Knowledge Ties #5: Family Stitches

20:00 

Daphne and Thomas
Assaf Gruber, Germany 2019, 52 min. German and English with English subtitles

21:00

Philemon’s Photographs or Through an African Lens 
Laura Horelli, Philemon Sheya Kaluwapa, FI/D (work in progress), 29 min. German, English and Oshiwambo with English subtitles.

21:30 

Cinema Rex: A Story of Fire & Projection
Azin Feizabadi, lecture performance, 35 min. English.

22.15 

Conversation with Azin Feizabadi, Assaf Gruber, Laura Horelli and Philemon Sheya Kaluwapa

How is trauma stored within archives? How do subjective and collective memories intersect? And how do historical changes in sovereign regimes impact family stories? To take a closer look at these questions, Knowledge Ties #5 assembles three cinematic pieces.

In Daphne and Thomas, Assaf Gruber weaves together the tales of two people: an artist, barred from attending art school in the German Democratic Republic due to his religious background, and his daughter who works as a taxidermist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. Philemon's Photographs or Through an African Lens is a project-in-progress by Laura Horelli and Philemon Sheya Kaluwapa. Kaluwapa’s black and white photographs provide a visual framework as the film retraces his life story, charting a path from South African-occupied Namibia to GDR-era Berlin. At the same time, the photographs resonate with echoes of political and personal trauma; 

Azin Feizabadi's lecture-performance Cinema Rex: A Story of Fire & Projection extends the issues raised in the screenings into the contemporary. The narrative circles around a terrorist attack on a cinema in pre-revolutionary Abadan (Iran) and links it with the recent political upheavals in Iran.

Laura Horelli, born in Helsinki, is a visual artist and filmmaker living in Berlin. She researches aspects of the Cold War micro-historically in private and public archives. Changes in Direction – a Journal was published by Archive Books in 2021.

Philemon Sheya Kaluwapa, born in Tsumeb, went into exile from apartheid-ruled Namibia in 1974. He lives in Berlin since 1980, where he was trained as a photo technician at Foto DEWAG. He is currently the Honorary Chairman of the Lukopane-Namibia Culture Society.

Azin Feizabadi, born in Tehran, is a filmmaker, visual artist, and film curator living in Berlin. He has screened, staged, published, and exhibited his works in museums, film festivals, biennials, and theaters internationally. He is a member of the Berlinale Shorts selection committee and the programming team for the Kassel Video & Documentary Film Festival.

Assaf Gruber is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin whose works focus on the manner in which political ideologies of individuals intertwine with personal stories and the way in which they form social relations. He is currently a 2022/23 fellow at the Berlin artistic research grant program.