Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema, SansSouciFest.org

Dancing on the Edge of Cinema: the Premiere of Sans Souci Festival 2020 at CU Boulder
Once again we partner with our friends at the University of Colorado Boulder's Department of Theatre & Dance to bring you our 17th Annual Premiere Event. Including many of the top-scoring films curated by SSF and CU-THDN's faculty and alumni, this 90-minute, ticketed online screening will be available for one week on CU Presents Digital.

Tickets: $10 general / $7 CU students. Available here through CU Presents.

Due to Covid-19 shutdowns, our 'premiere' will be online at the end of our season, representing the culmination of our 2020 events. We'll host four live online Artist Chats this week as well, featuring the directors of some of these films. BYO Red Vines, and don’t forget to vote for your favorites!

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Frame from Bondiaries

Bondiaries, 2020, Germany, 3 min

Directed by Torben Loth
Choreography and Dancing by Jill Bettendorff & Wilfried Ebongue
Featuring Jill Bettendorff & Wilfried Ebongue
Music Composed by Luke Atencio
Cinematography by Torben Loth
Starting with dependence, a space where one is guided by the other regardless of one person’s needs. Moving through independence where we move on our own without needing the support of the other to finally arrive in a space of interdependence where we give ourselves the freedom to be ourselves & equally support each other.
Frame from HABITAT

HABITAT, 2019, Spain, 14 min

Produced and Directed by Sheila Garcia & Inés Valderas
Choreography by Sheila Garcia & Inés Valderas
Dancing by Ángel Montes, Diana Wondy, Juan Carlos Toledo, Carlos Núñez, Inés Valderas, Sheila Garcia, Laura Martïn, Alex Chavarri
Music Composed by Fernando Arias
Cinematography by Ramón Verdugo
Six rooms, six personalities, six stories that tell us the fear and insecurities of the human being. Different chapters all in the same house. All at once. All together. None at times. None unitedly. Synchronically? Simultaneously? Connected?
Frame from Morning Coffee

Morning Coffee, 2020, Indonesia, 2 min

Directed by Deny Tri Ardianto
Produced by Fajar Ritus
Choreography and Dancing by Dwi Windarti
Featuring Windarti Dance
Music Composed by Bagus Teweoe
Cinematography by Fajar Ritus
Covid-19 depresses everyone. Space becomes limited, houses run out of food, boredom and tension cannot be escaped. But everyone seeks to stay sane, in their own way. Note: This film was made with caution in accordance to the applied health protocol during pandemic such as physical distancing, use of mask, and limited number of crew.

Etch, 2019, United Kingdom, 7 min

Directed by Abby Warrilow, Lewis Gourlay
Produced by Victoria Watson
Choreography by Abby Warrilow
Dancing by Joanne Pirrie
Music Composed by Callum Rankine
Cinematography by Andrew Begg
A girl hikes across remote moorland. On a hill in the distance stands a lone building, which she discovers is a long abandoned school hall. In the centre of the room, hinged on one foot, she extends her leg and rotates swiftly and with graceful power. Her feet trace, etch and carve in circular movements, creating marks in the layers of dirt.

Jah Intervention (Intervenção Jah), 2019, Brazil, 15 min

Directed by Welket Bungué, Daniel Santos
Produced by Welket Bungué
Choreography and Dancing by Welket Bungué
Music by Walter Reis, Rádio Escada
Cinematography by Daniel Santos
The intervention is a symbolic walk to exhaustion. The intervention proposes the preliminary warm-up that precedes a fight of titans in a boxing ring. The intervention consists of the movement of the performer sensing the sudden fall when affected by perforations by bullets of semi-automatic weapons. Black people in Brazil are still more than half of the population of the country. Between 2005 and 2015 the number of black people murdered increased by 18% and this also made us the majority of homicide victims, accounting for 71% of all registered bodies. - Brazilian Forum of Public Security (2017)
Frame from Teorema

Teorema, 2019, United States, 6 min

Directed by Massimiliano Bomba
Produced by Eric Nung, Julie Vergez
Choreography by Julie Bour
Featuring CalArts Dance
Dancing by Delisa Bass, Laura Davich, Justin Farmer, Alexandria Garland, Mia Givens, Shannon Hafez, Freeda 'Electra' Handelsman, Jinglin Liao, Madison Lynch, William Mallett, Taliha Scott, Skyler Spiegel
Music Composed by Lucie Pedexez
Cinematography by Benjamin Cohenca
Teorema means Theorem, an ancient greek word that means “meditation.” Theorem also means "what you look at,” and it is precisely through the act of observing the history of art that twelve dancers from 18 to 24 years old have created an intimate relationship between them and the space in which they were immersed. We tried to represent the uniqueness and expressive strength of every dancer, each with his/her own stylistic and expressive identity.
Frame from Never Standing Still: Hong Kong Ballet's 40th Anniversary

