December 2 , Thursday, 7:30PM
Art & Politics
In this program we will begin to explore the complex relationship between politics and art in film. Looking at several short works that express their political ideologies through very different approaches from lyrical meditations on the daily crisis in Palestine to an in your face testimony of a suicide bomber, we will undoubtedly raise more questions than answers at the end of the night.

Tension 26 min, video, 1998
Director:Rashid Masharawi (Palestine)

Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi conveys the palpable sense of tension that he perceived below the surface of daily life for the Palestinian population during the period of the "peace process." Tension focuses on the act of observation itself, eschewing spoken dialogue altogether for a narrative that is produced rather through the editing of images, music, and incidental sounds on the track. Tension is organized around the natural cycle of sunrise and sunset, restated in terms of another "natural" work cycle: the many waves of Palestinian day workers who move through gates and checkpoints to labor in Israel and return each evening.

Born in 1962 in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, Masharawi is the director of several documentaries and fiction films.  He is also the winner of many international awards, including the UNESCO Award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.  In 1996, Masharawi founded the Cinema Production Centre in Ramallah, West Bank, which aims to improve and develop the Palestinian movie industry by encouraging and training young Palestinian movie-makers.  Aninnovative artist, Masharawi created the Mobile Cinema which has allowed thousands of children to enjoy local and foreign films. 

Submission 10min, video, 2004
Director: Theo Van Gogh (Holland)

Controversial Dutch filmmaker and newspaper columnist Theo van Gogh, who made a film about violence against women in Islamic societies, was stabbed and shot dead in Amsterdam on November 2. Van Gogh was criticized for a film, Tension, shown this year on Dutch television about a Muslim woman forced into an arranged marriage who is abused by her husband and raped by her uncle. One of his colleagues said he was a champion of free speech. Van Gogh was stabbed and shot near a park in central Amsterdam. “He did receive death threats but he never took them quite seriously. He was a controversial figure and a champion of free speech,” a colleague at Van Gogh’s film production company said. Van Gogh had also been working on a feature film about the 2002 murder of controversial anti-immigration populist Pim Fortuyn, which was due to make its premier in January with previews to be shown on the Internet next month.
Van Gogh received death threats after Submission was broadcast on Dutch national television earlier this year. He made the film with Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee given Dutch citizenship after fleeing an arranged marriage 12 years ago. Hirsi Ali, who calls herself an ex-Muslim, has been under police protection since receiving death threats because of the film.

Meeting Evil 9min, Video, 2002
Director: Reza Parsa

A man is sitting on the back seat of a car. He has twelve minutes left to live and speaks his words of valediction into the camera. A disturbing and highly controversial film which has been screened at Cannes. “Perhaps the most astonishing moments ever created in a Swedish film”, according to Ingmar Bergman.

Director Reza Parsa, born in 1968, comes from Tehran and has been living in Sweden since 1980. At the age of 22 he enrolled at the Danish Film School where he trained as a director. He has made ten short films so far. His feature film debut “Before the Storm” has won national and international awards. Filmography (Selection): 1995: Never; 1997: Tigerheart; 1998: The 8th Song; 2000: Before the Storm; 2002: Meeting Evil

 

Journeys 40min, 35min on video, 2003
Director: Vinayan Kodoth (India)

"In the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), the long trips commuting from home to work and back again is gradually taking on unbearable proportions. The trains are so overcrowded that people can only board, using their elbows. At first, the scenes of people frenetically trying to secure a seat are almost funny: it seems like a game of musical chairs. At the same time, it’s clear that the lack of capacity is leading to perilous situations. People ride with their bodies sticking outside the train, they sit on the roof and hang off the sides. They often jump on while it is still moving. The rush and stress causes people to be very careless and agressive. A newspaper headline ‘14 dead in 24 hours’ speaks volumes. From a distance, the throng of people is the streets is a column of ants. A general view shows how choked up the arterial roadways really are. There is contrast between the slum-swellers scratching out a living in the small spaces between the roads and the tracks and a glittering Bombay city soaring above them. Roads are lined with billboards advertising luxury items. Thus, the film raises questions about progress and urbanisation and the price that is paid." - International Documentary Film Festival (Amsterdam)

Vinayan Kodoth was born in 1963, in Kerala, India. He completed a post-graduate degree in literature in 1986. In 1989 he joined the film direction program at the Film and Television Institue of India in Pune. Between 1992 and 1996, he worked in television in Mumbai (Bombay). Since 1996, he has taught film and video at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.