Tate Modern presents the first major survey in the UK of maverick filmmaker Albert Serra, a powerful and unique voice in contemporary cinema. Serra’s vivid and subversive work draws on the history of literature and art. The Albert Serra season will include ‘Singularity’, a unique preview of his in-development project commissioned by the Institut Ramon Llull for the Catalan participation at the forthcoming 56th Venice Art Biennale.
Albert Serra will present a unique preview of his latest in-development project Singularity, commissioned for the Catalan participation at the Venice Biennale as a Collateral Event. The specially conceived event will explore Serra’s ongoing collaboration with curator Chus Martinez with an exclusive presentation of his upcoming project by IRL's director, Àlex Susannna, and a specially conceived performance by legendary musician Jordi Valls.
The season will launch with Serra’s most recent film Story of My Death 2013 a baroque reflection on pleasure and desire that imagines a meeting between Casanova and Dracula. Earlier award winning films range from the minimalist take on Don Quixote in Honour of the Knights 2006 to a reworking of the Biblical parable of the Three Kings in Birdsong 2008. Unfolding in beautiful and often remote landscapes, these films mine history to create philosophical parables blending the mythical with the everyday.
Serra’s acclaimed feature films will be screened alongside rare shorts and the elements from the monumental The Three Little Pigs project created one hour per day throughout Documenta 13 and not shown in the UK before. The season will conclude with The Lord Worked Wonders in Me 2011 a making of film about Serra’s past and future films. Produced as a correspondence between Serra and Argentine director Lisandro Alonso, the film reunites the cast from Honour of the Knights for an anarchic visit to the legendary landscape of Le Mancha in central Spain. Drawing together many themes from Serra’s work, reflections on landscape, culture and history the film is a highly original celebration of freedom and the pleasures of filmmaking.