C-LAB: a cultural laboratory

“It’s such a quiet, such an inspiring place! I’m dreaming of a “cultural laboratory” at the edge of Waldviertel.

Together with a wonderful young team, each one brilliant in her/his discipline, I’m attempting to transform a centuries-old farmhouse into a venue where future can happen. From architects to engineers, from app-developers to farmers, from philosophers to visual artists – it’s the full range of knowledge which is culminating in C-LAB! And which shall make for a cool, relevant place on this planet.” Lena von Lapshina

Austrian multi-media and video artist Lena von Lapshina, a one woman army for the art and all things cool, is going to create a save spot, a den for collaborations in the pittoresque village Rappolz – within driving distance from Vienna.

Help Lena to bring a historic farmhouse to life again and convert it into C-LAB, a place where interdisciplinary communication and creative production can happen.

There are many amazing surprises you can get by backing this fine project. Go see.

Cruel The Ash | Carl Elsaesser

Those who had the pleasure to watch Carl Elsaesser´s THERE IS WIND THAT BLEW during the 8th Berlin International Directors Lounge (or on one of many festivals where he gathered several awards) knew that Carl has a very unique and poetic way of telling a story.

Now he´s going to enter the holy grail of experimental film with Cruel The Ash, shot entirely on 16mm. To do so he needs your support through Indiegogo. A campaign to raise the needed money and your chance to get a copy of Cruel The Ash for as little as 10 $.

“The working title for the film is Brown Ash in reference to the tree used by Maine Indians to make baskets. The film is built in part around the potent metaphor of the threat to this tree posed by the emerald ash borer, which has yet to arrive in Maine but whose arrival seems eminent in the next five to ten years and leaves the fate of the basketmaking tradition suspended. The film is also an ambitious attempt to portray the entire life of a mother in the course of a single day: the choices she makes, the invisible strings that turn her head to notice the woods and define her hopes and fears. The two narratives, poetically woven together, expand and complicate our notions of Maine identity and begin to answer the questions of who we were, who we are and who we will be.”

Carl Elsaesser

(visit Cruel The Ash | Indiegogo and spread the word)