Carlos Casas is a Spanish filmmaker and visual artist. His work is a cross between documentary film, cinema, and contemporary visual and sound arts. His last three films have been awarded in festivals around the world from Torino, Madrid, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City and some of his video works have been presented in collective and personal exhibitions. In 2001 he started a trilogy of work dedicated to the most extreme environments on the planet: Patagonia, the Aral sea, and Siberia. He has collaborated with musicians and artists like Phill Niblock, Z'EV, Nico Vascellari, Prurient, Sebastian Escofet, Nastro Mortal.
Biography
Carlos Casas studied fine arts, cinema and design. In 1998 he was awarded an Artist-in-residence in Fabrica, research and communication center of Benetton. In 2000 his short Film “Afterwords”, produced by Marco Müller and Fabrica Cinema was selected for Venice Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Reencontres du Cinema in Paris 2001. In 2001 he started a series of documentaries for Colors Magazine, and a series of Fieldworks, an ongoing experiment with ambiental video and radio frequencies, a sort of landscape video notes, in 2003 he developed a 52 min documentary,”Rocinha. Daylight of a favela” Shot on location in one of the biggest favelas in Rio de Janeiro.He also publish a compilation of Funk Carioca in collaboration with DJ Marlboro and Irma Records. In 2004 he finished “Aral. Fishing in an invisible sea” about the life of the three remaining generation of Fishermen in the Aral sea, which won the best documentary award in Torino Film festival 2004, and was selected for the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2005. Visions du Réeldocumentary film festival, Nyon, Switzerland 2005, One WorldPrague 2005, and Documenta Madrid 2005 where it received the special mention from the jury. In May 2005 he finished a 52 min version of the Patagonia research “Solitude at the end of the world”which received the special prize from the Jury in BAFICIBuenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema 2006. The Siberia project ”Hunters since the beginning of time” is the last chapter of a trilogy of films dedicated to the most extreme environments in the world. was awarded Best Documentary Award in FICCOMexico International Film Festival 2008. In 2008 he published a selection of forbidden funk : Forbidden Gang Funk From Rio de Janeiro for the label . In 2007 he presented in different festivals in his latest work Tundra from the Siberian Fieldworks series, a live media project premiered at Netmage Festival in Bologna and Sonar. and was also presented in in Rio de Janeiro. In 2008 he founded together with fellow artist friend, Nico Vascellari an audiovisual label publishing experimental audiovisual productions. Later in 2009 he created with partner and wife Saodat Ismailova, , a production house dedicated to develop audiovisual projects around the world, from feature films, to documentaries. In 2010 he presented his Cemetery Archive Works in and his End trilogy was presented for the first time in . In June 2010 in Milano presented END a comprehensive exhibition of the trilogy. Avalanche his latest project is a collaboration with the American sound artist and minimalist legend Phill Niblock an ongoing project based in the Pamir mountains, in one of the world's highest inhabited villages. Avalanche superimposes Casas' footage over the overtones of "Stosspeng," a piece by Niblock. It is a visual-sonic journey, an extremely intense audiovisual meditation and a sensory experience in which extremes meet: nature in its rawest state and the pure, breathtaking and heady sound of drones. Presented for the first time in its first incarnation in Sonar Festival, Avalanche is an open film, reedited every time it is shown and adapted to the space it is presented Avalanche is an organic example of film-making, an ongoing document to the disappearance of this village, a reactive film within its community, Avalanche is alive together with the village, dying and born again every time it is presented. He is currently working on a film about a cemetery of elephants on the borders between India and Nepal.
Best Documentary Award FICCO 2007 for Hunters since the beginning of time Special prize of the Jury BAFICI 2006 for Solitude at the end of the world Best Documentary Award Torino Film Festival 2004 for Aral. Fishing in an invisible sea Special prize of the jury Documenta Madrid 2005 for Aral. Fishing in an invisible sea
