22.10.2026 at 19:00. Experimental Competition In Silico 2 (repeat): Count, secret [mis]communication system, A Real Grey Area, Linear Endjoy, Headworks, The In-the-Head Film, Press Enter to Finish the Day, Roman Charity, Rodina, Big Hall

Description

Russian premiere

In 25 humorous miniatures, Vasof takes sayings about the human head literally, puts them in visual form, and gives them a three-dimensional existence.

About the director:

Anna Vasof

Architect and media artist. She studied architecture at the University of Thessaly in Greece (2010) and transmedia art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2014). Since 2004, her videos and shorts have screened at international festivals; she has received awards at Diagonale, Vienna Shorts, Punto de Vista, and elsewhere. In 2020, she finished her PhD thesis on a cinematographic technique she developed, “non-stop stop-motion animation.” She is now working on designing and building innovative mechanisms for producing critical videos, films, actions, and installations. Vasof participated in the In Silico programme of the 29th Message to Man with Muybridge’s Disobedient Horses (2019).

Description

World premiere

The phosphor layer of a cathode ray tube visualizes the final vanishing of an electron beam – its last “happy” moment. 

A Pale Blue Dot Matter Wave. 

A minimalist short film exploring the traces of electronic imaging and perception. It operates between physical materiality, temporality, and subjective experience. 

About the director:

Nicolaas Schmidt

Filmmaker, video and concept artist based in Hamburg. He studied fine arts, time-based media, visual communication and film at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK). His work has been presented at international film festivals and art events. At Message to Man, he has twice received a Jury Diploma in the In Silico experimental film competition: for Sense+Innocence (2011) and Like Horses Standing in the Rain (2024).

Description

Russian premiere

Building on my background in academic drawing, I create a painting that reinterprets Rubens’ Roman Charity from the viewpoint of its female figure. This painting then appears as a prop in the video, becoming a means to inscribe my own biography and to explore questions of gaze, female subjectivity, memory, and the boundaries of the permissible.

— Alena Tereshko

About the director:

Alena Tereshko

Artist and filmmaker. In her practice, she works with autobiography and humour, blending personal stories with social critique. In 2026 she completed an MFA in Time and Space at Uniarts Helsinki; in 2013 she graduated in monumental art from the St. Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, and completed the Young Artist School programme at the Pro Arte Foundation.

Description

Russian premiere

Through the testimony of an employee haunted by work-related dreams, this film explores how work seeps into our nights, affecting our mental health. Meanwhile, video games offer a refuge where players eagerly embrace challenges and missions, often within virtual spaces that replicate the very workplaces at the root of their suffering.

About the director:

Coralie H. Gourdon

Documentary filmmaker from French Polynesia currently based in Athens. Her work explores inventive forms of documentary, blending fiction and non-fiction and drawing on a range of film genres. She studied literature, social anthropology and filmmaking at the Sorbonne, then took part in international masterclasses under mentors including Ariane Mnouchkine and Béla Tarr. In 2021, she participated in the Werner Herzog Accelerator in Lanzarote, where she directed her short documentary Animal Planet. Her film Time Sensitive Characters, which also turns on aspects of sleep, was selected for the Kiberglaz special programme at the 34th Message to Man International Film Festival.

Description

World premiere

The film is based on the drawings and graphic illustrations taken from the patent “Secret Communication System”, registered as US2292387.

When work on radio-controlled torpedoes began in the early 1940s, it became clear that an enemy would have little trouble intercepting the frequency of a control signal. In 1942, to fix that problem, the film actress Hedy Lamarr and the composer George Antheil proposed changing the carrier frequency of transmitter and receiver by means of a perforated paper tape, of the kind used in a player piano. Lamarr and Antheil’s invention folded musical logic into the mechanics of war, fulfilling the modernist utopia’s hope that art and technological progress might pass into one another.

About the director:

Nikita Spiridonov

Artist, composer, curator, and founder of the u/n multitude collective. In the context of the artistic practice of u/n multitude, he explored the political dimension of sound, creating performances and political scores. As a video artist, Spiridonov continues to take historical events as a starting point and investigates the difficulties of memory work along with the ways of remembering. Spiridonov is a participant of numerous exhibitions, including: Orchestras (Solyanka Gallery, Moscow, 2016), Notes for Tomorrow (diverse cities, 2021-2025), Limits of visibility (CCA Winzavod, Moscow, 2025). He participated in the In Silico competition of Message to Man IFF with Volga Song, Dots, Lines and Zigzag, Meat Grinder 2 and secret [mis]communication system 2 (Jury diploma).

Description

Russian premiere

Attempting to stage an historical reenactment on Coney Island, a contractor working for a powerful client speaks with a representative from a rental company regarding the unconventional use of an electric generator.

About the director:

Frank Heath

Director and artist. Born in 1982 in St. Joseph, Missouri, he lives and works in New York. His works contemplate vast, unfathomable subjects through a mix of observational documentary, landscape portraiture, droll humor, and prank phone calls. His solo exhibitions have been held at Simone Subal Gallery, New York and the Swiss Institute, New York. Frank Heath’s films and artworks have been included in group shows and screenings at the Centre Pompidou, The Kitchen and the High Line (New York), The Power Plant (Toronto), and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. His film Protect Your Home (Get It Right) won the In Silico competition at the 34th Message to Man IFF. The Hollow Coin (2016), named Best Documentary Short at IndieLisboa and winner of the audience award in Hamburg, as well as War Pigeon (2017), both screen in the Prompted Reality special programme.

Description

 Russian premiere

A man entertains briefly the idea that suffering can’t be counted, that two who suffer are not more than one who suffers.

Adapted from the book: Visit to Hades: Auschwitz and Breslau (1966) by Günther Anders.

About the director:

Daniele Grosso

An Italian filmmaker based in Lisbon. He holds an MA in arts and literature, with a thesis on the history of animated film, and trained in video post-production. His work sits at the intersection of animation, documentary, experimental cinema and poetry. A View from the Plane (2024), also drawn from the writings of Günther Anders, screened in the In Silico competition at the Message to Man IFF.

Description

Russian premiere

A rapidly associative animated film about life inside a neurodivergent mind: too many ideas, too little rest. It explores the inner noise of a filmmaker who wants everything at once – and almost breaks under it.

About the director:

Konstantin von Sichart

Multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and musician based in Berlin. He holds an MA from the Berlin University of the Arts, where he studied with Hito Steyerl and Ming Wong. He works across animation, experimental film, sound, and visual art, merging them into dense, fragmentary narratives that reflect both personal and societal states. His projects often combine analogue and digital material, AI-generated imagery, music production, and autobiographical inquiry. He works with diverse media, always with the aim of creating emotional and intellectual spaces where contradiction is allowed to exist. He co-founded the production company Tannenbaum Films with Alice Dalgalarrondo in 2018.