Video clips about languages in Europe - European Year of Intercultural Dialogue
ELIA issued a call for proposals for short videos (maximum 3 minutes) within the context of the European Commission’s promotion of multilingualism. The competition has been organised as a contribution to the 2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, EYID.
You can view ten of the films on the site of the European Commission >> and of TV5 Monde >>
E3'film has officially premiered on 18-19 October, at the Prix Europa Festival in Berlin.
At a meeting in Berlin on 15 September, the final films were presented to an international jury. Impressed by the high artistic and technical quality of the submitted films, the jury selected 5 films which will be awarded with a viral marketing strategy and distribution:
- The Babel Show
Stephane Kaas
Nederlandse Film & Televisie Academie, Amsterdam
The Netherlands - De pratglada kossornas park (Garden of Chatty Cows)
Oskar Westerberg
Konstfack, dept. of Graphic design & Illustration, Stockholm
Sweden - Language is music
Peter Palos
University of Westminster, London
United Kingdom - No fishing
Richard Meitern
University of Tartu, Estonian Academy of Arts
Estonia - Smile
Charles Temujin Doran
University College Falmouth
United Kingdom
Doma ("At home") Pavla Kacírková • Haf! Filip Cenek, Veronika Vlkova & Radoslav Zrubec • No fishing Richard Meitern • Food language Martin Oja & Kudrun Vungi • ODE Zahra Poonawala • ONOMATOPIK Sonia Gemayel • Game Ewa Górzna • Input - Output Emily Laumanns & Kevin Rumley • Speaking Culture Ana Maria Calvo Do-Allo • Jacobs Reise Kathrin Oberrauch & Marion Oberhofer • Directrix Eva Ísleifsdóttir & Monika Frycová • Malfunction Rónán O'Conghaile • Speaking in Riddles Cotillion: Alan Burns & Kevin Gaffney • 2020 Dawn Hourigan • The Babel Show Stephane Kaas • Voy Voy Sam Iravanian • Sirens Jet Pascua • Big feast Milica Fischerová • Aallot Ristomatti Myllylahti & Krista Murto • Romsky Audiovizualny Slovik ("Roma Audio-Visual Dictionary") Peter Krupa • Mira a tu alrededor y absorve ("Look around yourself and absorb") Sandra Garcia Piñero • De Pratglada Kossornos Park ("Garden of Chatty Cows") Oskar Westerberg • Smile Charles Temujin Doran • I Love You (6 short moments of love) Kurban Kassam • Happy Birthday Joana Mesquita Filipe • Language is Music Peter Palos • Natural Expressions Maayke Schurer • Washed up Joseph Martin
Pavla Kacírková, Brno University of Technology
An angel appears to the narrator just when he is leaving this world. All this is captured in a dreamy atmosphere, with words flowing around like dust in the wind or like leaves on water past the ferryman's boat. The text is read by ten speakers from all around Europe, none of them professional actors.
"The story we have written for this three-minute film is more of film poetry or a visual poem. The project concept was clear from the beginning. It was to create a plot where we would use international words – those that people in all European countries understand."
Filip Cenek, Veronika Vlkova & Radoslav Zrubec, Brno University of Technology
Language connects and divides us. Without it we could not communicate with each other, and paradoxically it prevents us from understanding each other.
"This film is based on a fictional account of a journey undertaken both to places filled with languages and to places void of them. The main role is played by a dog, man’s best friend and with whom everyone is in mutual understanding without knowledge of any language."
Richard Meitern, University of Tartu
A poor guy fishing at the river. He is barefoot, has very basic clothes and a wicker basket for fish. Suddenly his bob float starts to vibrate and the man pulls up a golden fish.
Just after the man unhooks the fish, it starts to speak. The goldfish says proudly that she is not a common fish, but a goldfish. She makes the man an offer: if the man spares her, the fish will fulfill any wish the man has. The man is very surprised but instead of saying yes, he replies “No”. He puts the fish into the basket and takes it home. He lives in a very basic hovel. In the yard there is a goat eating the grass and three young children playing. When the man arrives, they are very excited as their father has caught a fish.
