Back to the Class Issue
Back to the Class Issue
Back to the Class Issue
Fri, 14th of February 2025 – 7 p.m. Hackesche Höfe Kino
Films:
EMERGENCY EXIT
COMPASSION AND INCONVENIENCE
THE VAMPIRES OF POVERTY
CASABLANCA
Debate Format: SCHWERPUNKT
The film night devoted to our thematic focus: the debate takes up the topics of the opening conference and applies them to the creative medium of films. What blind spots does cinema have when it comes to class relations? And can social status be made visible at all?
Guests include: Friedl vom Gröller, Vika Kirchenbauer, Adriano Valerio, Sinthujan Varatharajah
EMERGENCY EXIT
(USCITA DI SICUREZZA)
D: Friedl vom Gröller, AUT 2024, 5 Min., German Original with English Subtitles – German Premiere
Slowed silhouettes and stony textures, tourists on a bridge in Italy, and the impassive gaze of a worker – all accompanied by an eerie voice-over announcing a rupture, a revolution. In EMERGENCY EXIT, photographer and filmmaker Friedl vom Gröller interweaves the ballad “Pirate Jenny” from Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera with grainy 16mm images to create a film that is equal parts menacing requiem, melancholy revenge fantasy and a reflection on the politics of the image. If there really is no alternative to the prevailing order, then there is only the emergency exit.
Friedl vom Gröller: Born in 1946 in London, Friedl vom Gröller spent her childhood in Vienna and Berlin. She studied photography at the School of Graphic Arts and realised her first films in 1968. In 1971, she earned her master’s certificate in photography and opened a commercial studio. Her contributions to photography and film have been widely recognised, with the National Award for Photography in 2005 and the National Award for Film in 2017. Beyond her artistic work, Friedl vom Gröller has also been a pioneering educator. In 1990, she founded and directed the School for Artistic Photography in Vienna until 2010, and in 2006, she established the School for Independent Film, where she continues to support aspiring filmmakers. Her works have been shown at prestigious screenings and exhibitions worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, the Berlinale, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and Bafici in Buenos Aires.
COMPASSION AND INCONVENIENCE
D: Vika Kirchenbauer, GER 2024, 30 Min., English Original with English Subtitles
But will art understand its public? Vika Kirchenbauer’s tongue pop-punctuated queer spoken word performance investigates the first public exhibitions of contemporary art, which took place in 18th century London, with a special focus on the ideological and material dynamics between the state, businessmen, artists, and the public(s). Kirchenbauer invites non-conforming performers – non-white, non-male, and, as such, non-Historical – to recite fragments of old philosophical essays on topics like good taste, art appreciation, exhibiting artworks to the large public, etc. Of course, most of these ideas haven’t aged well, and, when embodied by such performers, the striking distancing effect between “the medium” and “the message” becomes the reason for the film – analytical, pedagogical, and politically incisive, but nevertheless fun.
Vika Kirchenbauer is an artist, writer, and music producer based in Berlin. Focusing on effective subject formation, she explores violence as it relates to various forms of visibility and invisibility, examining how subjects are implicated in and situated within institutional power structures. Comprehensive solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, and Kunstverein Kevin Space, Vienna. Her videos and installations have been featured in exhibitions and screenings at venues such as d/p, Seoul; the Tainan Art Museum, Taiwan; the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; the Berlin International Film Festival; the New York Film Festival; and the Toronto International Film Festival. Her first monograph, published by Mousse Publishing, unites essays and works from 2012 to 2022. Since 2022, she has been a Professor of Fine Art at Braunschweig University of Art.
Still: Compassion and Inconvenience, 2024 (c) Vika Kirchenbauer, VG Bild-Kunst
THE VAMPIRES OF POVERTY
(AGARRANDO PUEBLO)
D: Luis Ospina, Carlos Mayolo, COL 1978, 28 Min., Spanish Original with English Subtitles
“This film is film criticism in the form of a film.” So opens the manifesto that Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina issued with their 1978 mockumentary. In The Vampires of Poverty, the two filmmakers accompany a camera team that wants to capture Colombia’s “underdevelopment” for a German television station. Like vampires, they scurry through the streets, chasing people in order to extract images of poverty from them. With idiosyncratic humor, the film agitates against a type of cinema that generates pity under the guise of social criticism and panders to international festival audiences. For the “Grupo de Cali”, the cinema collective co-founded by Ospina, THE VAMPIRES OF POVERTY represented an antidote, designed to immunise viewers against the many varieties of exploitative cinema.
CASABLANCA
D: Adriano Valerio, FRA/ITA 2023, 63 Min., Arabic, Italian, French Original with English Subtitles
When Fouad and Daniela meet, he has been living in Italy without papers for a decade, waiting for medical treatment. She comes from an upper middle-class Italian background, and is finally sober after years of alcoholism. Adriano Valerio documents seven years of their relationship, negotiated via intense, honest conversations in which they discuss their insecurities and fears. Their shared story reveals a culture in which class, nationality, religion and addiction appear as insurmountable hurdles to building mutual trust and a sense of belonging. Between darkness and light, closeness and distance, the camera observes Fouad and Daniela as they learn to connect with their own feelings and accept the consequences of their decisions.
Adriano Valerio is an Italian director based in Paris. His short film 37°4S received a Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival (2013) and won the David di Donatello (2014). His debut feature BANAT – THE JOURNEY premiered at Venice International Critics’ Week (2015), earning nominations for the David di Donatello and Golden Globes. His short MON AMOUR MON AMI was shown in the Orizzonti section (Venice) and at the Toronto International Film Festival (2017).
His documentary LES AIGLES DE CARTHAGE premiered at Venice International Critics’ Week (2020). The short film THE NIGHTWALK won the Prix Canal+ at Clermont-Ferrand (2021) and the Audience Award at Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro. His short CALCUTTA 8:40AM premiered at Festa del Cinema di Roma and won the Nastro D’Argento (2023). His documentary CASABLANCA was shown at Authors’ Days/Venice Nights (2023) and Berlin Critics’ Week (2025).
He directed two episodes of the TV series NON UCCIDERE (2018), broadcast by Rai and Arte, and collaborates with École Nationale Supérieure Louis-Lumière, Scuola Holden, and Istituto Marangoni.