Now Available For Booking
Two Films by Knut Ã…sdam: Abyss & Tripoli

Format: BlueRay / Digibeta / BetaSP / DVD
Total Running time: 70 mins

“The real protagonists of these films are not human subjects but architecture itself. […] Few directors make architecture the central element the way Ã…sdam does.” – Artforum, October 2010 download full article

Two new films by internationally acclaimed artist and filmmaker Knut Ã…sdam are available for screening for a limited period following their UK premier at Tate Modern in February 2011.

The films were shot on 35mm film, feature surround sound, and have a combined running time of 70 mins. Each film focuses on a different urban environment – Abyss was shot on the periphery of the 2012 Olympic site in East London, and Tripoli within the complex of abandoned and crumbling buildings that Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer’s built for Lebanon’s International Fair, which was left incomplete when civil war broke out in 1975.

Abyss (45 mins, 35 mm, colour, surround sound)
Filmed in East London around the fringes of the 2012 Olympic site, Abyss depicts the urban reality in London marked in various ways by migration and the movement of money and power. Four characters drive the film forward and link together the disparate spaces of the modern city – shopping centres, gyms, parking lots, markets and transport routes. The film is a study of how movement, expression and articulation are modulated and controlled within the non-spaces of 21st Century London.

Tripoli (25 mins, 35 mm, colour, surround sound):
Tripoli is set in the eponymous town in Northern Lebanon, which hosts one of the world’s most distinctive building complexes; the half built and derelict international fairground, designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. At the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 all work on the project was halted, and then never completed. Today it exists as a kind of modernist ruin, a monument to a more optimistic time in the Middle East, a historical fantasy and a contrast to the ‘real’ everyday modernism of Tripoli.

Bookings or further information:
For all booking enquiries or questions please contact Kate Parker at:

City Projects, London
+44 (0)20 8985 2236
+44 (0)7949 785 184
kate@cityprojects.org
http://www.cityprojects.org/

Programme details:
Available for booking now, for screenings from March 2011 onwards.

Abyss & Tripoli
Dir. Knut Ã…sdam | UK/Norway/Lebanon | 2010 | 35mm on Digital video
Available formats: Blueray Digibeta BetaSP DVD
Total Running Time: 70min
Bookings will be charged at £100 MG / 35% of box office (plus transport)

Dan Kidner (co-producer/commissioner of Abyss) or Knut Ã…sdam may be available to introduce programmes dependent on dates. Please enquire for details.

Marketing Details:
All participating venues will be provided with marketing materials (incl. a poster) and included in advertisements for the tour in leading film/art magazines.
All venues which confirm a booking before the end of January 2011, will be included in a national press release announcing the UK premier of the film and subsequent tour following screenings at Tate Modern in February 2011. High resolutions stills are available upon request.

About Knut Ã…sdam:
Knut Ã…sdam was born in 1968 in Trondheim, Norway. He has been active on the international art scene for over ten years. Ã…sdam uses film, video, photography, text, sound and architecture in his investigations of the formation of individual identity. He represented Norway at the Venice Biennial in 1999 and was the artist in focus at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2007.

He has exhibited widely at institutions including Tate Britain, London, Kunsthalle Bern, Istanbul Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Manifesta7, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, P.S.1 MoMa, NYC, and Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, among others. He has also participated in international film festivals, including International Film Festival of Rotterdam, Locarno Film Festival and International Festival of Short Film of Bilbao. Feature articles on his work have been published in Artforum, Grey Room, Le Monde Diplomatique, Untitled Magazine and many more.