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OID
~ Oficina de Investigación Documental

MANUEL CORREA            SHORT FILMS               INDEX





SHORT FILM

Agente
Biológico
2023


Co-directed
with Marina Otero Verzier

The Almeria landscape bears the imprint of the terraforming processes carried out in Spain by the Franco regime.
The architectures of the colonization towns and infrastructural projects erected at the time were means to convert bodies into laborers and landscapes into resources to be exploited. Their logic persists to this day, prominently displayed in the sprawling network of greenhouses that span hundreds of kilometers and produce the food that sustain us: tomatoes, zucchinis, peppers, watermelons. The plastic skins that build them wrap around the bodies of those who work tirelessly in the service of the production chain. Each is specialized in discrete but interconnected operations: planting, pollination, pest control, and harvesting. Absorbed in the familiarity of their tasks, they perform a choreographed dance every day in the factories where bumblebees are produced; in the rows of zucchini where humans work with repetitive manual movements, fueled by energy drinks; in the sheds where tomatoes are sorted; in the areas that accumulate discarded wrinkled skins, once greenhouses. Despite automation's tendency to mold workers into disciplined beings, their dances render bodies as generative mediums of embodied knowledge, places of agency and desire.



CURATORS
Eduardo Castillo Vinuesa and Manuel Ocaña

Biological Agent was commisioned by the Spanish Pavillion at the 18th Biennale Architettura, 2023.

HD Video 24’45’’ 2023

Installation in the Spanish Pavillion, 18th
Venice Architecture Biennale
Installation in Casa de la Arquitectura, Madrid
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SHORT FILM

Peñoncito
2022


Peñón de los Baños, 
Mexico City

Local elder Don Facundo Rodriguez attempts in vain to recall the story of the day he discovered a human skull in his backyard which was later revealed to belong to the earliest known inhabitant of the Americas.

With a sense of dread, he instead remembers encountering a crying legless woman hovering in mid-air near the dig site, calling to his mind a witch that is known to appear and disappear in Peñon to mark significant occasions. The 90-year old still carries a grudge towards his late cousin Pedro Cedillo who delivered the skull to the museum of anthropology without his consent. Now deceased, Pedro Cedillo himself is impossible to trace on account of there being many Pedro Cedillos buried in the local cemetery. In Manuel Correa’s odd chronicle of rumors and distant memories, questions and answers play tricks on each other - All of this invites us to ask, how much of our own history is fiction?


Based on Research by
David Somellera

With
Audino Diaz
Facundo Rodríguez

Produced by
Emil Olsen
Manuel Correa
David Somellera

Sound edition & mix
Emil Olsen

Location Recordings
Jacobo Zambrano

Assistant Editors
Signe Tørå Karsrud
Daniel Holten

Director, Editor, Camera
Manuel Correa


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Entrance to El Valle de los Caídos

SHORT FILM
Four Hundred Unquiet Graves
2020


The Valle de los Caídos, sixty kilometers from Madrid, features a colossal basilica and an eightymeter-
high cross. Commissioned by Franco’s government, it possibly holds the world’s largest
mass grave with 33,843 bodies, including many victims of enforced disappearance. Despite 45
years since Franco’s death, the exact number of his victims burried in the site remains unknown.
Over a decade ago, the families of Franco's victims discovered their missing loved ones might
be buried there. Their quest for exhumation has faced systemic resistance from courts, media,
state institutions, and the Benedictine monks overseeing the site.

This short film was commisioned by Het Nieuwe Instituut and e-flux architecture.
     Directed by
    Manuel Correa

    Produced by
    Emil Nygard Olsen

    Sound edition & mix
    Emil Nygard Olsen

    Graphic Design
    ALEJANDRA jARAMILLO

    NARRATION
    maría selas






    CLICK HERE TO WATCH
    MANUEL CORREA             FILMS              INDEX






    FILM
    The Shape of Now
    2018


    Do you remember the war?
    Ask seven people, and you will get seven different versions. The Shape of Now is a creative documentary that
    addresses the challenges and paradoxes of historical memory.

