Milda Januševičiūtė & Mark Prendergast, aleknaičiai (abracadabra)

2021

8’31, video


ONLINE 20.8.2021

Four kids, four stories and two summer nights at Aleknaičiai village, a small abandoned school building that is soon to be renovated into an artist residency. Instead of learning maths and geography Austėja, Kipras, Luka and Meda turned into young ‘artists in residency’, left to their own devices to navigate the roles of director, actor, cinematographer, sound recordist in order to bring their self written stories to life. They decided to talk about selling your soul to the devil, a lost dog who finds a home with his new friend lama, mental health issues and a popit wizard with a magic basketball hoop. 

aleknaičiai (abracadabra) is a video project by Milda Januševičiūtė and Mark Prendergast which attempts to explore the world and the world of filmmaking through the eyes of children. In this anecdotal context also poking fun at the high regard the filmmaking world traditionally has of itself, challenging it's anachronistic codes of conduct and proposing a lighter approach.  

Together with Austėja Januševičiūtė, Kipras Krupa, Luka Krupaitė, Meda Pakalnytė

Sound by Miša Skalskis

Thank you:  Aleknaičių bendruomenė, Akvilė Januševičienė, Danius Januševičius, Irena Braškienė, Miglė Krupienė, Vilius Vaitiekūnas, Virginija Januškevičiūtė, Vytautas Vaitiekūnas, History of Joy, Part 4 and CAC team

BIO

Milda Januševičiūtė (b.1990, Lithuania) is a cultural sociologist and artist based in Vilnius, Lithuania. She has also worked as a producer, researcher, coordinator, accountant, damage control in various spheres ranging from theatre to music, interdisciplinary and visual arts. These experiences led to filmmaking and currently she is working across various interdisciplinary projects, focusing on forms of care, healthcare, hope and resilience.

Mark Prendergast (b.1988, UK) is a British artist and filmmaker. Drawing on his experience collaborating with contemporary makers such as Raf Simons to rethink, reformat and produce new visual strategies, his practice is deeply rooted in how moving images are made, with what tools, and how they function. His experiments are underpinned by a fluent understanding of the tools he uses, enabling them to propose new and subjective ways of using technology before these languages are co-opted and ossified by wider power structures.