Vivian Ostrovsky

"The film is a travelogue of sorts. In 1960 my family lived in Brazil when my father discovered his sister and brother in Moscow, who he hadn't seen for 40 years, were still alive. Since they couldn't leave the USSR we went to visit them regularly for about 15 years. At the time I had my 8mm then a super 8 camera with which I filmed the family, our outings, picnics, markets and their homes… I decided to use this material, which was not very interesting per se, by mixing it with Soviet found-footage of the same period (1960's, 1970's, 1980's). I used feature films, propaganda footage, newsreels, etc. The result is a kind of Khruschev-era mix with a collage of Soviet music and a voice-over of my memories of the Cold War period."

With a super 8 camera from Paris to Berlin, from Amsterdam to Rio, from Jerusalem to New York shooting only at night. Hungarian crooners, Indian tribal chants, opera arias, and an occasional samba make up the sound track of this “hand-held” diary.

"Readings. A place. Purity of lines. Fine angles. Dominance of whites and blues. Fragility of tapered glasses." A visual evocation of the writing of Katherine Mansfield.

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"Going through my mini DVs shot over the past decade, I rediscovered a forgotten night sequence of Chantal Akerman and Sonia Wieder-Atherton leaving a brasserie where we had dined together in Montparnasse. The excerpt stayed with me for a while. This prompted me to focus on Chantal’s sound work in her films and her very close collaboration with cellist, Sonia Wieder-Atherton with whom she made more than 20 films. And, since New York, Paris and Moscow were places the three of us had in common, I intertwined some of my images with hers."

DVD gathering 16 films by Vivian Ostrovsky made between 1982 and 2014.

A single-screen version of the Portraits / Mirrors multi-projection. Featuring portraits of: Aloual, Gaël Badaud, Raphaël Bassan, Yann Beauvais, Jean-Michel Bouhours, Gérard Courant, Berndt Deprez, Bertrand Gadenne, Mythia Kolésar, Christian Lebrat, Stéphane Marti, Pascal Martin, Michel Nedjar, Dominique Noguez, Vivian Ostrovsky, Bernard Roué, Martine Rousset, Alain Sayag, Unglee, and Catherine Zbinden.

A new short film by Vivian Ostrovsky remembering Chantal Akerman, beginning with their first meeting in the early 1970s. Using her own footage of Chantal Akerman, the filmmaker remembers a few moments that illustrate Chantal's personality. Forty years of friendship condensed into four minutes...

A delightful update of Jacques Tati’s classic Les Vacances de M. Hulot (Mr. Hulot’s Holidays). Seagulls squawk, waves crash and swimmers cavort in endless summer days spent on the beach. TATITUDE suggests that sand, water and sun are the basic elements in a happy, carefree life, and maybe even the secret to eternal youth.

Funny collage of sea, sun and ice. A show from the beach with skiers, tigers, mermaids and much more.

M.M. IN MOTION was four years in the making and draws upon Ostrovsky's filming of six Monnier choreographies (from 1988 to 1991) in rehearsals and performances. M.M. attempts to translate Monnier's essence, style and humor into cinematic terms using fragmentary, episodic and impressionistic images that capture the defining traits of her modus operandi.

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A humorous glimpse of what happens every morning on the wavy sidewalks of Copacabana Beach. Physical fitness, Brazilian style, with a dash of soccer and hints of Carmen Miranda.

This video was made for an exhibition in Rio on Paulo Werneck, one of Oscar Niemeyer's collaborators. Werneck was the first to introduce mosaics in Brazilian Modernist architecture. P.W. shows the context of the artist's work in Rio and Belo Horizonte in the 50s and 60s as well as Brasilia at the time of its construction in 1960. It's an inventive collage of archival footage, music and Werneck's modernist mosaics.

An observation of humans' and animals' table manners as they gulp down breakfasts, lunches, cocktails and dinners in a variety of situations.

Absorb these images, “breathing slowly, quietly, and very calmly. Sinking softly, silently…” Drift into a relaxing reverie.

Sarah and Paul leave their native California once a year to eat their way through France. They test the Michelin guide’s recommendations for three-star restaurants (the top rating) and between meals still have time to do some wine tasting at the best cellars. The filmmaker follows them around in a second car.

Based on a correspondence between Brazilian artist Ione Saldanha and the filmmaker, this portrait was made for an exhibition at the MAM (Museum of Modern Art) in Rio de Janeiro. Ione Saldanha (1919-2001) was a contemporary of Lygia Clark, Sonia Delaunay, and Vieira da Silva, all of whom were her friends. She abandoned painting on canvas for more sculptural supports like batten and bamboos which she shaped with color. Matisse was constantly present in her mind and work for inspiration.

An intimate film made on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Vivian Ostrovsky's father, Rehor Ostrovsky’s death. The film is pasted together using artifacts from and footage of places and situations that form a part of the everyday nature of traveling between large cities: the experience of constant travel and disrupted communications. Objects stand for stories from the road; family memories about traveling between countries and cultures remind us of the movement of history.

Vivian Ostrovsky is a nomad film-maker, born in New York. Student in Brazil then in Paris, which takes its camera of continent in continent since 1980. Her work, in the border of the documentary and the experimental, touches the filmed journals and is interested in the individuals rather than in the masses, in the physical language, in the unusual of the situations and in the sensible editing of the images and the sounds.