    Like Benjamin's Angelus Novus, this film is situated in the advancing present, yet keeping a gaze on the past. It looks the conflict in the eye, questions it, and doubts its supposed truths.

    The Shape of Now had its world premiere in the Next Masters competion at the DOK Leipzig Film Festival.




    Produced & Directed by
    Manuel Correa

    Coproduced by
    Emil Nygard Olsen
    Augusto César Sandino

    Original Music
    Simón Mesa Giraldo

    Sound edition & mix
    Emil Nygard Olsen

         Asistant Director
    Sebastián Munera

    Location Sound
    Francisco Londoño
    Camera
    Manuel Correa
    John Jarlen Quiros
    Angélica Toro

    Colombia / Norway.
    70 minutes, Colour

    HD Video 71’15’’ 2018

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    FILM
    #artoffline
    2015


    “Contemporary art is at a standstill, and partially because of technology” -  
    Mohammad Salemy


    In 2015, making selfies is part of the experience of visiting a museum. Digital technology has completely transformed the experience of art forever; #ARTOFFLINE provides an insider's view of the contemporary art-world, and explores the significance of audiences choosing experience art primarily through digital devices.

    This documentary illustrates the ways in which digital technologies are also creating new audiences, and a participatory culture that exists outside of traditional elite spaces for art. The artist and director Manuel Correa takes us behind the scenes, and provides a glimpse inside the minds that are already shaping the art of tomorrow.

    #ARTOFFLINE  had its world premiere in 2015 at Rotterdam International Film Festival .

     CLICK HERE TO WATCH


     Directed by
    Manuel Correa

    Produced by
    Emil Nygard Olsen

    Coproduced by
    Anna Kasko
    Cavo Kernich

    Original Music
    Cayne McKenzie

    Sound edition & mix
    Emil Nygard Olsen

    Asistant Director
    Joseph Strohan

         Researchers
    Jon Peters
    Joseph Strohan
    Mike Burnside

    Camera
    Maxime Cyr-Morton
    Manuel Correa
    Joseph Schweers

    Editing
    Emil Nygard Olsen
    Manuel Correa
    Joseph Schweers

    Technical
    Distributed by IndiePix Films
    Norway. 60 minutes, Colour. HDVIDEO



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    Digital reconstruction of El Valle de los Caídos’ exterior.

    FILM
    Atlas of Disappearance
     2018 - Ongoing



     Atlas of Disappearance is a 90-minute documentary currently in post-production. It delves into the transfer of bodies from across Spain to the Valley of the Fallen and the ongoing efforts of families and state forensic experts to recover these remains. The project is grounded in the meticulous, multidisciplinary research conducted by the Documentary Research Office.

    For over six years, Atlas of Disappearance has followed three families in their quest to reclaim the remains of their loved ones buried in the Valley. The film presents new evidence and visual materials that bring them closer to their lost relatives. The Documentary Research Office team—comprising artists, forensic architects, geographers, archivists, documentarians, and mathematicians—creates mathematical hypotheses, probabilistic algorithms, forensic cartographies, and architectural animations to reconstruct what was destroyed and digitally reveal the truth about Europe’s largest mass grave. The film juxtaposes the oral testimonies of families with virtual reconstructions of these hypotheses, waging a relentless battle against silence and oblivion.

    The documentary leverages cutting-edge technologies to shed light on three cases involving families seeking answers about their disappeared relatives. Silvia, 50, leads the largest association advocating for exhumations. Mercedes longs to recover her father. And Fausto, an elderly man who has spent his life searching for his father’s remains, finally succeeded on August 20, 2023...while the remaining relatives lose hope as they wait.


    Atlas of Disappearance is currently in postproduction, with the support of the Spanish Ministry for Memory and Territorial Politics, Medialab Matadero, Fritt Ord Foundation and Sornorsk Filmsenter

    Atlas of Disappearance was part of Berlinale Talent’s DocStation, Venatana CineMadrid and Zinebi Networking.


