Oily Business

The screening will be followed by a reading with Lisabona Rahman, moderated by Phuong Phan

Annah la Javanaise
Fatimah Tobing Rony, Indonesia/France, 2020, 6 min. Indonesian with English subtitles

Hier ist Pertamina
Brian Brake, Indonesia/Hongkong, 1973, 40 min. German and English without subtitles

Did it hurt?
Nathan Carreon Lim, Thailand 2022, 23 min. Thai with English subtitles

Rocks In A Windless Wadi (Kalmanting batu-batu king malanging lambak a alang angin)
EJ Gagui, Philippines 2022, 22 min. Tagalog with English subtitles

The films in this program tell various tales of extractivism and exploitation. In vivid colors, Annah la Javanaise reconstructs a story of a young, brown skinned girl who was taken by traffickers and whose body was used to produce art and sustain the life of Paul Gauguin. Meanwhile, Hier ist Pertamina is a glorified portrayal of man conquering the earth, pumping out fossil fuels to move the wheels of the world’s economy in the midst of the Cold War, a model of ‘development’ which is questioned today. Did it hurt? is a drama about a male violence within a family, the struggle to break free from it and the search for different languages of affection. Finally, Rocks In A Windless Wadi is a brave tale of revisiting painful moments in one’s memory accompanied by a poetic series of beautifully textured images of landscapes.

Lisabona Rahman intersects her interests on cinema practice and history in post-colonial societies, transnational networks and women's work through performative lectures and curated archival film screening programmes.