Kunstkaart

Duration: 16'19" Year: 2011 Actors: Yongmin Zhou and Wynolt Pietersma Quality: HD, 16:9 For museums/art-institutions, Mandarijn is available as installation, including three films which can be played synchronous. Besides that it can be shown as one film, with the three screens in one frame and one pair of subtitles. Mandarijn is also available as DVD, for home use only ....................................................................................... Mandarijn (Mandarin) is a three screen video-installation. It tells the story of a farmer in Friesland, who desperately wants a girl after the birth of his eight sons. At the same time, the piece shows a Chinese bachelor, who is looking for a girl to marry and who is imagining his life with her. The film is showing these men, who are talking during the whole movie about two persons – the daughter and the wife- who do not even excist. They are changing their own personality and acting, because of those imaginairy persons. This film is asking questions about the archetypes in this world in which we see not only other people but also ourselves. Is it an investigation into desire and the sincerity of it. At the same time this film is an interesting research into installation, documentary and fiction film. The shape of the piece is a multiple screen installation which is responsable for a nice choreografy between the three screens. It is using documentary based technics, but is considered a fiction movie. This is Sarah Bijlsma’s way of discovering the twilight zone between those three genres and is her way of breaking the borders of classic media.