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El Mar La Mar (online)
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Digital
El Mar La Mar, dir. Joshua Bonnetta & J.P. Sniadecki, USA, 2017, 95 min.

Cinema 3

Currently not available

Influenced by the Sensory Ethnography Lab’s advocacy of innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography, El Mar La Mar sits between experimental anthropological essay and imagistic film poem. The 16mm footage deliberately overwhelms with open space, massive skies and landscapes shimmering in deathly heat. The meticulous sound design focuses on desert winds and the nocturnal sounds of venomous insects, deadly snakes and predatory mountain lions. 

At times, migrants’ and residents’ voiceover emerges from a completely black screen, telling of getting lost, discovering a body or taking in a shivering migrant. Other voices chillingly describe the desert in dark, psychedelic terms or invoke mythical monsters. The desert’s distortion of reality can be fatal; migrants often lose their way and wander in circles until they are picked up by border patrols or die. Captured on screen, El Mar La Mar’s building dread attempts to drive home the horror of a five-day desert crossing undertaken on foot.
 
Currently not available
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The film is only available to audiences in the UK. Please do not book if outside the UK, as you will not be able to access the film. 

El Mar La Mar will be available to stream until 29 June, 7pm. Tickets purchased for this film will be valid until the final streaming time. 

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