1. Program
  2. /
  3. KuirFest Berlin 2019
  4. /
  5. TERROR NULLIUS

TERROR NULLIUS

Soda _Jerk, Australia 2018, 54 Min., OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Bartholomew Sammut and Soda_Jerk

Part political satire, eco-horror and road movie, Terror Nullius is a world in which minorities and animals conspire and not-so-nice white guys finish last. Where idyllic beaches host race-riots, governments poll love-rights and the perils of hypermasculinity are overshadowed only by the enduring horror of Australia’s colonising myth of terra nullius.

Curators statement Esra Özban and Esma Akyel:

"Terror Nullius, which is an example of queer cinema that draws attention with its extraordinary formal style as well as its anti-colonial and feminist content, “terrorizes” the colonial history of Australia and its own cinema and television history by instrumentalizing it through the use of mashup technique. Composed of three parts, the film transforms the minorities from the Australian cinema history into avengers and rebels by creating critical images that expose the crimes in question, thanks to its deconstructive editing that changes contexts.”

Trailer

Bartholomew Sammut was awarded "most promising new filmmaker" at the Warner Roadshow New QLD Filmmakers Awards in 2000. Bartholomew went on to continue to produce a number of short films, documentaries and theatre performances as well as working on a number of short film festivals as well as curating external film programmes for other festivals, and in 2015 established the Queer Short Film Fund, an initiative from the XPOSED International Queer Film Festival. In 2019, Bartholomew was also a member of the Berlinale Series Selection Committee and is currently developing their first feature film. Bartholomew does not know what pronoun to use, so Bartholomew uses them all.

Soda_Jerk is a two-person art collective who work at the intersection of documentary and speculative fiction. They are fundamentally interested in the politics of images: how they circulate, whom they benefit, and how they can be undone. Predominantly working with video, their sample-based projects have also taken the form of cut-up texts, manifestos, screensavers and lecture performance. Formed in Sydney in 2002, they have been based in New York since 2012.