New Zealand artist wins award in Madrid, Spain

New Zealand artist wins award in Flamenco Short Film Festival in Madrid, Spain

'The dance of the brushes', directed by New Zealand artist Charles Olsen and produced by TwentyFourSeven Cine, has been awarded second prize in the Festival Flamenco de Cortometrajes, organised by deflamenco.com. 26 short films were selected from various cities in Spain, France, Germany, Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Italy and the United States. The 26 shorts were presented in the cinema 'Sala Berlanga' in Madrid, Spain, on the 3rd and 4th September, 2010, and the prizes were presented on the 5th September. The jury was composed of important figures from the world of Flamenco and cinema: Cristina Hoyos Panadero (Flamenco dancer and president of the jury), Dominique Abel (Film Director), Alfonso Eduardo Pérez Orozco (Reporter), Paco Milán (Film maker) y Teodoro García (Special guest).

The prize-winners are:

- 1st place 'Síndrome de pies y manos' by Jesús Pulpón (Seville)

- 2nd place 'La danza de los pinceles' by Charles Olsen (New Zealand/Madrid)

- 3rd place 'Invernadero' by Mariano Cruceta (Madrid).

The dance of the brushes (Title in Spanish: La danza de los pinceles): Starting from the paintings of Picasso – inparticular "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon" and his works of 1907 – the film presents through flamenco dance the geometric and multifaceted aesthetic of this artist.

An artist, confronted with an empty canvas looks for inspiration in flamenco music. The rythmn of a 'bulería' transports us into a dream in which elements such as fans, paint, dance and nature are mixed together in a surprising way leading to an unexpected and poetic end.

Charles Olsen. Nelson - New Zealand. 1969 Son of an Anglican priest and an opera singer, he moved to England in 1981 and to Spain in 2003. He graduated in BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Middlesex University, London, in 1994. He travelled to Spain because of his interest in Spanish painters, Velasquez, Goya and El Greco, and to study flamenco guitar. Painter and photographer, his work has been shown in Madrid, Barcelona, Oporto, Paris, Wellington, and in the Saatchi Gallery in London. As well as painting and photography he dedicates time to his music, poetry, graphic design and video. He has worked with the poet Lilián Pallares and pianist Odette Beris in the short animation "Llanto Congelado" (2009) and has made music videos for artists such as Hope (London), Shangó Dely and Álvaro Llerena (Colombia).

He doesn't consider himself a film maker, rather an artist finding new ways to express himself. In his first videos Olsen began with a simple setup - a photographic camera and a computer - using a very basic editing program (iMovie '08). The challenge is to have clear ideas and to find the way to do it with the tools available.

Among his future audio-visual projects are a number of videoart pieces based on his poems, which are to be published in his new collection of poetry "Sr. Citizen" and the creation of visuals for the presentation of the stories of Hans Christian Andersen with original music by Spanish composer Jesús Torres in Motril in the province of Granada.