Film Programme in the frame of P.L.U.R. & ACUD Galerie EMERGENCY GATHERING, curated by Elena Vogman
Sensory Visions, Micro-Histories / Film screening Emergency Gathering
FR 18.03.22
ACUD STUDIO
Door open: 20H
Screening + Q&A: 20.30
After screening we will have a small after-film dance with a vinyl set by Ehua Kassi.
Entrance: Donation 5€+, Sliding scale, for the fundraiser in support of people fleeing war in Ukraine. See our donation statement below.
This is an emergency screening in response to a declaration of war. These recent experimental films from Ukraine and Belarus address an experience of history and its violence on the level of phenomena and their sensuous qualities: bodies, light, textures, sounds, language. By giving voice to atmospheric occurrences and their micro-environments, they dissolve binary identities and construct new, entangled phenomena: Habitual perception is suspended, things become uncanny, translucent and dreamlike. “History” is dissected into multiple micro-histories: patriarchal relationships narrated through a parcel of ties; fascist discourses dissected on the operating table of a desktop archive.
Alina Kleytman: Responsibility, Ukraine, 2017, 6’
This video shows a distressing process of innermost growth. A girl wears a ridiculous masquerade meant to show how people wear other people’s expectations about them like dresses. The suit fits her no longer; she’s now more herself than ever before. Ugly and awkward, the rags distort and misrepresent her, but she has nothing else to put on. No one waits for her ahead; she keeps walking on her own, overcoming her fear. She walks because she can’t stay. Never will she do the same things to herself again. Pride.
Zoya Laktionova, Territory of Empty Windows, Ukraine, 2020, 10’
World War II and the power plant caused Zoya's mother’s family to move to Mariupol. The war with Russia and the environmental consequences of the plant’s operation play a key role in the future life of the city.
Yan Bachynsky: Non-Binary, Ukraine, 2020, 6’
A bodily choreography of unlearning. What the Enlightenment taugt us about human existence, the basic binary condition, is overthrown here by the very specific use of body, a body exceeding its usual condition of two feet.
Yan Bachynsky: My Grandfather’s Skin, Ukraine, 2020, 5’
This video uses an inductive method: it starts reasoning from an individual experience and then tries to reach a collective one. Family history is perhaps the best material for such a research.
Olia Sosnovskaya and A. Z. H.: F-Word, Belarus, 2020, 13’
The video refers to the recent protests in Belarus, political struggle, and state violence through the discourse of fascism. The topic of fascism and victory over it has for a long time been central to the contemporary state ideology of Belarus. Since the start of the uprising after the 2020 presidential elections, both the state and the protestors accuse each other of fascism. In turn, the academic community criticises these positions for historical untruths. The video traces this symbolic struggle and the political, social, affective and symbolic effects it produces.
Dana Kavelina: Letter to a Turtledove, Ukraine, 2020, 20’
Letter to a Turtledove is an artistic reworking of amateur footage shot during the war in the Donbass region of Ukraine, recombined into a feminist anti-war film-poem. Found footage is interspersed with Kavelina’s own animated segments, staged mise-en-scènes and archival images of the Donbass from the 1930s onwards.
Donation statement:
The collected money will be used for transport, medicine, housing and food for the people already in Berlin and organisations in Ukraine, focusing on BIPoC, LGBQTIA+ and all other marginalized groups. Everything will be reflected in an open and public ledger. We are aware that the situation is constantly evolving and will therefore adjust to it’s changing needs. For the distribution of donations, we are using nowar.help as a resource and guideline.
You can donate to our fundraiser in cash at the entrance and digitally via Paypal. Proceeds from the bar and catering will also add to the funds. Selected artworks in the exhibitions at ACUD Galerie and online are available for auction. A transparent list of donations and expenses will be continually available, shared and updated.
Thank you!