The fragility and vulnerability of the human psyche becomes evident in times of crises. The films in this program collect different forms of resilience born from divers political, social, and private circumstances. In physics, resilience describes a bodies ability to return to its original form after experiencing deformation. Beyond commercial self-help-books and popular psychology, the films show abilities of people and communities to develop strategies to overcome hardship and trauma.
How much can one imagine, feel, and how many times can one gain trust and lose trust, within only 4 minutes and 33 seconds? Using as a starting point her desire to represent a certain kind silence, the director plays with the spectator's need for reliability. The film acts as still dialogue between a loud inner tension and the silent one all around.… >>>
You never know when someone is miscarrying; it could be happening right next to you. (Amy Beste) In the film the filmmaker charts the loss of her pregnancy during the Slamdance Film Festival premiere of one of her short films, highlighting the chasm between her body’s slow-moving tragedy and the celebrity-studded celebrations around her.… >>>
“Hüzün - حزن” is a word describing a collective emotion. Although the word has a similar meaning with melancholia, many novelists and translators claim it to be untranslatable. Shot in collaboration with a Turkish trans-activist and sex-worker Gani_met*, the video tackles the mourning and melancholia in the queer community of Turkey while aiming to subvert the meaning of “حزن - hüzün”’ in a direction that reflects on the violence that minorities face every day.… >>>
Prompted by the death of his grandfather, a filmmaker comes to terms with his feelings of loss by focusing on something smaller.… >>>
Set in 1985 and the present day, the film explores and reflects on the often forgotten histories of black and brown community struggle in the East London borough of Newham.… >>>
In Rio de Janeiro, people from the Mangueira neighborhood follow the television broadcast on a big screen as the juries vote on each samba school. In 2019, Mangueira took to the Sambadrome a strong, bold samba dedicated to those excluded of the official history: poor people, natives, black persons and women. The Samba school honored Mareille Franco, a political activist of Rio de Janeiro as a symbol of the fight of Brazilian black women against racism and police violence, which was murdered in 2018. The film witnesses the tension while waiting for the final score, and the great joy of people from every generation when Mangueira wins and becomes champion of the Carnival.… >>>