A woman is standing in the doorway. She looks at the basket and is very happy. She takes the basket and brings it inside. The fact that the fish is constantly babbling doesn’t seem to bother her. Meanwhile the fish keeps talking, promising that she can fulfill a wish, whatever it is, if they let her back to the river. Finally the fish realises that maybe the family does not understand her language, but at this point it is too late...
Martin Oja & Kurdun Vungi, University of Tallinn
Food Language is about food as a means of expression. What messages can we convey through this omnipresent, but still unrecognised medium? Even if we often learn about foreign nations with the help of their kitchens, how deep could the misunderstandings of food language be? How can we play language-games with food? Do we hear the sound of food when we start listening?
Food language takes up the form of a twisted comedy, containing three short stories, each one lasting a little less than a minute. The characters in the film are of diff erent ages, different social backgrounds and mindsets, but have something in common on the deepest level: optimism, openness to new and surprising solutions, and above all, the willingness to communicate even with the help of the most surprising devices..
Zahra Poonawala, Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Strasbourg
European “unity in diversity” is symbolised by music. More specifically by the arrangement within a symphony orchestra. This composition is not only discussed by different musicians, who do not only play different instruments but also different scores, tones, nuances and moreover “languages”.
Musicians of different orchestras are recorded, playing an extract of the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony: the theme of the “Ode to Joy”, that was adopted as the European anthem. Each musician is filmed separately at his home, and appears in one of the 27 “windows”, in reference to the number of EU Member States. One by one, the 27 video-windows open up with musicians playing their parts (double basses, cellos, violins, violas, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, tubas, trumpets, percussions...) resulting in them jointly performing the last chords of the anthem representing a colourful mosaic in musical harmony.
Sonia Gemayel, Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d' Angers
A city filled with walking pictograms and onomatopoeic sounds. Mr. “Bing” and his friend Mr. “Hheee” meet to take a bus. At the bus stop pedestrians, each with their individual sound add and change rhythms to the "soundscape".
All characters are pictograms, woman and man, adult and child. Pictograms from various countries are used. All cars are identical, and their sound is "uuuuis". Characters and cars are in paper. Throughout the movie, pedestrians meet in a mix of noises. At first, there is only the sound of people walking and cars driving along. As sounds are changed and mixed, the city becomes rhythmically alive.
Ewa Górzna, Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki
Game is a short and humorous video clip involving various visual techniques. It combines video footage with several types of animations and a multilingual voiceover. The first part is an amusing animation based on a sequence of words spoken in various languages and acts as a counterpart to the final scene where a group of multilingual, young people play a crossword game together.
The final scene reveals the source of the voiceover and the rules of the game. Surreal animated elements emerge once again when the object representing the last word appears in the park, to the great surprise of the players. The main goal of the film is to suggest that multilingualism can be a source of creativity and entertainment. Playing their multilingual game together, the young people construct something new and intriguing, that can symbolise the creative potential of Europe’s linguistic diversity.
Emily Laumanns & Kevin Rumley, University of the Arts Berlin
“I don’t know what you’re saying, but I know what you mean!” Input - Output shows in a clever and unusual way and in a brief duration of three minutes what understanding each other means to people, no matter where they are from.
The viewer is confronted with a huge number of perspectives and ways of communication at a time when Europe and the world are crowding closer together. The barrier of not understanding and listening to each other has to be broken down. Why not become friends just for the common love of music like the Scotsman and the Spanish lady do in Input – Output? Why not overcome shyness with a small gesture? Watching this short movie is like a quick journey and a look into the mirror!
Ana Maria Calvo Do-Allo, HFF Konrad-Wolf, Potsdam-Babelsberg
Speaking Culture is about cross-cultural communication. Common cultural elements form the starting point for a possible dialogue between different people. Although many different languages are spoken, music and humour remain universal forms of communication and a sign of evolution in every culture. We can learn a lot through communicating with people from different cultures; this can help us develop as individuals.
Although the unfamiliar sound of a foreign language can seem strange at first and difficult to repeat, mutual curiosity can often provide the motivation to communicate. Human beings are able to communicate when they need to, even if they cannot speak. An infant, unable to speak in an established language, still manages to communicate through a series of vocal sounds. Speaking Culture takes a light-hearted look at communication through music and whistling only.
