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Vivian Ostrovsky

WHEREVER WAS NEVER

Vidéo expérimentale | super8 | | 6:0 | France, USA | 2011

An intimate film made on the occasion of the 30th annniversary of her father, Rehor Ostrovsky?s death. Re-collecting snippets of my first 8m and super 8 films, old photos, letters, and other memorabilia. À slow pan through my adolescent years, family trips, holidays and everyday scenes. Listening for lost accents, impromptu songs at the dinner table, and bits of conversation.A landscape of flickering memories somewhere between home movies and photo albums.

Manhattan, New York was where I happened to be born. After 6 months of stress, I boarded the first plane to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to meet my parents and sister. My primary and secondary school was not too far from Copacabana Beach. My university years were spent in Paris, suffering from a Psychology major (Institut de Psychologie). To make life more pleasurable, I ended up seeing more films around the corner from the Sorbonne than attending classes. After my B.A. in Psychology I enrolled in Film Studies courses at Sorbonne-Paris 3, at the Institut d?Art et Archeologie (Eric Rohmer?s classes) and at the Cinemathèque Française (Henri Langlois? classes). In the early 70s I traveled throughout Europe in a rundown Renault pick-up, organizing women?s film festivals and distributing films made by women (the distribution company was called Cine-Femmes International). My debut as an experimental filmmaker came in 1980, when I co-directed CAROLYN 2 with Martine Rousset (starring choreographer/dancer Carolyn Carlson). It was an expanded cinema film/slide installation. Many films came afterwards, mostly shot in super-8 then blown-up to 16mm. These films have been shown in festivals worldwide (Toronto, Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam, Tribeca, Vienna and others), in cinematheques and in art fairs such as the Sao Paulo Biennale and Arco in Madrid. Other venues have also screened them, such as : M.O.M.A., Lincoln Center, NY, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Anthology Film Archives, NY, Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, CA. Simultaneously my film-related activities have expanded to curating programs for venues such as the Jerusalem Film Festival. My main interests are in Avant-Garde work and documentaries. My home is wherever I feel at home ? and that is usually in a plane on my way to an unknown destination with my camera and DAT recorder in my carrier bag.