Never Standing Still: Hong Kong Ballet's 40th Anniversary, 2019, United States, 2 min

Directed by Dean Alexander
Produced by Mikyung Kim
Choreography by Septime Webre
Featuring Design Army
Dancing by Hong Kong Ballet
Music Composed by Squeak E Clean Studios
Creative/Art Director by Pum Lefebure
Executive Producer by Jake Lefebure
After successfully redefining Hong Kong Ballet’s brand last year, our goal this year — their 40th anniversary — was to establish Hong Kong Ballet as an institution of national prestige and reach new audiences with the Ballet’s vision. the people of Hong Kong needed to see themselves reflected in the Ballet. Our strategy led us to blend traditional and pop-culture colors, tutus and street clothes, Chinese opera-inspired and contemporary makeup, and a backdrop of iconic Hong Kong landmarks to celebrate the Ballet’s heritage and its spirit of innovation. Hong Kong Ballet, like the city itself, is “Never Standing Still.” The film went viral and earned more than 2 million views.
Frame from Men

Men, 2020, Finland, 4 min

Directed by Hanna Brotherus
Choreography by Hanna Brotherus
Featuring Hanna Brotherus Company
Music Composed by Johannes Brotherus
Cinematography by Ari Virem
A group of men from different backgrounds between the ages of 12 and 85 feel the power and intimacy of touch. What does it mean to be a man and to connect with other men?
Frame from 컨트롤/Control

컨트롤/Control, 2019, Korea, Republic of, 4 min

Directed by 곽새미/Saemi Kwak
Choreography by Yeom Jeongyeon
Featuring K'arts
Dancing by Yeom Jeongyeon, Im Yujeong
Music by Sin Yejun
Cinematography by Jeong Yonghyeon
To dance. To control another self-image of being lonely and vulnerable. But such a figure also comes to accept itself. To control oneself from time to time by dancing. Because human beings have this sense of solitude. And even this, I feel, is beautiful. Some of the things we're most attracted to are us.

The Last Children, 2020, France, 10 min

Directed by Fu LE
Produced by Martin Rivarel, Alexander Viollet
Choreography by Fu LE
Featuring Tetrapode
Dancing by Michel Galaret and Pupils of the school of Saint-Martin-Labouval
Music Composed by Julien Langlois
Cinematography by Alexander Viollet
In 2019, 400 French schools were affected by a reform merging concentrated isolated primary schools in centralized educational institutes. "The Last Children" is a choreographic film made in single-shot with the children of a school on the eve of its closure. Through a metaphorical fable, it bears witness to the achievement of the desertification in the rural world and the death of its villages.
Frame from Genna

Genna, 2019, Belgium, 3 min

Directed by Thomas Delord, Maja Zimmerlin
Choreography by Maja Zimmerlin
Featuring Odos Cie
Dancing by Aurore Allo, Lito Anastasopoulos, Kritonas Anastasopoulos, Iraklis Miragias, Olga Spiraki, Marina Georgakila, Nikos Garozis, Knut Vikström Precht, Maja Zimmerlin
Music Composed by Dimos Vryzas
Cinematography by Thomas Delord
Flooding. Soft stone shedding. Hard water, merging veins. Inside or outside. Bodies, connected. The earth, the stone, the air, the sea. Cold scream of burning lungs. Creating. Path bodies, planting bodies, growing bodies. Connected. Inside or Outside.
Frame from Signals

Signals, 2019, United States, 6 min

Directed by Robert Schaller
Choreography by Lauren Beal;e
Featuring N/A
Dancing by Lauren Beale
Music Composed by Simon Christensen
Music Performed by Simon Christensen and Anne Søe
Cinematography by Robert Schaller
A single human figure sways in echo of the composer's movements making the shaker sound on which the piece is based. In this process it becomes something other, refracted through multiple layers of interpretation, its calm insistence full of a sense of meaning that finally passes without ever having revealed more than the enigmatic gesture itself.
Frame from EXUFRIDA

EXUFRIDA, 2019, Brazil, 6 min

Directed by Cicero Fraga
Produced by Silvio Cohen
Choreography by Raquel Karro
Featuring Instrumento de Ver
Dancing by Beatrice Martins
Music Composed by Luis Oliviéri
Cinematography by Alan Schvarsberg
In 1997 an out-of-control truck crashed into a bus that carried part of the Flamengos gymnastics team, the base of the Brazilian national team. Beatrice Martins fractured both feet. She can no longer compete, but she turned her recovery into a dance.