Kathrin Oberrauch & Marion Oberhofer, Merz Academy Stuttgart
Although it may sound contradictory, sometimes it can be an advantage not to comprehend and/or be understood. Almost everybody has at least played with the thought of pretending not to understand something or somebody in order to avoid a precarious situation.
On his train journey through Europe a young man gets into various situations - accidentally or by his own fault - which could cause him lots of trouble. Miraculously he skirts them all with a simple trick. With wide eyes and a face marked by perplexity he hums a well-known melody and enchants everybody he meets on his adventurous trip. Regardless of their being officials or outlaws, all of them seem to be reminded of a hidden and precious memory. So he stumbles through his adventure without pronouncing a word. To be obtuse turns out to be his big advantage, until a fairy appears in his cabin.
As it is supposed to be, he is granted a wish. The young man is overwhelmed, but unfortunately he does not understand her. Of course the fairy is very courteous and translates her offer into various languages. But even fairies have their limits.
Eva Ísleifsdóttir & Monika Frycová, Iceland Academy of the Arts, Reykjavik
(Directrix /di’rektriks/ noun (pl. -trices /-trə’sēz/) Geometry: a fixed line used in describing a curve or surface. ORIGIN = dirigere ‘to guide.’)
Directrix is an international experimental film, connected to happenings and festivals in three countries. We call it Directrix, because the main idea is the line between cultures. This line does not have a beginning or an end. But still the line stretches from Bíldudalur (Iceland) through Olomouc (Czech Republic) to Rhodos (Greece). Iceland and the Czech Republic are our home countries. The languages we speak are our mother tongues. They are both minority languages. We use English but our interest lies in the universal languages, the "third ear" and the "third eye" which connect us.
Ronan O'Conghaile, GMIT, Galway
Malfunction is a comedy that focuses on three characters living in the same apartment block in Galway, Ireland. Liam is an Irish student, Isabella, a feisty Italian and Maria, a shy Spanish girl. When their paths cross one summer morning, it kick-starts a short series of events that lead to painful climax and an unexpected outcome. Exploring themes of communication, chance and coincidence, this short piece promotes the diversity of European languages in a funny and entertaining way.
Cotillion (Alan Burns & Kevin Gaffney, Dublin Insitute of Technology)
Speaking in Riddles is an exploration of a utopian social space with one imperfection: the people cannot communicate through language. Instead, they attempt to communicate through dance and song. The choreography is derived from body and sign language and explores the ‘vocabulary’ of dance, while the song is composed entirely of the human voice (with the voices - loosely based on instruments - humming, singing, whistling, beat boxing). The characters have only the use of a single phonetic/melody to try to express themselves with.
Despite these drawbacks, the characters persist in attempting to communicate their thoughts and feelings to each other throughout the film- resulting in a number of miscommunications to a dramatic and comedic effect. Love affairs, violence, irritated waiters and power struggles are all part of this stylized world where misunderstanding is the rule of the day.
Employing the aesthetics of a music video, and referencing musicals and pop culture, Speaking in Riddles is made by, and for, our MTV youth generation. Similarly, the form of dancing references the origins of vogueing (a staple of ghetto youth culture in New York in the 80s), where abstracted actions hold specific meanings. However, as the film contains no specific spoken language, it can be heard and watched from every country in the world and still be understood.
Dawn & Hrund (Dawn Hourigan & Hrund Atladdottir, Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam)
A time when slang and expressions from around Europe have merged into one language. A train, being a place that is not bound to a specific location and supports this movementof people, is the platform to present this reality in a musical clip. The passengers on the train jointly praise the ultimate beauty of the Kalandor Chucha. Individually they romance her in lyrics sang in this new pidgin.
They unite for the chorus, "Kalandor Chucha, Je hou so mucha" which loosely means "Wonder woman, I love you so much in a mix of Spanish, French, German and Hungarian.
