A Demonstration
24' / HD video / 2020
NL, DE, UK
A Demonstration is a monster film with no monsters. Inspired by the existence of taxonomies of monsters at the heart of early modern European science, the film explores and reinterprets a way of seeing the natural world that is almost impossible to imagine from today’s vantage point. Early Modern naturalists were guided by a logic in which truths were discovered through visual analogy. The word ‘monster’ comes from the latin ‘monstrare’, meaning to show, to reveal, to demonstrate. “A Demonstration” picks up on these themes in a poetic exploration of the boundaries of sight and the metamorphosis of form.
Story / camera / edit / sound: Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner
Original score: Beny Wagner
Sound mix: Rob Driessen
Color grade: Guillaume Soren
Producers: Video Power and CaSk films
Press:
A Demonstration through the eyes of Maria Morata
Best Short Films of Berlinale 2020
Director Beny Wagner and Sasha Litvintseva on "A Demonstration" and the short form
Berlinale Films Worth Queuing For
Awards:
Best Visual Concept Award, Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival
Nominated for the Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis (German Short Film Prize)
Related:
All Thoughts Fly: Monster, Taxonomy, Film, Sonic Acts Press
Monster as Medium: Experiments in Perception in Early Modern Science and Film, E-flux Journal
Presentations:
2020 Berlinale Shorts Official Competition, 70th Berlinale International Film Festival, Germany
2020 Vilnius International Film Festival, Lithuania
2020 Still Voices Film Festival, Ballymahon, Ireland
2020 Intro, The Maze and The Lighthouse, Baltic Triennial 14, CAC Vilnius, Lithuania
2020 Moscow International Experimental Film Festival, Garage Museum, Russia
2020 Film Festival della Lessinia, Bosco Chiesanuova, Italy
2020 New Holland Island International Debut Film Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia
2020 Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada
2020 Guanajuato International Film Festival, Mexico
2020 Curtocircuito International Film Festival, Spain
2020 Imagine Science XIII Edition, New York, USA
2020 Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, Romania
2020 Chicago Underground Film Festival, USA
2020 Kassel Dokfest, Germany
2020 New Nature Vitrines, Goethe-Institut Montreal and Feldfünf Berlin, Germany
2020 New Nature Shorts, Goethe-Institut Montreal and Museum of Moving Image New York, USA
2020 2020: A Year in Review, aemi, Ireland
2020/1 Work In Progress, Queer Art Projects, London, UK
2021 London Short Film Festival, UK
2021 Environmental Film Festival Australia, Melbourne, Australia
2021 Solo Exhibition, CIAP, Genk, Belgium
2021 Hybrid - Cutting Edge Canada, Hellerau/Mutek
2021 Prismatic Ground Film Festival, New York
2021 New Waves Competition, La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival, France
2021 XXIV Rencontres Internationales Traverse, Toulouse, France
2021 56th International Festival of Science Documentary Films, Olomouc, Czech Republic
2021 18th Dokfilmwoche Hamburg, Germany
2021 International 2 Sides Short Film Festival, Izmir, Turkey
2021 Adrift: Sasha Livtintseva and Beny Wagner, Los Angeles Film Forum, USA
2021 Alexandre Trauner Art/Film Festival, Szolnok, Hungary
2021 Repeat Apparition, The Horse Hospital, London, UK
2021 Visible Evidence, Mousonturn, Frankfurt, Germany
2022 35th Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Stuttgart, Germany
2022 Kurzfilmfestival Köln, Germany
2022 Critical Media Lab, IXDM, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland
2022 Monster and Measures, e-flux Screening Room, New York City, USA
2022 Interplay, Gabriel Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2022 Two Films by Sasha Litvintseva and Beny Wagner, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA
2022 The Criterion Channel
2023 A Demonstration / Constant, Cinema Aventure, Brussels, Belgium
2023 Unworldly Predictions, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw Poland
2023 Chromatic Wednesdays, Apartment Project, Berlin, Germany
