she wanted him to get to know Japan and explore. Mostly told in photomatic, with a great score and a soothing voice over with Haruki Murakami undertones, this is an interesting and endearing piece. Definitely worth a look. 

MAN IN A SHELL [2010] dir Genja Ferschtman {15 mins} - A story fully about creation. It was one of the most avant-garde pieces in the screening (along with HORTUM). A man finally gets creating after 2 weeks of no inspiration. He finally gets the creation to the public (the structure you see in the still above) where he fills it with concrete. Shot in mostly close ups and tries to hold the suspense of the seeing the artist's face for the first time. It was interesting, buit not really to my taste, I simply didn't understand the point and was further confused by the tagline: "An artist builds form-work to be filled with concrete. But this is no ordinary form-work. Will anybody notice?" Well, I certainly didn't. 

HORTUM [2010] dir Ayse Altinok {7 mins} - Beginning with the Kurt Vonnegut quote: "I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center." was a tempting promise. This short is about an artist at the edge, however I did not gather that at all. Supposedly delight and despair cohabit at the edge, but, as the actors do not change expression, I wasn't able to read any feelings or even fathom any sort of narrative. And there's only much entertainment in watching a guy going up stairs dragging a hosepipe. 

KINBAKU: ART OF BONDAGE [2010] dir Jouni Hokkanen {29 mins} - Kinbaku is a form of shibari (hanging) and it means the beauty of binding and it has been a sexual practice in Japan for centuries all having began with the samurai and their practices of prisoner taking. In this documentary, we are allowed into a secret world, the world of bondage and S&M. We are given a view of this art through the eyes of the rope artist, the rope models and the historical background. It is very interesting, if a bit long, repeating itself towards the end. Definitely worth a look, simply for the singularity of this practice. 

THE CHRONOSCOPE [2010] dir Andrew Legge {20 mins} - A mockumentary, which I didn't know it was until midway through the film. The beginning is utterly believable; they managed to get historians and, even, Irish writer Patrick McCabe to participate. It tells the story of a bright young scientist, Charlotte Keppel, who, in the 30's, invents the chronoscope, a machine that captures waves of the past and shows images of what it was like. I was completely taken by this until I realised it wasn't true (which I really wanted it to be). It is funny and entertaining, never loses a sense of humour.