Catalogue > At random

LONG SHOT: In one long shot the camera travels along the section of Cairo?s Friday market that is set up on railroad tracks. Here, framed by the highway and the Al-Imam As Safi?i cemetery, every Friday locals and vendors from all over the city offer their products for sale, set up on tables or spread on the ground. The camera moves at a steady, slow paste along the tracks, like a train passing a closed down station. The people inhabiting the market ? the sellers and buyers, and the people living at its edge become the protagonist of the film, collapsing the borders between performance, documentary and fiction film. The slow paste of the shot allows the viewer?s attention to oscillate between the market in the foreground ? the goods for sale, the dynamics between sellers and buyers, and the many (informal) architectural layers of the housing area and cemetery directly behind. I am equally interested in the complex and multilayered architectural constructions as in the informal economy of the market. The range of products for sale questions our western concepts of what holds value, and the very notion and definition of a ?product? in itself: What we easily label as trash - useless or broken parts - are being recycled and offered for sale, a sign not only of desperation and economic need, but also of faith in the creativity of the buyer to find a possible new use for these items. MAKING-OF: The making-of documents the film shoot during the course of the day (from 6 am to the early afternoon when rain and a sandstorm hit the market) and offers glimpses into the socioeconomic context of the market, the location and its inhabitants through close ups of sellers, buyers and products, and short interviews with locals.

Heidrun Holzfeind studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at Cooper Union in New York. She lives and works in New York. solo exhibitions include CCA, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2010); De Vleeshal, Middelburg, The Netherlands (2009); Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico City (2008), Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck (2007); Lado b, MUCA Museum Mexico City (2005), Artists Space (project room), New York (2005), W139 in Amsterdam (2004) Recent group shows and screenings include CASM, Barcelona; Manifesta7, Trentino; Photocairo4, Cairo; MOMA, New York; Zendai Art Museum, Shanghai; Goethe Institute Dublin; OK Centrum Linz, Austria; Grazer Kunstverein; Festival der Regionen 2007; Exit Art, New York; Architecture Museum Basel; Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria; Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Swiss Institute New York; BAK Utrecht, and others. Festivals include European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck; Assim Vivemos Festival Brazil, Rio de Janero & Brasília; Duisburger Filmwoche, Germany;
 Diagonale, Graz, Austria; Impakt Festival, Utrecht; Transmediale Festival Berlin; Videoart Center Tokyo; SKIF Festival, St. Petersburg; SNIFF Int. Short Filmfestival, Novo Mesto, Slovenia, and others.