Jill Sykes, Sydney Morning Herald:

My finalist favourites were two six-minute films with fresh ideas on a tight rein. Fragmentation chops up the screen and overlaps the action of two men solemnly yet hilariously trying to read the same newspaper.

Pauline Manley, Realtime:

Deserving of (but not winning) the award for best film was Suzon Fuks’ Fragmentation, managing to be both technically bold and humanly warm. James Cunningham and Rob Tannion read the morning newspaper: but they do it upside down and on top of each other, on the floor and up a wall, sometimes collaborative, sometimes combative, but always attuned, always nuanced. With gentle athleticism they morph into a body with two heads as the camera dives in and backs away, stroking flesh in close-up and cutting up images of habit. Even the screen dances as it changes shape, splitting into multiple images or moving slender longitudes of vision sequentially across a dark horizon. Gloriously, the soundtrack is composed of the sounds of newspapers crumpling and feet on a floor, thickening this six minute film with dimension, depth and place. Rendered without a manipulative musical score, Fragmentation is authentically idiosyncratic and situation specific as body and media meld.

Doug Leonard:

Two men and a newspaper. A wonderfully choreographed and sardonic display of masculine desire. These guys are ritually courting trouble. The film maker/choreographer pays tribute to both silent film comedy and DV8, but succeeds in creating her own take on the underbelly of the so deadpan Australian male psyche. In another respect, this is a dance of the camera.

Even though technology links people, it can also fragment their lives. Two guys, absorbed in their morning paper and their personal space “bubble”, somehow manage to find a disjointed connection with one another.

Edited using footage shot during a residency at Dance4, Nottingham, in 2002.

Direction, Camera, Editing, Sound: Suzon Fuks
Choreography: James Cunningham, Suzon Fuks and Rob Tannion
Performers: James Cunningham and Rob Tannion.