    Chapel of Santísimo, El Valle de los Caídos


    Silvia Navarro-Pablo, leader of the pro-exhumation association, in front of the basilica of El Valle de los Caídos



    Map of all the mass graves moved to El Valle de Los Caídos







    MANUEL CORREA             ARCHIVES               INDEX





    ARCHIVES

    Press

    Peñoncito
    “ En esta entrevistal, el director de cine habló sobre la memoria y su película más reciente “Peñoncito”, que también se relaciona con este tema y fue rodada en México.”

    Laura Camila Arévalo Dominguez, for El Espectador, December 2022
    #artoffline
     “Directed by young Colombian visual artist and filmmaker  Manuel Correa, #artoffline premiered in 2015 and has been to international film festivals since 2016. It’s now 2020 and so this is no longer a new film. However, not much has changed in the art world in the past five years and with the new coronavirus, the issues Correa discussed then are worth our serious attention now. ”


    Napat Charitbutra, for Art4D, 2020


    “ As #artoffline explores, the Internet has been seen by artists either as a transformative tool (think Instagram) or as a roadblock (again, think Instagram). Yet even with the Internet’s ascendency, cinema is the only remaining mainstream art form of our culture.”

    Aaron Peck, for Canadian Art, 2017

    The Shape of Now

    “The film started as an exploration of what it means to be able to create the past – and the role of verification. Because if you accept that you can implant false memories into people then how is our own autobiographical memory a reliable source for testimonies and truth-claims? In this sense, it is evident that we have no access to the past. We can remember the past, but every time you may remember something differently and memories may change. I am interested in the idea that the memory of the past is always created in the future. The past is ground for experimentation.”

    Interview by Tomáš Hudák, for Desist Film, April 2020


    “More than anything, The Shape of Now is about the process of creating historical memory: its promise and its fallibility. Correa interviews a logician, an arms dealer, a peace negotiator, journalists and neuroscientists as well as ex-combatants from all sides and, most touchingly, a group for the mothers of people who disappeared. All of these individuals are, in their own way, trying to piece together what has happened (or what they’ve done) and figure out why, so that they can move on.”

    Jenna Sauers, for Cultured Magazine, March 2020


    “Por estos días, y por los días pasados, y seguramente por los días siguientes, el gran reto será admitir que, para entender, habrá que dejar que el otro hable sin que necesariamente eso signifique asumir que lo que dice es cierto o correcto. Coexistir es, en resumidas cuentas, lo que propone Correa en su película.”


    Laura Camila Arévalo, para El Espectador, Noviembre 2019


    ” ... Manuel Correa’s new film, The Shape of Now, takes on the gore-soaked mess that is Colombia’s civil war in a sly and inventive way: by casting a cool eye on the oddly surreal social landscape of the country as it is now, with the war officially over and the entire society attempting to move on.”


    Michael Atkinson, for Progressive, May 2019


    “One of the standout works of ARTBO was presented in the fair’s Artecámara section for emerging Colombian artists. London-based, Medellín-born Manuel Correa’s 70-minute documentary The Shape of Now ... ”
    Jenna Sauers, for Cultured, October 2019


    “...Qué pasó con los sobrevivientes de más de 50 años de conflicto interno? Esta es la pregunta que se propone resolver ‘La forma del presente’, del director Manuel Correa, de la mano con las víctimas que narran no solo su dolor, sino cómo lograron edificar a partir de él.”

     Valentina Valencia, Para El País, Octubre 2019








    MANUEL CORREA                   ABOUT                 BACK





     Manuel Correa is a Colombian artist and filmmaker based in Madrid. His work explores memory and post-conflict reconstruction in contemporary societies. 
    Manuel’s work is exemplified by the difficult task of negotiating highly complex and fragile social relations formed in the aftermath of trauma. He has used documentary filmmaking as a tool through which to bring people together: creating meeting points for war victims, survivors, activists, and scientists.

    Correa has an MA in Research Architecture from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He was part of the Forensic Architecture project. He is currently an Afield Transitional Justice Fellow. 

