Fatal & Fallen

Fatal & Fallen considers the trope of the deadly, fallen, and delinquent woman as pictured in East Asian exploitation films. Spanning the 1970s to late-1980s, the programme examines Japan’s sexploitation films, Taiwan’s Black Movies, Hong Kong’s Girls with Guns and South-Korea’s thriller films. These often marginalized genres feature underworlds such as prisons, brothels, and even homes as sites of crime, sexual desire, and revenge. Fatal & Fallenindexes the region’s socio-political context, when years of post-war depression, struggling authoritarian regimes, foreign military rule, Cold War and rapid industrialisation found an outlet in extreme – often patriarchal and misogynistic – cinematic imagery. Whilst acknowledging the inscription of such problematic representations, Fatal & Fallen attempts to locate the socio-political knowledge arising from social negativity in film. Against this backdrop, Fatal & Fallen uncovers the dynamics of power and desire through the bleak yet charged territories of exploitation films. 

Fatal & Fallen was first presented at Singapore’s Asian Film Archive in the context of their Re:frame series from September – October 2021.

Funded by Berliner Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa and das Programm NEUSTART des Bundesverband Soziokultur im Programmteil kulturelle und soziokulturelle Programmarbeit

XING is a research and curatorial platform championing visual art practices from East Asia, Southeast Asia and its diaspora. It was founded by Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee and now co-run with Jade Barget.

Jade Barget is a curator based in Paris and Berlin with an interest in screen and moving image cultures. Her research centers on the relations between media and memory. She has curated various programmes and assists in the programming of transmediale.

Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee is an interdisciplinary practitioner who works between visual art, cultural and artistic research, and education. Her practice concerns iterations of slow violence and the unearthing of micro and muted narratives.