36th International Short Film Festival Berlin 2020
11 November - 13 December 2020

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Focus On: Postcolonialism

PC 01 Collective Memory and Personal History

For the very first African filmmakers, cinema was among other things a means to awaken the collective memory of the history of the African continent. As modern griots, storytellers, they challenged colonial stereotypes and transformed authentic stories and myths into images. In doing so, they aimed to communicate the fundamental values of Africa to today’s generation and those of the future. Their central objective is the mental decolonisation of the audience. In this spirit, our programme intends to direct attention to Africa and its roots, in order to reconcile Africans with themselves and the rest of the world. African films still fall short of reaching a mass audience. They are however characterised by their own distinct aesthetics, which draw inspiration from the collective memories of largely unknown peoples, exposing them to a wider audience. Director Gaston Kaboré sums it up in the following manner: “Our films represent small fragments in the reconquest of ourselves.” This artistic approach made African cinema famous the world over.

Curation & text: Alex Moussa Sawadogo

30.11.20, 00:00h, online: interfilm.de/sooner (Nov 30 - Dec 06)

Collective Memory and Personal History
Collective Memory and Personal History

In Collboration with

Afrikamera

Collective Memory and Personal History

Supported by

The Governing Mayor of Berlin, Senate Chancellery

6 films
E'ville

E'ville

Nelson Makengo // Congo // 2018 // 12:20 min

Documentary, Experimental

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.

No Archive Can Restore You

No Archive Can Restore You

Onyeka Igwe // England, Nigeria // 2020 // 05:54 min

Documentary, Experimental

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.

Machini

Machini

Tétshim Tétshim / Frank Mukunday // Belgium, Congo // 2019 // 10:00 min

Animation, Experimental

Steel, rust, stone and chalk. Image upon image, a green cloud creeps through this reddish brown mining animation. The soils of the DR Congo are rich in raw materials, their extraction drives people relentlessly forward, like a machine. But the profits are collected by others, yesterday and today.

La Mazda jaune et Sa Sainteté

La Mazda jaune et Sa Sainteté

The Yellow Mazda and His Holiness

Sandra Heremans // Belgium, Rwanda // 2018 // 10:31 min

Documentary

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.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Black Man

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Black Man

Jyoti Mistry // Austria, South Africa // 2017 // 10:00 min

Experimental

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.

Tabaski

Tabaski

Laurence Attali // France, Senegal // 2019 // 26:03 min

Live Action

Dakar, a few days before the feast of Tabaski, a painter is shut away in his studio, working on the theme of the ritual sacrifice of the ram. The red paint drips from the sketches hanging on clotheslines. An inscription on the wall: "Tabaski, who's next?". Three characters and a sheep revolve around him and reconnect him with reality.