Ute Aurand

Worldpremiere: 17th VIEWS FROM THE AVANT-GARDE, New York, October 5, 2013

To Be Here: The Films of Ute Aurand, Tate Modern London, February 2014

" (...) Unlike many contemporary artists using the moving image, Aurand works within the artisanal tradition, shooting and editing her 16mm films alone. She favours responsive handheld camerawork and a distinctive editing style that is at once energetic, rhythmic and tender. Though this process may be solitary, it is never self-involved; rather, Aurand’s films are marked by a disarming openness. Even when working far from home – in Japan for Young Pines (Junge Kiefern, 2011), in the United States for To Be Here (2013) – Aurand is a traveller not a tourist. She may not know personally the students of Mount Holyoke College who appear in To Be Here, but her empathy with them is palpable and moving.(...)  Erika Balsom "Introducing the intimate films of Ute Aurand"

"To Be Here": filmed in New England, New York and the Southwest of the US in 2012/2013. It is the last part of my trilogy with INDIA (2005) filmed in Pune and JUNGE KIEFERN / YOUNG PINES (2011) filmed in Japan.

" To Be Here was born out of Aurand's travels around the United States - particularly the twin poles of the northeast and the southwest. While the film finds Aurand reveling in both landscape and portraiture (the latter particularly among the students at Mount Holyoke), she also touches upon the history of the communities in the places she visits, especially the Shakers and the Hopi. The film adopts as muse Katharine Lee Bates, author of "Amercia the Beautiful", who lived in Massachusetts but wrote her poem in Colorado." David Pendleton, guest programmer at the Flaherty Seminar 2016 "Play".

Premiere: Views from the Avantgarde 2013, NYFF; Gijon Film Festival Spain; Tate Modern London; Video EX Zürich; Media City Film Festival; DocLisboa; "Avantgarde ist keine Strömung" Leipzig; Harvard Film Archvie; DIM Vancouver;