The idea of intercultural dialogue creating a new aesthetic perception is visualised through a collage. The passing landscapes are based on postcards sent across Europe. The people on the train are drawn from photographs taken while "interrailing" through the EU. The producers, Dawn and Hrund, approached various people along route to take part and directed them in movements which were then choreographed into a musical.
Stephane Kaas, NFTA, Amsterdam
The European Union is similar to the Tower of Babel. They work on one large construction, whilst no one speaks the same language. This film shows a concrete version of the European Union.
Ten men and women from ten different countries are invited to a large studio. They are not allowed to talk before the start sign and after that only in their native language.
How will they build this tower? How will they communicate with each other?
Sam Iravanian, Bergen Art Academy
This film deals with different noises of animal sounds all around Europe. When separate languages mimic their environment, as when we read “Oink Oink” in books for pigs grunting, they become alike in diversity. Gathering such expressions from all around Europe, we start to see our lingual contrastive elements as part of the larger human condition. The different public sounds and signals surrounding us in cities are also an element of cultural identification of which we are almost unconsciously aware of. During this short three-minute video, a collage of public sounds and people mimicking animal expressions is musically combined in order to investigate a deeper level of communication existing in Europe's biggest cities, from Dublin to Istanbul.
Jet Pascua, Bergen Art Academy
An immigrant man living in Norway is discovered to have taken too many pills. A woman makes an emergency phone call and reports the overdosed victim. An ambulance is sent and we follow it speeding across the city to get to the patient in time. The paramedics reach the victim and check his condition then assure everyone that he will be fine. Later on we discover that the pills he took were “language pills”.
Milica Fischerová, Academy of Fine Art and Design, Bratislava
A short symbolic film on the search for a common language and other than verbal communication between people. The story takes place at the airport symbolising the entrance gateway to and its connection with the world. Moreover it resembles international communication, a place of transfer and common territory for everyone and no one at the same time. A group of strangers from diff erent ethnical backgrounds meet for a meal at this neutral point. The scene takes place at a round table – the symbol for equality. In the beginning the prevailing feelings are mutual discordance, distance and even tension resulting in a gap in communication. Everyone is unique, independent from the others, from the group. The meals are national dishes, symbolising variety and diversity.
The food and eating become a symbol for basic human needs, which are common to all of us. In this film it additionally stands for a need of communication, understanding between people and the way to become open to each other. Feasting together turns into a way of how to begin a non verbal, free communication connecting people and becoming a symbol of the most basic understanding between individuals.
Ristomatti Myllylahti & Krista Murto, Academy of Fine Art and Design, Bratislava
Rise and shine, good old continent. Somebody has something to say! Aallot is a wavy story on one day of human sounds heard by Europe as a piece of land. It digs into the ear bones of Europe and rests on its shorelines. It’s a three-minute audiovisual symphony, an arrangement of sound and sea waves coming from three seas outlining the continent.
Along the borderlines from warm to cold Aallot is divided into three parts following the circle of the day – clockwise from dawn to dusk. It is a fast-forward trip around Europe’s languages and sounds which are continuously enthused not just by people coming, going, visiting and staying but also by the world wide web, television and even by the neighbours’ barking dog.
In brief, "Aallot" visualises the diff erent languages living in Europe and emerging from overseas by showing the waves and the shores of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Polar Sea.
Peter Krupa, Academy of Fine Art and Design, Bratislava
The Roma audio-visual dictionary project is an authentic recording, which depicts Romany children’s English language knowledge. Children recorded on film in Eastern Slovakia pronounce some single English words they learnt at school but mostly within their local community. The dictionary is dealing with children’s words, sometimes garbled, which represent their world or the world in their fantasy. This recording can be considered as database and can be understood as a selection of the words based on the experience as well as skills and interests gained or the influence of their social environment. A dolly-carriage in the story is a filmic tool, used in a Romany colony at the beginning of the story. This dolly-carriage is then used as the cameraman’s dolly to drive and to transpose this story to England. The authors of the project, along with the database of English words in a notebook, find themselves physically in the plot in England. In English streets this database is interpreted word by word as meaningful in that physical and social setting.