    His works have been presented in venues such as the Spanish Pavillion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, Kunsthaus Graz, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Museo Tamayo in Mexico, Presentation House Gallery in Canada, MediaLab Matadero, The Medellín Museum of Modern Art, The 8th Norwegian Sculpture Biennial, Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Chile, e-flux Architecture, DOK Leipzig international documentary film festival, amongst other spaces.
    Education
    2018 - 2019. Centre for Research Architecture. Goldsmiths College, University of London. UK.
    2011 - 2015. Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver.

    Academic
    2021. Lecturer, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

    Exhibitions (Selected)
     2024. 24/7, Kunsthaus Graz. Graz, Austria
    2024.  (As part of OID) Atlas de la Desaparición. MediaLab Matadero. Madrid
    2023. Lo Que nos Queda Por Hablar. Museo de la Memoria y los DDHH. Santiago de Chile
    2023. Spanish Pavilion at Biennale Architettura. (Curated by Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa and Manuel Ocaña). Venice
    2023. Huellas de la Desaparición (as part of Forensic Architecture). Museo la Tertulia. Cali
    2022. Forensic Architecture (as part of Forensic Architecture). Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Copenhagen
    2021. Huellas de Desaparición (as part of Forensic Architecture). Museo Miguel Ángel Urrutia. Bogotá
    2020. Esa Historia no es la Historia. Espacio Odeón. Bogotá
    2020. God in Reverse: When Wisdom Defies Capture. Richmond Art Gallery, Canada
    2019. Artecámara. ArtBo. Bogotá
    2018. Fake Art. Fake Museum. Fake You. (Curated by Gerd Elise Morland) Norsk Nasjonal Museet. Oslo
    2017. II Coloquio Latinoamericano de Arte No-Objetual. Museo de Arte Moderno De Medellín. (Curated by Sofía Hernandez Chong Cuy). Medellín
    2017. This is the Sea. Art Montecarlo Special Projects. (Curated by Mohammad Salemy). Monaco
    2015-16. 8th Norwegian Sculpture Biennial. (Curated by Anne Szefer Karlsen) Vigeland Museet, Oslo
    2015. For Machine Use Only (Curated by Mohammad Salemy). Schneiderei Gallery. Vienna
    2015. Quoting the Quotidian. WAAP. Vancouver
    2014. INDEX. Gallery 295. Vancouver
    2010. Salón Regional De Artes (Antioquia). Medellín

    Screenings (Selected)
    2024. Écrans Urbains. Lausanne. Switzerland
    2024.  El Futuro del Pasado. Cineteca Mardid. Spain
    2023. Bogoshorts. Bogotá. Colombia
    2023. Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival. Netherlands
    2023. Effigies. TEA. Tenerife. Spain
    2022. Postcarbon Timelines. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Madrid. Spain
    2021. Utopías de la Proximidad. MAM Medellín. Colombia
    2021. Arqueología de la Desaparición. CAR. Madrid. Spain
    2021. Lo Mejor de Colombia Viva. BIFF. Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Santa Marta. Colombia
    2019. Bogotá International Film Festival. Bogotá. Colombia
    2019. Cinematik International Film Festival. Piestany. Slovakia
    2018. New Politics of Labour. Medellín. Colombia
    2018. DOK Leipzig International Film Festival (Next Masters Golden Dove Nomination). Leipzig. Germany
    2016. Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthal. Arendal. Norway
    2016. Museo Tamayo. Mexico City. Mexico
    2016. Lo Schermo dell'Arte Film Festival. Florence. Italy
    2016. Palazzo Grassi. Venice. Italy
    2016. Il cinema del carbone. Mantova. Italy
    2016. Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín. Colombia
    2016. A4 Centre for Contemporary Culture. Bratislava. Slovakia
    2016. TranzitDisplay Gallery. Prague. Czech Republic
    2016. Kunstnernes Hus. Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo. Norway
    2016. International Film Festival Rotterdam. Netherlands
    2016. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Rotterdam. Netherlands
    2015. Bergen International Film Festival. Bergen. Norway
    2015. Kabuso Kunsthal. Øystese. Norway

