Jinx

DCP
colour
9 minutes
2005

Choreography: Lieber Gorilla
Dance: Dagmar Chittka & Sanja Hasagic
Sound design: Charly van Rest
Editing: Erik van de Belt

Screenings:
IFFR (Rotterdam)
DancEmotion (Jakarta)
EMAF (Osnabrück)
Dutch Open (Amsterdam)
Naoussa Short Film Festival Naoussa (Naoussa)
Media Forum (Moscow)
Dutch Punch (St.Petersburg)
Video Lisboa (Lissabon)
Östersunds konstvideofestival (Östersund)
21th International Short Film Festival Berlin (Berlin)
Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona (Barcelona)
Festival International du Film d'Amiens (Amiens)
Short Cuts Cologne (Köln)
KINO.LAB (Warsaw)
Rencontres Audiovisuelles (Lille)
Tabor Filmfestival Zabok (Zabok)
Le Petit Versailles (New York)
Mix Festival (New York)
ZVRK (Sarajevo)
Rencontres de Cinéma de Gindou (Gindou)
Cinéphilies de Grenoble (Grenoble)
Le volcan - Cinéma l’Eden (Le Havre)
Unithea Theatre Festival (Frankfurt-Oder)

The film started out from the title; Jinx is one of the few Arabic words appropriated by the English during their Middle Eastern adventures. While the original word 'Djinn' refers to a spirit, the anglicized version rather refers to a person or a thing that brings bad luck. While being in the middle of the second Gulf war, these different meanings evoked a series of images and situations. Together with the dancers/choregraphers of Lieber Gorilla I embarked on a series of improvisations with these interpretations of the word in mind.

The result is a short dancefilm with a performative character. A telephone and a car are the only attributes, a lonely road between sea, sand and wind is the location. The world seems to be empty, the landscape is artificial, the elements rage. A rough textured dance film in vivid colours.