21. Feb
20:00, Hackesche Höfe Kino21. Feb
SOLMATALUA
D: Rodrigo Ribeiro-Andrade, BR 2022, 15 min., Yoruba / Portuguese Original with English subtitles – German premiere
Fugitive images of the Black diaspora magnetized by the sounds of nature, religious chants, poems, popular music and the voices of Brazilian anti-racist leaders. A dense spiral of errant movements and powerful evocations, composed as a cinematic trance. Frantz Fanon’s dialectical prayer once again deeply resonates: “O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” Like the films of Aloysio Raulino, SOLMATALUA comes from a filmmaker who interrogates the body. An essay film, yes, but one in which the “subject” is simultaneously very explicit and constantly elusive. An essay film, yes, but one edited with the eye of a dancer and the ears of a virtuoso percussionist. Ribeiro-Andrade doesn’t revisit archives to tell a story, but to drag buried futures out of each image and resurrect them through sound.
STILL FREE
D+DOP: Vadim Kostrov, RU 2023, 31 min., Russian Original with English Subtitles – World premiere
A film must confront the world in which it is made, but also the one in which it is shown. When Vadim Kostrov accompanied young couple Katya and Kostya to a nearby lake, and filmed them with the directness for which he is known, he couldn’t foresee the political implications of these images. At the time Kostya was about to join the Russian military – a decision he came to regret later on. It’s breathtaking to witness the film’s playful innocence, while at the same time measuring every word against the destructive nature of war – yet the film outlines more than a political parable: Kostrov reflectively turns towards the few hours of light in the face of an impending darkness, which linger too briefly.
REVOLUTION+1
D: Masao Adachi, C: Soran Tamoto, DOP: Kenji Takama, JP 2022, 80 min., Japanese Original with English subtitles– International premiere
In resonance with his 1969 film AKA SERIAL KILLER, controversial activist and filmmaker Masao Adachi finds in a murderer a lens with which to reexamine Japanese society from top to bottom. This time inspired by the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, he builds a portrait of the killer through a set of dialectical gestures, leaving us with the moral and political duty of formulating our own position. In the words of Julio García Espinosa “the duty of a revolutionary filmmaker is to make the revolution in film”, and so, Adachi is compelled to reiterate his earlier work, in secret, with a camera, a bunch of actors, few resources, and an eagerness to stare history straight in the eye and set the world as we know it on fire – as fast as he could.
Debate REACTION SHOT
A debate on particular films which take a stance and show how their makers are entangled with history while it unfolds. We discuss filmmaking as action and political images in the face of propaganda.
Guests: Ela Bittencourt, Heleen Gerritsen, Go Hirasawa, Vadim Kostrov
Following on from this program, we present two special screenings at this years Berlin Critic’s Week: AKA SERIAL KILLER by Masao Adachi as well as MELTING INK by Dominik Graf.