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Constant

40' / 2K DCP / 2022

DE, UK

"Constant" is a journey through the social and political histories of measurement. For most of recorded history, the human body was the measure of all things. “Constant” asks what led measurement to depart from the body and become a science unto itself. The film explores three shifts in the history of measurement standardization, from the land surveying that drove Early Modern European land privatization, to the French Revolution that drove the Metric Revolution, to the conceptual dematerialisation of measurement in the contemporary era of Big Science. Each chapter traces the relationship of measurement standardization to ideas of egalitarianism, agency, justice, and power. Cinematic and technical images that begin as products of measurement systems are stretched beyond their functions to describe the resistance of lived experience to symbolic abstractions.

Text / direction / camera / edit / sound design: Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner

Producers: Guillaume Cailleau for CaSk Films, Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner

3D and point cloud animation: Matteo Mastrandrea

Original music: dead hand

Additional music: Beny Wagner

Narration: Cynthia Beatt

Sound design and mix: Gabor Ripli

Color grade: Sergi Sanchez

Supported by:
Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg
Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien

Awards:

Silvestre Award for Best Short Film, IndieLisboa 2022

Best Short Documentary, Guanajuato International Film Festival 2022

Jury Special Mention, EXiS Seoul 2022

Press:

Interview: BOMB Magazine

Interview: Filmmaker Magazine

Interview: Senses of Cinema

Interview: Hammer to Nail

Review: The Film Verdict

Review: FRIEZE

Review: Edge Media Network

Review: Criterion Cast

Review: Senses of Cinema

Review: Metropolism M
 

Presentations:

51st International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ammodo Tiger Shorts Competition, 2022

Open City Documentary Festival, London, UK, 2022

CPH:DOX, New Visions Competition, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2022

Courtisane, Ghent, Belgium, 2022

Indie Lisboa, Silvestre Competition, Lisbon, 2022

Guanajuato International Film Festival, Mexico, 2022

EXiS Seoul, International Competition, South Korea, 2022

First Look, Museum of Moving Image, New York, USA, 2022

Prismatic Ground, Maysles Documentary Center, New York, USA, 2022

Chicago Underground Film Festival, USA, 2022

Camden International Film Festival, Rockland, USA, 2022

Olhar de Cinema, International Shorts Competition, Curtiba International Film Festival, Brazil, 2022

MUTA International Film Festival, Lima, Peru, 2022

IMPAKT festival, Utrecht, was The Netherlands, 2022

Cineseries, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, USA, 2022

Monsters and Measures, e-flux Screening Room, New York City, USA, 2022

Asia Cultural Center Cinemateque, Seoul, South Korea, 2022

Imagine Science Film Festival, New York, USA, 2022

Kurzfilmfestival Köln, Germany, 2022

Bangkok World Film Festival, Bangkok, Thailand, 2022

Critical Media Lab, IXDM, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland, 2022

This is Not Anarchy, This is Chaos, Transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2022

Two Films by Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA, 2022

Set Phosphenes, Studio for Artistic Research, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2022

Artists' Film Series 01/Calibration, Chemist Gallery, London, 2023

Hybrid Forms and Frameworks, University of Virginia, USA, 2023

The Measure of the World, Radius CCA, Delft, The Netherlands, 2023

InScience Film Festival, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 2023

Ginzaza Edition 2: Control, Sony Park Mini, Tokyo, Japan, 2023

Constant, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, 2023

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