Moghen paris – and all come along

It´s the way it is: a billowing structure, a big confusion, un gran casino. Pork ears sticky with blood combined with a plastic sieve become a hat; a desolate heating plate becomes best friend to the man on a leash. The simultaneous presence of the past and the future: people, plants, objects, animals – even dead things – resemble vital actors in an ensemble that almost accidentally and spontaneously comes together. A kind of mythology evolves, adhering to absolutely no order. Like a child´s dream come true, without sense in the best sense of the word.
Katharina Copony´s Moghen paris – and all come along is the filmic translation of this structure, a carnival procession in a Sardinian mountain village, a spectacle most unique by virtue of its unruliness. In this respect, no narrative meaning is provided, but instead filmic sense is made: Moghen paris – and all come along is the ecstasy resulting from the meeting of carnival with cinema.
At the same time the text by Andreas L. Hofbauer somehow whirrs through the film and is ungraspable. "Blacken, take off armor, raise visors, dress in new winged body jewelry." Everything evades control, also the words. Black-faced visages, bell tones, roaring motors, everything is in a state of permanent transformation. Only the ancient cork trees in the forest seem to be still. But even here one can sense thousands and thousands of tiny insects – an anarchic ensemble in miniature.
(Emily Artmann)

Translation: Eve Heller

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MOGHEN PARIS - director's statement

While doing research for a short film during the last few years, I attended a number of carnival rituals in Sardinia. Most impressive for me were the Ash Wednesday celebrations in Ovodda. Located  on the fringe of public awareness, this is not a tourist event or spectacle but a local festival in which each and everyone takes part. This grants all the participants – who are even regarded as including animals and everyday objects – a universal experience and an openness to multifaceted readings. It goes without saying that an egalitarian freedom like this is also redolent with politics and collectivism. While the faces of people and animals alike are blackened with a mixture of ashes and oil, the objects are subjected to new, syncretic uses. A temporary interregnum of exaltation and transition holds sway, in which givens transmute and familiar things may reveal themselves as unknown and unexpected.

My main concern was to translate this experience into a cinematic form that would instantly grab the viewer, awaken memories, move them. Sound and image are also supposed to pass through them, as it were, leaving their traces – both bewildering and consoling.
The aim was thus not about casting an ethnographic, documentary eye on this procession, but to develop a choreography spanning the contrasting rhythms and moods in the material.
The text written by Andreas L. Hofbauer allows a further dimension to be experienced. It speaks from differing perspectives, is polyphonic as it buzzes gently through the film. The whisperings are in two tongues, both spoken and in asynchronously staggered subtitles that fade in and out and stand by themselves.

Moghen Paris – and all come along sets out with cinematic means into the autonomous world of this Ash Wednesday ritual, which unites the most ancient of things with those of our futures and utopias.
Kathrina Copony

Orig. Title
Moghen paris – und sie ziehen mit
Year
2016
Country
Austria
Duration
61 min
Director
Katharina Copony
Category
Documentary
Orig. Language
German, Mandinka, sardinian
Subtitles
English, German, italian
Credits
Director
Katharina Copony
Script
Katharina Copony
Cinematography
Katharina Copony, Stefan Neuberger
Sound
Lina Launhardt
Montage
Bettina Blickwede
Sound
Katharina Copony
Sound
Peter Kutin
Sound Mix
Peter Kutin
Text Author
Andreas L. Hofbauer
Production
Katharina Copony
Voice
Rosanna Garau, Jeanette Spassova, Gesuina Marongiu
Production Manager
Claudia Wohlgenannt
Production Manager
Valentina Piredda
Speech Manager
Peter Kutin
Translation
Valentina Piredda, Gesuina Marongiu
Speech Manager
Kuen-il Song
Supported by
BKA - innovative film, CINE ART
Available Formats
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,85
Sound Format
5.1 surround
Frame Rate
24 fps
Color Format
colour
Digital File (prores, h264) (Distribution Copy)
Festivals (Selection)
2016
Viennale - Vienna Int. Film Festival (MehrWERTpreis of Erste Bank)
2017
Graz - Diagonale, Festival des österreichischen Films
Hamburg - Dokumentarfilmwoche
Jihlava - East Silver Market
Jeonju - International Intangible Heritage Film Festival IIFF (Best Film)