INSCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE

Film programme by Sinema Transtopia to accompany the exhibition The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time. Artistic Testimonies of War and Repression - a cooperation between the Brücke-Museum and Schinkel Pavillon.

Part of Berlin Art Week

This film programme compiled by Sinema Transtopia explores how artists and filmmakers consider the (im)possibilities of translating violence through moving image. Three approaches from different geographical positions and time periods draw a line between physical and mental experience, memory and healing.

No other film was as influential in raising awareness about the extent of the German concentration camp system as Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog)by Alain Resnais. Part of the peculiarity of its reception in Germany is that, in addition to the West German version that has become canonical, there exist two GDR versions, a reminder that conflicting memory policies were and are part of German history. The constellation of films curated by Tobias Hering makes comparison possible: In the hall, the original version of Nuit et Brouillard can be seen; in the foyer, all three German language versions can be compared in text and image.

Touching on issues of mental health, coming out, political massacre and collective resistance, the short film program It Doesn't Hurt Much curated by Sarnt Utamachoteand Popo Fan offers audiences a place to be, feel and resolve some of the tensions of contemporary society. Slipping through a landscape of homo-transphobic violence, these bodies persist by creating spaces for healing and justice, for love and growth.

With Manifesto, Angie Vinchito creates a relentless collage of videos from social media that show haunting images of everyday life for young people in Russia. Through these testimonies of brutality and their media dissemination, the film asks when and how the boundaries between witness and victim, documentation and self-presentation, truth and representation become blurred.
Warning: This film contains images and expressions that may be disturbing to some viewers.

Tobias Hering is an independent film curator whose work focuses on thematic film programs dealing with questions of image politics and the role of archives. For the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen he directs re-selected, an archive section from which his work on the history of the reception of Nuit et Brouillard had emerged.

Sarnt Utamachote (ษาณฑ์อุตมโชติ) is a Southeast Asian nonbinary filmmaker and curator based in Berlin. They are a co-founder of the artist collective un.thai.tled and curated film events and exhibitions regarding postcolonial histories, Southeast Asian diaspora and activism. Currently they work as a selection committee member for Xposed Queer Film Festival Berlin and Short Film Festival Hamburg.

Popo Fan is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has organized the Beijing Queer Film Festival and founded the Queer University Video Training Camp in China.

Funded by Stiftung Nord-Süd-Brücken with support from the BMZ and LEZ with support from the Land of Berlin