Artist-in-residence

Residency period

8 January – 28 March 2019

About

John Torres (b.1975, the Philippines) is an independent film director, producer, and writer widely acclaimed for his highly personal and poetic style. Weaving together archival clips, found footage, and visually powerful imagery, his films unfold narrative structures, often with strong autobiographical references, that defy conventional tropes and genres. Torres has received solo retrospectives at The Reading Room, Bangkok, Thailand (2015); Vienna International Film Festival (2013), and the 12th Seoul International New Media Festival, South Korea (2012). His most recent feature film People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose, premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2016 and received Special Mention at the 6th Curitiba International Film Festival, Brazil in 2017.

Focus

During the residency, John Torres plans to experiment with “parasitical filmmaking strategies” as the starting point of a series of works he intends to realise throughout Southeast Asia. By positioning himself at the periphery of ongoing film productions, Torres will collect their multiple “excesses:” spillages in light, sound, props, furniture, scenic design, and everything that may linger outside the perimeter of the main set. Tapping onto other directors’ scraps and making use of resources that have already been paid for to create his own separate narrative, the artist aims to test out a playful method for bypassing the financial limitations of independent film productions. In light of his recent role as father, this work will be developed within the framework of Remote Daddy Project: a way of structuring the artist’s work schedule around his daughter’s sleep and feeding schedule so as to strike a balance between making art and raising a family.

Residencies brochure (January – March 2019)