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Let Us Persevere In What We Have Resolved Before We Forget

Ben Russell

2013 00:19:57 FranceEnglishColorStereo16:916mm film
Tags:
Documentary, Documentation, Experimental Film, Indigenous, Nature

Description

"We are happy. (Silence.) What do we do now, now that we are happy?"

-- Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

"John Frum prophesied the occurrence of a cataclysm in which Tanna would become flat, the volcanic mountains would fall and fill the river-beds to form fertile plains, and Tanna would be joined to the neighbouring islands of Eromanga and Aneityum to form a new island. Then John Frum would reveal himself, bringing in a reign of bliss, the natives would get back their youth and there would be no sickness; there would be no need to care for gardens, trees or pigs. The Whites would go; John Frum would set up schools to replace mission schools, and would pay chiefs and teachers."

-- Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound: a study of cargo cults in Melanesia

In English and Whitesands with English sub-titles.

 

This title is the first in a trilogy by Ben Russell which also includes the works Atlantis (2014) and Greetings to The Ancestors (2015).

About Ben Russell

Ben Russell is an American artist, filmmaker and curator whose work lies at the intersection of ethnography and psychedelia. His films and installations are in direct conversation with the history of the documentary image, providing a time-based inquiry into trance phenomena. Russell was an exhibiting artist at documenta 14 (2017) and his work has been presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Museum of Modern Art Chicago, the Venice Film Festival and the Berlinale, among others.  He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008), a FIPRESCI International Critics Prize (IFFR 2010, Gijón 2017), premiered his second and third feature films at the Locarno Film Festival (2013, 2017) and won the Encounters Grand Prize at the Berlinale Film Festival (2024).  Curatorial projects include Magic Lantern (Providence, USA, 2005-2007), BEN RUSSELL (Chicago, USA, 2009-2011), Hallucinations (Athens, Greece, 2017) and Double Vision (Marseille, France 2024-). He is currently based in Marseille, France.