2013, 7.5min, 16mm, HD, color, sound
In the town of Utskor in the region of Bø, northern Norway, we find memories of a political past intertwining with domestic, familial moments during the midnight sun. (LL)
--...was shot in the Lofoten and Vesterålen archipelagos,
Norland, Norway with the assistance
of Christina C. Nguyen and featuring Bente,
Genevieve, Leif, Marla, Noah, Sarah,
and Tage. Sound and music fragments are
by Bobby Bland, Rueben Bell, and the Hucksters.
The news footage is of the Madrid 23F coup d' état
in 1981. The text fragments are from Fredrick Engels'
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and
the State (1884).
Sound mix: Ezra Buchla.
Typography: Lucas Quigley.
Thanks to Bassam, Berte, C.W. Winter, Dag Ivar
and his boat Myrebas, Bente, Leif, Genevieve,
Marla, Noah, Sarah, and Tage.
"Laida Lertxundi's film-making leaves California for the first time to locate itself-at least briefly-in Nordland, a region in northern Norway. Youth also seems to make way for other presences: a mother with two small children; a flock of sheep. Where up to now the film-maker's relationship with the past had been more sensorial than tangible, here we find explicit references, also featuring unmistakable and opposing political connotations: the voice of Tejero during the coup d'état of February 23rd 1981, and the reading of the treatise written by Friedrich Engels 'The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State'. Utskor: Either/Or is a film that is constantly seeking. Lertxundi conquers new landscapes, new skies, considerably different from those of Los Angeles, but she records them with the same vitalist spirit."
-Javier Estrada pdf