ABSENT PRESENT in LANDSCAPES OF LIVING
A film series curated by Florian Wüst, bi’bakino; Berlin
December 6th / 8 pm.
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bi’bakino presents
LANDSCAPES OF LIVING
A film series curated by Florian Wüst
08.11.–13.12.2018
bi’bak, Prinzenallee 59, 13359 Berlin
bi-bak.de
The shortage of affordable housing in big cities already stands as a global problem. The increasing privatisation of common housing properties, the rising costs of real estate and rent push out those who are not able to purchase property. Elsewhere, informal settlements represent both the failure of humane politics as well as the autonomy and self-organization of migrants. The traditional class struggle between work and capital appears to now be replaced by a struggle for space.
The film series Landscapes of Living focuses on how social, economic and cultural inequalities are inscribed into urban and rural living spaces. In addition to the political dimension of the housing question, the selection of international and predominately Latin American documentary films pursues the everyday worlds on the periphery as well as the topic of post-colonial migration and transformation processes.
The spectrum of filmic practices in Landscapes of Living – ranging from long-term observations to fictional constructions of reality to highly subjective narrative styles – makes apparent the areas of tension between appropriation and dispossession, participation and security in a special way. The mechanisms of social exclusion and structural violence are contrasted to narratives full of empathy, humour and resistance.
Thu, 08.11.2018, 8 pm
74 m2, Paola Castillo, Tiziana Panizza, CL 2012, 68 min, OmeU
74 m2 documents a construction project by the internationally renowned architecture firm Elemental in Valparaíso over the course of seven years. 150 families – who had until then lived in part without running water and electricity – had the opportunity to collectively build a cluster of owner-occupied apartments. The film shows the difficult participatory process which didn’t end with the completion of the housing units. Instead, the interior work was left in the hands of each owner – whether they had the means or not.
The screening is followed by a talk with Pia Mastrantonio
Thu, 15.11.2018, 8 pm
Paradies! Paradies!, Kurdwin Ayub, AT 2016, 78 min, OmeU
Kurdwin Ayub accompanies her father Omar to the Autonomous Region Kurdistan in northern Iraq, from where the family fled to Austria many years ago. She tries to fathom why her father desperately wants to buy a second apartment that is only a stone’s throw away from the IS territories. Yet despite all the conflicts, construction is booming. Omar too wants to invest in a utopian future – be it out of spite for the Viennese tax office, out of homesickness or out of newly awakened patriotism.
Thu, 22.11.2018, 8 pm
Baronesa, Juliana Antunes, BR 2017, 70 min, OmeU
In the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, favelas are given female names. Juliana Antunes and her almost entirely female crew film two friends, Leid and Andreia, just when Andreia is about to move to the neighbouring slum called Baronesa. Antunes depicts the life in and outside of the makeshift homes from a purely female perspective, portraying a life only a few low walls or metal sheets away from gang warfare that is never shown, but whose violence pervades the main characters’ daily fates.
Thu, 29.11.2018, 8 pm
La Hortúa, Andrés Cháves, CO 2011, 24 min, OmeU
La Multitud, Martín Oesterheld, AR 2012, 60 min, OmeU
After its closure by the Colombian government in 2001, the legendary hospital La Hortúa in Bogotá was squatted in by former employees and their families. Andrés Cháves’ short documentary observes their daily routines in the solitude of the crumbling buildings. In La Multitud, Martín Oesterheld looks at two derelict entertainment complexes in Buenos Aires built during different dictatorships, nowadays mainly traversed by migrants living in the area: a city shown from its ends.
The screening is followed by a talk with Rosario Talevi
Thu, 06.12.2018, 8 pm
Absent Present, Angelika Levi, DE 2010, 84 min, OmeU
Benji was brought to the GDR from Namibia as a small child in 1979 and was sent back there after the reunification. Angelika Levi met him in 1991 during filming in Namibia. Two years later Benji is hitchhiking towards Europe. Absent Present sketches out stations in Benji’s life and looks for reasons and causes for his sudden disappearance. A search that becomes a starting point for a journey to different places characterised by continuous departure and arrival.
The screening is followed by a talk with Angelika Levi
Thu, 13.12.2018, 8 pm
El viento sabe que vuelvo a casa, José Luis Torres Leiva, CL 2016, 103 min, OmeU
In the 1980s a young couple disappeared in Chiloé, an island in the south of Chile. The myth surrounding the story inspires the acclaimed Chilean director Ignacio Agüero to make a film about it. Years later, Agüero travels to Chiloé in search of locations and actors. José Luis Torres Leiva accompanies Agüero in his documentary, discovering the special character of the landscape while revealing the connection between small events and major social and political traumas.
The screening is followed by a talk with Víctor Cubillos