“Whipping Zombie” by Yuri Ancarani

2017 · colour · IT · Ht/en · 30’

In a remote Haitian village, a ritual dance, slaves and masters: it’s the zombie dance. Riding on a hypnotic and relentless music, inducing trance and evoking the rhythm of working muscles, men whip and fight one another, until they die and be born again in an infinite cycle.
Kale Zonbi, Whipping Zombie, the title of a unique ritual shot for the first time, taking place in a paradise where it is impossible to forget the horror of the past.

Director’s biography

Yuri Ancarani, Ravenna 1972, lives and works in Milan, Italy. He is represented by Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin and ZERO…, Milano.

He is an Italian video artist and filmmaker. His works come from a continuous mingling of documentary cinema and contemporary art, and are the result of a research aimed to explore regions which are not very visible in the daily life, realities in which the artist delves in first person.

His works have been shown at national and international museums and exhibitions, such as: PAC-Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (Milano, Italy); MAMbo (Bologna, Italy); Fondazione Prada (Milano, Italy); Kunstverein Hannover (Germany); MoMA (New York, USA); Teatrino Palazzo Grassi (Venezia, Italy); Castello di Rivoli (Rivoli-Torino, Italy); Manifesta 12 (Palermo, Italy); Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, Switzerland); Art Basel Unlimited (Basel, Switzerland); 16° Quadriennale d’Arte “Altri tempi, altri miti”, Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Roma, Italy); 55° Esposizione d’Arte Internazionale, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico, La Biennale di Venezia (Italy); Beursschouwburg (Brussel, Belgio); CAC, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (Geneva, Switzerland); Centre Pompidou (Paris, France); Fondazione Sandretto, Re Rebaudengo (Torino, Italy); Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, California); AMACI, Museo del Novecento (Milano, Italy); MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo (Roma, Italy); R. Solomon Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA); Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France); RaebervonStenglin (Zurigo, Switzerland); Stiftung Insel Hombroich (Neuss, Germany).

He has also won several awards such as: “Premio Acacia”, 2023 (Milano, Italy); “Special Jury Prize”, 69° Locarno Film Festival (Locarno, Switzerland); five nominations for Cinema Eye Honors, Museum of Moving Image (New York, USA); “Grand Prix in Lab Competition”, Clermont Ferrand Film Festival (Clermont Ferrand, France).