SPECIFICATIONS

English Title : Landscape 101 01 1101 01…
Running Time: 28 minutes
Genre: Experimental Documentary
Audio: Sound
Language: English
Format: DV
Year: 2007

 

 

CAST & CREW

Director: Sompot Chidgasornpongse

Starring: James Benning and friends

 

 

SYNOPSIS

 

A home-video style recording brings the viewers to a field trip to see landscapes with James Benning and his students, and shows how the filmmaker is trying to capture a burnt forest with

his digital equipment. Gradually, through digital manipulations from the shooting and the editing, the film becomes a lost voyage into a mysterious digitalized forest.

 

 

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

 

James Benning, a filmmaker and teacher, takes his students on a tour to one of his favorite spots in California. Film students bring their camera with them.

 

'Landscape 101 01 1101 01...' is a film about filmmaking. It reveals the filmmaking process through the filmmaker's perception. Instead of showing just the final already-thought-out images, the film uncovers the practice of looking for the right framing, focus, and exposure. The experiments, mistakes, and time spent, are also evident. Brightness and darkness are generated through digital manipulations. The act of filmmaking in progress becomes the narration of the film.

 

Space is clear and time is linear at first. Then through editing, both gradually become ambiguous. We are now lost and trapped in a dark digitalized forest, created by the filmmaker. James Benning is famous for his landscape films. This film is my version in response to his.

 

 

SELECTED SCREENINGS

2008 The 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Thailand

 

 

SELECTED REVIEWS

"I like some films which have no story, because they allow me to create a story of my own, though the director may not intend it. As for this film, there are some scenes that inspired me to imagine myself as the Mother Earth. I felt as if I was the Mother Earth visiting the burnt forest. The digitally blurred images of the burnt forest in this film make me feel as if I (the Mother Earth) was watching the burnt forest through my tears."

 

-Jit Phokaew