"I was gobsmacked by Chicagoan Calum Walter’s Relief, composed of images from the scene of a car accident rendered in the streaky grey-and-white of multigenerational photocopying, their decay animated through a process that I cannot claim to understand, but which bristles with glum foreboding." - Nick Pinkerton, Reverse Shot
"The images by themselves are often disquieting, but when coupled with the creaking, ominous soundtrack, the film attains a horror-like atmosphere as forbidding as any car crash educational video." - Jordan Cronk, Fandor
"Relief remains a potent consideration of the precarity of historical record and the wearing away of human and machine memory." - Filmmaker Magazine
Relief (2014) revisits footage gathered at the scene of a car accident. The piece looks at the ambience of a violent event, and imagines itself as the only remaining artifact. Images are presented as rogue data, perhaps unreliable, with both human and mechanical origins.
Screenings:
Toronto International Film Festival
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Ann Arbor Film Festival
Kyiv International Short Film Festival
The Mini, Cincinnati, OH (curated by Nick Pinkerton)
Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival
Cyprus International Short Film Festival
Athens International Film and Video Festival
Jihlava Echoes, Nova Cinema, Brussels
Roots and Culture, Chicago, IL
Static Vision - Cursed Signal, Melbourne Australia