Berliner Freiheit (Berlin Freedom)
Open Air Cinema at Königstadt

Bewegliche Ziele e.V. and interfilm Berlin present:
Berliner Freiheit - open-air cinema in the courtyards of the Königstadt.
Short film programs and film talks.

Adress: Saarbrückerstr. 24, 10405 Berlin (Prenzlauer Berg / U-Senefelderplatz)

„Postcolonial Perspectives“

12 09 2021 - 8 pm

The eight films of the program span an arc between the colonial past and Germany's & Europe's role in the colonization of the African continent to present-day reflection and reappraisal.

The animated, fictional and documentary short films show the marks of colonialism in the formerly colonized countries, but also in Europe: they open up personal perspectives, lead us through abandoned colonial buildings or to prominent monuments, and they tell stories of resistance such as that of Chief Mangi Meli, who was executed under German colonial rule around 1900 in what is now Tanzania, and whose grandson is still waiting for repatriation of his human remains from Berlin.

The program is moderated by filmmaker and film scholar Canan Turan - followed by a discussion with Konradin Kunze (Actor/Director), Mnyaka Sururu Mboro (Berlin Postkolonial e.V.). .

Furthermore, we invite the audience to follow the „Shortfilmwalk”: an interactive web map with historical input and films that makes it possible to experience 7 places of colonial history in Mitte.

Registration: Free tickets are available at Mobilekino Berlin


The program:

The Mourning Citizen [opening sequence]

Trixie Munyama
Namibia 2020  
05:08 min
The Mourning Citizen is an extension of The Mourning, an original body of work conceptualised by Trixie Munyama in 2016. This time around, the work interrogates the underlay of the genocide as a historical focal point which continues to haunt our present. This performance art is an onsite collaboration between various Namibian artists with an immersive artistic intervention featuring visuals, soundscapes and performance art, bringing a personal experience as the audience becomes part of the performance. Foto: (c) Andreas Elifas

Mangi Meli Remains

Konradin Kunze
Germany, Tansania 2019
12:00 min
In Old Moshi, Tanzania, a head is missing. The head is of Chief Meli who fought the German colonial occupation of territory in Kilimanjaro and was executed as a result in 1900. His head is said to have been shipped to Germany at the request of scientists. Until today, Chief Meli's grandson is waiting for it to return.

 

 

No Archive Can Restore You

Onyeka Igwe
England, Nigeria 2020
05:54 min
The former Nigerian Film Unit building was one of the first self-directed outposts of the British visual propaganda engine, the Colonial Film Unit, stands empty on Ikoyi Road, Lagos, in the shadow of today’s Nigerian Film Corporation building. This is an exploration into the ‘sonic shadows’ that colonial moving images continue to generate.

 

 

E'ville

Nelson Makengo
Kongo 2018
12:20 min
An abandoned sports complex in Lubumbashi (named Elisabethville until 1960) that used to belong the mining company Gécamines, layered with sound archives, images and ghosts of the past. The weight of the place’s colonial history is met by an intimate family story: a letter from the late independence leader Lumumba to his wife. This juxtaposition opens a view into the collective memory of the former Belgian colony.

 

 

Sikitiko - the King's Hand

Pieter De Vos
Belgium 2010 
08:54 min
In 2004, a mysterious group of activists abducted the hand of a statue honouring King Leopold II, setting off a surreal chain of events.

 

 

La Mazda jaune et Sa Sainteté / The Yellow Mazda and His Holiness

Sandra Heremans
Belgium, Ruanda 2018
10:31 min
The question of what it would mean to start a film with a black image, develops into a subtle personal essay about the filmmaker’s parents. The story of a Belgian missionary falling in love with a Rwandese girl, blends with what images and colonial history mean to their daughter.

 

 

Zombies

Baloji Tshiani
Belgium, Kongo 2019
14:00 min
A journey between hope and dystopia in a hallucinated Kinshasa, from the culture of the hair salon to a futuristic clubbing, from the urban parade to the glory of a dictator in an election campaign to a modern western. A musical trip through glittery underground worlds and colourful Kinhsasa streets, as well as a comment on the omnipresence of mobile phones in people's everyday lives.

 

 

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Black Man

Jyoti Mistry
Austria, Southafrica 2017
10:00 min
A double-screen work on violence and freedom. The ‘alphabet of violence’ stands next to the vision of the potential, possibility, aspirations and ambitions of a future where the value of the Black man in society is revitalised through a lexicon of freedom.

 

 

Partner

Sponsored by Draussenstadt und supported by Genossenschaft der alten Königstadt, Kino&Bar in der Königstadt and Mobile Kino, we transform an area of the courtyard into an OpenAir cinema on three Sundays.

Organizers are Bewegliche Ziele e.V. in cooperation with interfilm Berlin.