Janis Rafa

Stray dogs are locked up at a neglected, post-apocalyptic location: actual fall out shelter created during World War 2 to protect humanity in case of a nuclear war. This film is replete with contradictions: beastly versus human perspective, perpetrator versus victim, subjugation versus power and cruelty versus empathy.

A young couple employed by a pet crematorium finds fulfilment in respectfully removing cadavers. Their love blossoms in an environment where the boundaries between human and animal are fading. When they hit a stray dog, their relationship starts to derail.

Twelve international filmmakers create connections between humans and animals, through biodiversity, ecosystem, climate change, environment and water risks.

A car approaches and finds the remnants of an accident with an animal transportation vehicle.

Lacerate blends elements of realism with a dreamlike, symbolic dimension, portraying the extreme decision of a woman who turns from victim into executioner. In a series of mises-en-scène shot only in natural light, we see a domestic setting overrun by a pack of dogs that roam around restlessly, attacking objects and furniture. The interior of this home is a mental space, violated and lacerated like a body that has undergone violence. Fruit, game, and remnants of food are arranged like still lifes, with allegorical elements evoking the precariousness of life and the loss of innocence.

A dog waits in a car. The windows fog up and we hear the creature panting and whining softly – his impatience and restlessness are contagious. The dog is entirely at the mercy of people in escaping from this predicament. Janis Rafa connects this image with early Soviet space flights in which dogs were sent into space as part of experiments. Waiting for the Time to Pass is a new work, made during the corona pandemic, and the association with the limited freedom of movement and uncertainty about the lockdown is clear. In her earlier work, Rafa often commented subtly on the ecological disaster caused by anthropocentrism.

In a small rural community, between the mountains and the sea, no child has been born in the last eight years. This inexplicable long run of infertility is coupled with rumours about women giving birth to animals.

A group of chickens get played a requiem as they await their final moment in the coup.

The violent action of a vehicle that, for ten interminable seconds, shakes an almond tree vigorously, causing its leaves to fall prematurely. Using a high-speed video camera shooting at 2000 frames per second, Rafa creates a glaring, melancholy metaphor that evokes a multiplicity of themes: from the unconditional exploitation of the environment by the human race, to the fragility of the equilibrium that we think we are establishing between nature and technology, all the way to the ineluctable transience of all forms of existence.