Sandra Garcia Piñero, Escola Massana, Barcelona
With my project I wish to show how a person can open up through cultural experiences and evolve from an empty being into a fulfilled person. This first state of ignorance is represented by a young girl, static and expressionless, reading a blank book. As she looks up, she sees words from various languages afloat in the room. She snaps at the words, swallows them and mutates into a figure from a different cultural background. In this way she successively assumes seven cultural identities. Finally, she rises, opens the door and discovers a rich multicultural world outside.
Oskar Westerberg, Konstfack, Stockholm
What if all animals spoke the same language? They would then be able to understand one another! Well, what if humans spoke the same language? Wouldn’t it be monotonous, too? It would be better if they learned each other’s languages.
My movie illustrates this by drawing a parallel between animals and mankind. In the world of animals, diversity is something obvious. Nobody wants to see a world where all animal languages with the exception of one have become extinct. At the beginning of the movie a group of diff erent animals communicate within the same cow language.
But then one of the animals, a sheep, starts to talk in its native tongue. At first, the other animals are surprised, actually shocked. Eventually they follow the sheep’s example and soon they rediscover their own native tongues and continue to explore each other’s languages. The movie ends with all the animals expressing themselves in a wide variety of animal languages. When leaving them they sound like a zoo.
Charles Temujin Doran, University College, Falmouth
A Lego man, fluent in all 23 European languages, travels round Europe on its train network; chatting to locals, asking for directions, advice, and generally having a great time, experiencing what Europe has to offer from the privileged condition of being able to express himself in the language of each country.
Kurban Kassam, National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield
“I Love You”. These three words are the most universal ones that are imaginable. However, they are also said and received with a hugely varying range of tone, meaning and feeling.
This film examines simple moments. Each will be about people communicating feelings of love, and this will happen in some of Europe’s most diverse languages. Each moment will appear as a ‘vignette’, and at some point in the scene the words “I love you” are somehow included. The feeling or tone - happy or sad, tense or relaxed, moody or playful – will be different in each moment, yet the film hopes to act as a coherent whole. We want to show that love can be hard to express, whatever the language.
The film includes moments of love in Estonian, French, German, English and Swedish. It has been shot across Europe on location in public spaces, quiet corners, and anywhere else where love can be found.
Joana Filipe Mesquita, Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design, London
The experimental video Happy Birthday to You raises questions of difference and similarity among the different European countries. In it several young people from all over Europe sing part of their own country’s rendition of the Happy Birthday song. Different languages, different tunes and different wishes are shared by all, though the initial purpose is the same. What happens when we start blending meanings? More than just a documentary on diversity, the aim was to create a hybrid, new Happy birthday song that reunites the different lyrics that each country has, that differ from the original American version. As a result, the music is a temporary reflection that reunites all the meanings of the tongues included. As the process of the integration of Europe will continue, so could this music. More than creating a final piece, the music will grab a special moment of the history of Europe and the languages that are shared right now.
Peter Palos, University of Westminster, London
Language is Music is a three minute music video with a little difference. Here the singers are 1-3 year old kids which represent each of the 27 countries of the European Union. The kids are wearing nappies with the colours of their individual national flags of the EU and yellow baby-sized construction hats. While they sing the song in 23 languages (each baby sings in the appropriate language to his country) they are playing with blue toys. At the end we reveal that the toys have formed together to shape a map of Europe. Shots throughout the film show the children interact and work together to create "Europe".
Maayke Schurer, Glasgow School of Art
How do different languages picture the world? Certain experiences, such as those of the natural environment and changing weather conditions, are common to us all. Our different languages, however, are extraordinarily creative in turning these experiences into vivid metaphors and poetic similes. This film has taken such expressions and animated them to reveal the wealth of imagery provided by a multilingual perspective. Behind all of these verbal inventions lies a common need to give human meaning to the natural world.
Joseph Martin, University College for the Creative Arts, Surrey
Twelve people find themselves washed up on a beach. No clue as to how they got there apart from a strange mechanical cog hanging from their necks. With each one a different nationality and seemingly able to speak only their own language communication seems impossible and the situation soon worsens. A mysterious box is found in which the cogs seem to fit. Only through cooperation will they be able to gather any answers from the object.
