Bio

Len Murusalu is an Estonian artist, filmmaker, film curator and researcher. In 2018 Len established a production company ChronoLens dedicated to expanded cinema, artists´ moving image and interdisciplinary creative projects.

Her work explores questions around the interpretation of history, memory, language, and time perception – integral parts forming a sense of belonging – using moving image, video performance, photography, sound, text, installation and painting. Long-term research-focused projects, some of which are lifelong, concentrate on a specific segment of time while being inspired by the concept of chronesthesia – the brain’s ability to travel between past, present and future simultaneously.

Len graduated the Master´s studies at the Contemporary Art Practice: Moving Image pathway at the Royal College of Art in London. She has studied at the Estonian Academy of Arts and graduated from the University of East London with Shred of Dernier as her graduation work – a documentary about the vanishing Karelian villages in Tver Oblast in Russia.

In addition to exhibiting her work internationally since 2005, Len has contributed to several documentaries as a screenwriter. Recent organisatorial work includes the artists’ film workshops in cooperation with the Kai Art Center and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2019-2020, co-curating the artists’ film programme of the 2021 Tallinn Photomonth biennial, establishing the expanded cinema programme for the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2022.

In 2020, Len founded AmiLab – an NGO dedicated to artists’ moving image and expanded cinema research and development. She is a 2020/2021 Oberhausen Seminar Fellow, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany, and current board member of the Estonian Documentary Guild.

Awards, Grants and Residencies

2023 Production grant for the poem film The Find. Estonian Film Institute.
2022 IDFAcademy programme. Amsterdam, Netherlands.
2022 Silver Eye Award nomination, Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. Czechia.
2021 Bergman Center Residency, Female Filmmakers Network. Fårö, Sweden.
2021 MOKS Residency, Female Filmmakers Network. Mooste, Estonia.
2021 Oberhausen Seminar, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany.
2020 Rucka Residency, Female Filmmakers Network. Cēsis, Latvia.
2020 Production grant for the expanded cinema project Time Quartet. Estonian Film Institute.
2020 Development grant for Third Choice. Estonian Film Institute.
2018 The Cultural Scholarship of the Republic of Estonia Ministry of Culture.
2018 Study Grant of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
2018 LUX Scotland Pitching Workshop, United Kingdom.
2017 The Cultural Scholarship of the Republic of Estonia Ministry of Culture.
2016 Gjutars Residency, Vantaa Artists’ Association, Vantaa, Finland.
2016 Permanente Residency, Bogota, Colombia.