Lior Shamriz
ㅇ Stay in ㅣ 2015
ㅇ Email ㅣ lior.shamriz@gmail.com
Education
2013-14 Visiting Scholar / Visiting Lecturer - CalArts, Valencia, California
2013 Visiting Teacher – China Art Academy Hangzhou / MFA UdK Berlin
2013 Master Class / Jury – Ars Independent Katowice
2012-3 Guest Teacher – Filmarche Berlin
2008 Master Class – Sarajevo Film Festival
2006-9 Art Studies at the University of Art Berlin (UdK) Graduating with Honors
2002-4 Film Studies at the Sam Spiegel Film School Jerusalem
Retrospectives
2013 Retrospective – Ars Independent Katowice
2012 Filmmaker in Focus (10 films) – 53rd Thessaloniki Intl Film Festival
2012 Filmmaker in Focus (3 films) – Israel Film Festival Berlin
Grants, Prizes (selection)
2013-14 DAAD Fellowship for Los Angeles, California
2014 Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage – Honorable Mention
2013 Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage – 3sat Forderpreis
2013 Shortlist: Preis der Nationalgalerie fur junge Filmkunst Germany
2012 Medienboard Project Grant
2010 Bambi Foundation project grant (FR)
2010 Achtung Berlin Film Festival – “Best Feature Film”
2010 Nomination: Max Ophuls Preis for a Feature Film
2008 Mexico City Week of Intl Cinema – “Best Feature Film”
2007-9 Sharett Scholarship of the “America Israel Foundation”
Residencies
2015 Taipei Art Village (TW)
2014 PAM – Los Angeles Performance Space (USA)
2013 Geumcheon Art Residency Seoul (KR)
Performances
2014 PAM – Los Angeles Performance Space (USA)
2014 WOLF Berlin – Cinema Space (DE)
2013 Power House – California Institute of Arts (USA)
Selected Festivals / Exhibitions
2015 Berlin Film Festival - Forum Expanded (3 films)
2015 Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage – Competition (6 films)
2015 Stuttgarter Filmwinter
2014 Oberhausen on Tour (Screened in ca. 35 cities around the world)
2014 Sao Paolo Short Film Festival
2014 Norwegian Short Film Festival Grimstad
2013 The Way of the Shaman (with Naama Yuria)
2012 Achtung Berlin Film Festival
2011 Koln Kunstfilmbiennale – Competition
2011 Torino Film Festival – “Onde” Opening Film
2010 Kashish Gay Film Festival Mumbai
2010 Mix Brasil Sao Paolo + on tour (Screened in 8 cities in Brazil)
2010 Las Palmas Film Festival – Competition
2009 TLVFest Tel Aviv (4 films)
2008 Sarajevo Film Festival – Panorama
2008 Frameline Film Festival San Francisco
2008 Mix NYC
2008 BFI London Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
2008 Nouveau Cinema Montreal – Competition
2008 Buenos Aires BAFICI – Competition
2008 MoMA / Lincoln Center – New Directors / New Films
2007 60th Locarno Film Festival – Competition
ㅇ Works
FALLEN BLOSSOMS (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
FALLEN BLOSSOMS (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
FALLEN BLOSSOMS (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
CANCELLED FACES (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
CANCELLED FACES (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
CANCELLED FACES (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
THE PRESENT OF CINEMA (HD, 7 minutes, 2013)
L’AMOUR SAUVAGE (HD, 26 minutes, 2014)
FALLEN BLOSSOMS (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
CANCELLED FACES (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
CANCELLED FACES (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
CANCELLED FACES (HD, 80 minutes, 2015)
L’AMOUR SAUVAGE (HD, 26 minutes, 2014)
The Fall of Unk and Boaz
João Ferreira
Lior Shamriz, an Israeli director who has settled in Berlin, made his debut with the 2007 feature film Japan Japan, which displayed his interest in the concepts of exile and globalization, most certainly influenced by his personal experience.
Shamriz has wagered a winning bet in the sometimes slippery domain of experimental language, challenging narratives and offering nonconventional imagery; his already considerable filmography firmly places him as one of the most interesting voices in the genre.
In Cancelled Faces, in a post-modern gesture against the backdrop of Seoul, Shamriz recounts the love story between two young men, Unk and Boaz, staged with a neo-noir spirit, through a collage of historical elements and film references.
The prologue, narrated by Unk, shows us the young man of humble origins who works in a factory and lives with his mother in a squalid suburb. At night, he roams the city on his motorbike, and almost runs over Boaz, a rich kid, thus beginning their love story. In the language of noir, Boaz is the homme fatal who leads Unk towards his destiny, and also meets a tragic end.
The city binds them, then parts them – an inert city, devoid of life, like the faces from the film’s title, which are no longer reflected in water, but rather in smartphone screens, contemporary Narcissi.
Faces alien to their surroundings, exiled. “I failed at being absorbed, like an old neighbourhood left behind”, says Unk, after the fatal dive into the loneliness of night.
The city, and not the bodies, is the film’s conceptual heart.
The city / State represented by Unk’s brother, a soldier whose body Unk dreamed of reincarnating in while masturbating; but also the city in the film’s parallel narrative: on TV, we watch the history of the Poet who lives the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 b.C. at the hands of the emperor Titus / Hitler. The city forces a new reorganization upon the bodies, who are newly exiled to a distant place.
