To Your Hands
2021 | A Buffer Fringe partnership with Animafest Cyprus
To Your Hands
To Your Hands is an experiment in animated documentary filmmaking presented as an installation. Created during a month-long residency with Animafest Cyprus 2021, the installation is a work-in-progress for a short film about the Cyprus problem framed through the cultural traditions of Cypriot people. Rather than focusing on the pain and division of the island this project looks past that at the shared beauty of Cypriot culinary and artisanal practices in both the north and south of the island. Setting language and religion aside, To Your Hands presents the hopeful perspective of Cypriot people as a unified community with strong cultural bonds.
Ana Mouyis’s painted frames explore the labor and repetition that build a culture and her video installation, presented on two screens that face opposite directions, shows a collage of Cypriots working and creating. The two videos are made up of the same content, the only difference is location and arbitrary visual obstructions. The sound scape, created by artist and musician Fox Schwach, includes field recordings from across Cyprus mixed with an algorithm based composition realized with modular synthesis. The painted animation, video and sound elements all come together to form an updated portrait of Cypriot cultural identity.
Creative Team:
Director and Animator: Ana Mouyis
Sound Artist: Fox Schwach
Cinematography: Fatosh Olagasher, Fox Schwach
Production Assistant: Mark Campbell Garrity
This project was made possible by the generous support of the Republic of Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture,.
The research for this project was partially funded through the financial assistance of the ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animation Educators Forum 2021 Faculty Grants Program.
Additional Funding provided by the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development.
