Educational Media Reviews Online

This 2-disc set (1 DVD & 1 audio CD) showcases the work of Berlin-based musician and composer AGF.3 (Antye Greie) and American video artist SUE.C (Sue Costabile). Their statement: “MINI MOVIES is a project conceived and executed by Antye Greie and Sue Costabile. The MINI MOVIE MOVEMENT is an open invitation for participation by creative human beings working with sound and image.”

The main movie featured on the DVD is the duo’s 2005 production fortythousand3hundred20memories (27:34). On the film’s optional commentary track, AGF.3 and SUE C. describe their creative processes and elucidate the film’s underlying story and themes, which deal with creating memories out of events, images, ideas and exploring moments in time. In her music which might be described as a mix of abstract audio and spoken-word minimalist techno, AGF.3 calls this “poem producing”. In her images SUE C. layers found pictures and photos from her own collection with (for example) shots of windows from a train drawn on tracing paper, or first-person point of view video footage of someone walking, or picking up photographs from the ground.

As one of many extras on the DVD, a brief “making off [sic]” video shows 2 separate behind-the-scenes views of SUE C.’s unorthodox visual techniques: 1 in stop-motion (!) and the other “spying in the bathroom” filmed by AGF.3 (not what you think!).

When you have two enormously talented artists such as these attuned to one another and creating on the same wavelength, the end result is a stunning audiovisual collage of dreamlike and haunting beauty.

Produced by Asphodel Studios in San Francisco, the DVD comes packaged with a slim foldout booklet with artwork and brief liner notes. As for the accompanying audio CD, the notes tell us: “the CD movie is the mini movie without pictures to be made up in your mind”.

DVD Extras include: 9 mini-minimovies (99 Garage Doors; 99 Long Eyelands; Directly Beside You; Naturestille; Who Wants To Grow Up?; Sonic Pollution; Dancing Maschine [sic]; Film_Me; Still.Not.Still); films from 11 artists of the Mini Movie Movement (Lillevan, Joshua Clayton, Evans Hankey, Maryse Larivière, Chris Musgrave, Lars Nagler, Scott Pagano, Sandra Passaro, Telematique, Egle Varna, Solu); an interview with AGF.3 and SUE C. by Lillevan; a slideshow of AGF’s calligraphy; a 5.1 surround collage remix of the AGF album Head Slash Bauch.

DVD Audio options include: Stereo; Commentary; Poem Producer Mix; 5.1 Immersive Upmix.

More about the artists and their work can be found at the Asphodel & Mini Movie Movement websites.

Highly Recommended for public and academic libraries, as well as visual arts, media arts and digital music programs.