SCREEN: Malena Szlam

Throughout the month, MOCA’s SCREEN program for experimental film and video art will highlight the work of Malena Szlam. Malena Szlam is a Chilean-born, Montreal-based artist and filmmaker working at the intersection of cinema, performance, and installation. Her practice explores the relationship between ecology, human perception, and intuitive procedures. Szlam’s films engage the material and affective dimensions of analogue film processes, utilizing innumerable techniques to produce kinetic and lyrical approximations of the natural world.

moca.org/screen will host two films over the course of the month: Anagrams of Light (2011) and ALTIPLANO (2018).

Anagrams of Light
Canada, Super 8, colour, silent, 3:00 min., 2011
Light breaks the darkness in playful rapture—a film dedicated to Javiera.

ALTIPLANO
Canada/Chile/Argentina, 35mm, colour, sound, 15:30 min., 2018
Filmed in the Andean Mountains in the traditional lands of the Atacameño, Aymara, and Calchaquí-Diaguita in Chile and Argentina, ALTIPLANO takes place within a geological universe of ancestral salt flats, volcanic deserts, and coloured lakes, coupled with a soundscape generated from infrasound recordings of volcanoes, geysers, blue whales, and more. Located at the heart of a natural ecosystem threatened by a century of saltpeter and nitrate mining practices, and recent geothermic exploitation, ALTIPLANO reveals an ancient land standing witness to all that is, was, and will be.

Watch all films on moca.org/screen.

About the Artist:
Malena Szlam is a Chilean artist and filmmaker based in Montreal, Canada. Szlam’s work has been showcased at key festivals including Toronto International Film Festival’s Wavelengths, New Directors/New Films Festival, Media City Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Edinburgh International Festival, and CPH:DOX. Solo screenings have been presented at Los Angeles Filmforum, San Francisco Cinematheque, Cornell Cinema, and FICValdivia. Recent exhibitions include Time Machine: Cinematic Temporalities, Palazzo del Governatore (Parma, Italy), Expanded Plus: Utopian Phantom, Factory of Contemporary Arts Palbok (Jeonju, South Korea), and The Moon: From Inner Worlds to Outer Space, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk, Denmark). Her latest work ALTIPLANO was, amongst others, the recipient of 25 FPS’s Grand Prix, Curtocircuito Festival Internacional de Cine’s Explora Award, and Melbourne International Film Festival’s Best Experimental Short Film. ALTIPLANO was also chosen by TIFF as one of Canada’s Top Ten Films of 2018.

SCREEN: Malena Szlam is organized by Troyese Robinson.

Virtual MOCA is a new and daily digital series available on both moca.org and across MOCA's social media platforms. To enjoy the breadth of this program, please follow us on our social channels: