13/08/2021

At Sonar Cinema stage in the Castle of Prizren a packed audience got to experience through sounds and visuals the deepest, most tragic, and sincere stories from all around the world intertwined with a rhythmic, urban style sound.

Timo Novotny’s electronic live act played at the same time as stories unfold in the screen. All the people presenting their eccentric lifestyle had one simple desire, to be able to provide for themselves and their families a just live at peace. All this people presented in the short films were based on what it seemed to be an interview with a camera.

The images pertaining to the film “Megacities” of Michael Glawogger in 1997 explore the raw and harsh reality of the suburbs of metropolitan areas such as Moscow, Bombay, Mexico City and New York. Together with them were screened Novotny’s work “Life on Loops”

A camera followed everyone throughout 24h and may it be someone in New York, or Mexico, or India, the struggle to provide a living is similar. In these maniacal capitalistic machines these people try to make their best in a world who pushes for realising big unachievable dreams and high levels of success while still a lot of them can not raise up from the bottom.

It is hard for these people to stay grounded and demand politely: the only way out is screaming and shouting and living life to the fullest no matter what.

While the films were showing Novotny’s sound followed the rhythm of how the characters talked to a perfect syntony which gave another flare to visuals.

Building a live rhythm brings another sense of completion and redefines the way soundtracks can affect how the audience perceives films. Sound travels in time and space while characters from all over the world unfold their stories of struggle, exploitation and dreaming about personal freedom to lead life as they like.

The metaphor of willingly offering a set of sound to different stories make following it more intensively, experiencing in the same beat what the character is going through.

Novotny’s remix is a journey of experimentation while also changing a way we see films. The interactive part makes it livelier and more perceptible.

Sonar Cinema stage last night brought together a full audience, and a new set of how music can contribute to cinematography.

 

Following this act, on Friday there is another performance at the same stage in the castle. DokuFest is nearly coming to the end of the celebrations so make sure you do not miss a beat!