DOKU.ARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
06.–23.10.2016

Orality as a Construction of Discourse and Montage – The Use of Modes of Storytelling in Experimental Cinema

The universe of Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño is a complex net of truth and falseness; it was his perpetual questioning of the truth, the mystery of an act, murder lurking behind every sentence, and ultimately the impression of an exceptional crime novel that inspired me to work with Bolaño’s text. I never knew whether he was being realistic or metaphorical but the darkness of the novel’s genre seemed to be an ideal starting point for a conversation about our countries, the Dominican Republic as well as South and Central America. I am not certain whether I can speak of literary adaptation, rather my intention is to talk about a way of writing which, as an eternal tale within tale, creates a multiplicity of ideas and voices, an orality that, seen in the context of our countries, shaped not only our languages, ideas and ways of writing but can also be seen as the source of historiography.

Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias

Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias was born in Santo Domingo in 1985. He attended the Iberoamericana University where he received his BFA in Creative Writing and Media Arts. In 2006, he studied cinematography in Buenos Aires, then later in Edinburgh College of Art where he started making experimental work. His film SheSaid HeWalks was awarded a BAFTA for best experimental short film in 2009. His second film, Should We Go Home?, was shown at several film festivals as well as Bienal de São Paulo, and was also selected to be part of the permanent collection at the Film Makers Cooperative in New York. He has his MFA in Film/Video at CalArts. In 2013, his first fictional feature, Cocote, was awarded the prestigious Fundación Carolina scriptwriting residency in Madrid and was supported by the World Cinema Fund of the Berlin Film Festival.