    Conferences, Talks
    2024. DOCU/Days Ukraine War Archive + Docu/Synthesis Lab. Mentor.
    2024. Oblivion and Impunity: Anamnestic Justice and the Construction of a Common Past. The Ecologies of Peace II. TBA 21. Córdoba, Spain
    2024. Cultural Heritage Resilience and Censorship. King's College. London
    2024. CRA Round Table: Foodscapes. Goldsmiths College. London
    2023. Methodological Exchanges: Urbanism and Dictatorship under the Franco Regime. RCA, London
    2023. Journalism and OSINT for Human Rights and the Prosecution of Atrocity Crimes. Facultad de Ciencias de la Información, Universidad Complutense. Madrid, Spain
    2021. Utopías de Proximidad. Conversación con Oswaldo Osorio. Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Colombia
    2020. Online: Sala de Estar. With Rafael Ortega. Museo Amparo. Puebla, Mexico
    2020. Online: Unearthing Monuments and the Construction of History. With Dima Srouji and Marina Otero Verzier. e-flux Architecture / Het Nieuwe Instituut. Netherlands
    2020. Online: Los Límites de la Evidencia. Abrazando la Ficción. Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Colombia
    2020. Online: The Missing Circle (Conversation with Pavel Aguilar). Kadist/Museo Amparo. Puebla, Mexico
    2019. Interlocutories Symposium. Spike Berlin. Germany
    2019. NYU Madrid, Politics of Memory (Invited by Allen Feldman). Spain
    2018. The Missing Circle. Kadist Art Foundation (Curated by Magalí Arriola). Merida, Mexico
    2016. Bots. Bodies. Beasts. Studium Generale Rietveld Academy. Netherlands
    2016. Our Digital Selves. Kunsternes Hus. Oslo, Norway
    2015. Speaking off it. Field Contemporary. Vancouver, Canada

    Residencies
    2024. Afield Transitional Justice Fellowship
    2023. Berlinale Talents, DocStation. Berlin, Germany
    2023. Laboratorio y Foro de Coproducción. Ventana CineMad. Madrid, Spain
    2022. MediaLab Matadero. Research residency. Madrid, Spain
    2018. CAR Madrid. Centro de Acercamiento a lo Rural. Madrid, Spain

    Collections
    Kadist Arts Foundation 
    Norsk NasjonalMuseet

    Bibliography (selected)
    2022. Capturar la Vida Mientras Sucede, La búsqueda de Manuel Correa. El Espectador. Print
    2020. Manuel Correa Reckons Violence and Memory. Interview by Jenna Sauers, Cultured Magazine. USA
    2020. DesistFilm. Interview by Tomáš Hudák. Online
    2018. DOK Leipzig International Film Festival Catalogue
    2016. Vancouver At The Movies. Canadian Art Magazine, By Aaron Peck. Canada
    2015. A Democratic Project. Interviewed by Erlend Hammer. Kunstrikikk.no
    2015. Bergen International Film Festival Catalogue
    2015. Kunsten Tilhører Dem Som Ser Den. 8th Norwegian Sculpture Biennial Catalog
    2014. Aint-Bad Editions. Issue No.9

    Text
    2019. Politics of Math in the Age of Post-Truth, an interview with Fernando Zalamea. &&& Journal.
    2016. Embracing the Digital. Manuel Correa interviews Benjamin Woodard for #Artoffline. &&& Journal.
    2016. Nowhere, Today. Terremoto Journal. (Edited by Natalia Valencia). Mexico City
    2016. Talbot’s Dream. For Machine Use Only (Contemplations on Algorithmic Epistemology). &&& Publishing in association with Gwangju Biennale.
    2015. The Philosophical Origins of Digitality. Manuel Correa interviews Alexander R. Galloway for #Artoffline. &&& Journal.
    2015. Harun Farocki: On the Documentary. e-flux conversations: Day 5. Online component of Venice Biennale Super Community.

    Films
    2023. Agente Biológico (Co-directed by Marina Otero Verzier). 24'
    2023. Peñoncito. 30'
    2020. Cuatrocientas Tumbas Inquietas. 23'
    2020. No Sabía que Había Muerto. 4'
    2018. La Forma del Presente. 75'
    2015. #ArtOffline. 65'
    2018 - Ongoing. Atlas de la Desaparición (In production).





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