"The Intimate World of Plants" - a synthesis of cinema, music, and nature

On April 9 at 20:00, live from the Splendid Palace cinema, at the opening event of the Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS "The Hidden World of Plants" and the artist Sabine Moore aka The Waterflower will take you on a spectacular journey where you can enjoy a unique visual adventure, music created by real mushrooms, and a dreamy sense of wonder. Later on, enjoy the screening of the film “Minute Bodies: The Intimate World Of F. Percy Smith”. All this is just the beginning of the festival's seven-day journey.

At the centre of Sabine Moore's performance are mushrooms grown especially for the opening event - by connecting electrodes to them, the mushrooms will create sound, as well as mix a video. The Waterflower is the artist's audio-visual project, known for her experimental music and art-house music videos. Her concerts are rich multimedia performances created by the artist's characteristic vocals, synthesizers, and digital sampling. The album "Balta Gaisma" received two nominations for the annual music award "Golden Microphone 2021", in the categories "Best Alternative or Experimental Music Album" and "Best Album Design". Sabine Moore is also known for her professional work in videography, she has worked on full-length animated films “Before the Day Breaks” (dir. Roze Stiebra) and “My Love Affair With Marriage” (dir. Signe Baumane).

Immerse yourself into the world of “Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith” (2016) next.  At the beginning of the 20th century, Percy Smith created time-lapse, animation and micro-cinematic techniques in his North London studio to capture the secrets of nature in motion. Smith was an ambitious artist, often directing several films at the same time, and his mission was to explore and perpetuate the hidden territories of nature. The film combines Smith's original footage with a contemporary soundtrack created by Tindersticks in collaboration with Thomas Belhom and Christine Otto. It creates a hypnotic, alien and yet familiar landscape that awakens in us the same dreamy sense of wonder that Smith felt when he first looked through the lens and the microscopic worlds.

The festival will be opened by Laima Graždanoviča, program director, and producer Agnese Krastkalne. The event takes place in a live video from the small hall of Splendid Palace - with three-camera live editing, the quality transmission will be guaranteed.

The 2ANNAS festival takes place online this year, and the films will be available for free on the festival's website. You can already get acquainted with the full list of competition films.