HOBO - A Wandering Podcast about Cinema HOBO - A Podcast about Cinema

The guest of this episode of HOBO is Varya Yakovleva, a Russian animator now based in Paris. She spent 6 years at The Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, a film school in Moscow, then 2 years at the SHAR School-Studio with leading directors and animators. From 2013 she worked with Andrey Khrzhanovsky for a stop motion film called The Nose or the Conspiracy of Mavericks. Nowadays she does her own stuff, mostly animation films, the latest of which is Oneluv: a powerful and visually strong portrait of a woman needing to face unwanted strangers and abuse. The short film took top honors at last year’s Animafest Zagreb.

The guest of this episode of HOBO is legendary Bruce LaBruce, director, photographer, performer, writer and queer provocateur. In his remake of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema, set in a contemporary British context, “the visitor” is represented as a racial minority. A bold choice, considering the xenophobia and paranoia about immigration currently displayed in Europe, not only by the increasingly vocal extreme right wing elements actually gaining political traction and governmental representation, but more vaguely by traditionally colonialist countries that have previously “invaded” other countries of different ethnic majorities as hostile “aliens” themselves. For this re-imagining, it makes sense that the protagonist is a refugee, liberating the bourgeoisie from their sexual repression.

The film is cast and produced in London by a/political, a non-profit arts organization working with artists who interrogate the critical issues and dominant narratives of our time.

The guest of this episode of HOBO is Lei Lei, an experimental animation artist with his hands on video arts, painting, installation, music and VJ performance. His new project, “That Day, on the River”, newspaper clippings, historical photographs and a film about a female basketball player serve as the source material for an exploration of his father’s childhood in provincial China. The film is held together by a conversation between he and his father originally recorded during the production of his animated feature, Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish. During the trip, his father talked with him about his childhood memories in the Fifties and things he wasn’t good at. Through his art, Lei Lei mixes individual and collective memory: the artist’s nostalgia serves as the starting point of a quest for truth regarding history, family, and personal identity. Which is more significant nowadays, the photograph as work of art or as archival image? Which is more important, the picture or the process of image production; the fact that an image is viewed or the context in which it is viewed? It is also a reflection on the image and the status of the author.

One may wonder: what can a three-hour film set almost entirely in a car, shot with a fixed camera from the rear, offer cinematically? The answer is an unexpectedly engaging observation of the rhythms of daily life and a catalogue of suburban worries. The Plains by David Easteal charts the passage of time as the seasons change. The pitter-patter of rain on the windows and the familiar cocoon of the car provide a sense of comfort and safety from the outside elements.

What happens when an agency task at protecting the citizenry and ensuring that the duly constituted laws of the land are adhered to becomes the enforcer of human rights violations? This is the question posed by “When the Waves Are Gone”, the latest film by Filipino master Lav Diaz. The very current shocking Ukraine invasion by Russia and the resultant brutality seems unheard of but it is just a magnification of the human malady that has been with us forever—how humanity has become so accepting to a form of psychosis in approving evil leadership, how humanity has become so helpless to a wall of petrified ignorance. «Putin, Duterte, Assad, Trump... they’ve been with us forever, The Grim Reapers of the world», says the director in this extensive interview recorded during the 79th Venice Film Festival.

Dogborn by Isabella Carbonell had its world premiere at Venice International Film Critics’ Week. The story, penned by Carbonell herself, revolves around two Lithuanian twins struggling to make ends meet. Through brilliant writing choices and excellent direction, the film manages to set up a clear conflict between the two lead characters: the sister (played by Swedish rapper Silvana Imam) who initially seems ready to achieve her goals at all costs, and her brother (portrayed by Philip Oros), who instead is a kind-hearted, silent giant that at has stopped speaking owing to some unspecified past traumas.