The main topic of Academia Film Olomouc 53 were oceans and their impact on humankind. The visual identity of AFO 2018 created by the graphic designer Radim Měsíc and the photographer Ondřej Hruška was also closely tied to the relationship between man and the oceans. It was a result of intense work with a water-filled aquarium, camera and handling a piece of plastic. Therefore, it is not a standard vector graphics created in computer software. The poster mock-up was printed on a piece of plastic and then submerged in an aquarium filled with water. They lit up the aquarium and vibrated the water. Each movement, reflection or irregularity present at the resulting photograph is the representation of the unique conditions of the photographing process.
Addiction/dependency was a topic which was intertwined with the entire AFO 2018 programme structure. Dependency on civilisation drugs, such as oil, electricity, technology, fashion and, above all, absolute dependency on the oceans as well as the paradoxical dependency of the survival of the humankind and biosphere on ourselves.
“The AFO 2018 dramaturgical concept was chosen to be water as a mass and its natural properties, such as refraction of light, wave motion, buoyancy and perspective deformation. These are all phenomena which can be to some extent digitally simulated; however, we have chosen the form of direct documentation of the water’s natural behaviour. We printed my design on a transparent plastic film which we then submerged in water. This approach is interesting not just from the formal point of view, but the result also naturally follows the questions put forward by the festival – it is a commentary to current environmental problems and our dependency on plastics and oceans,” described Radim Měsíc whose graphic skills have formed the visual identity of the festival for the third time in a row.
Author: Ondřej Čížek, Nikol Láryšová
Editor: Nikol Láryšová
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