Cinema
has different levels of visibility. It can capture and depict things and
people. But as a relationship between images, it can also bring relationships
to the screen – and it can create new images to make tangible what cannot be
easily seen. A disturbing image circulating on social media, a mining pit in
Morocco that officially no longer exists, experiences of alienation and
exclusion in a Swiss village, the supposed invisibility of aging women. Four
attempts to look at what lies behind the images. (Sebastian Markt)
CN: Violence
Filmmaker Miranda
Pennell comes across a disturbing image from Gaza, taken in December 2023,
which is circulating on social media. In the film, we first encounter the image
in a very immediate and material way: zoomed in on individual pixels. “It’s
difficult to understand what you’re seeing here,” says the commentary. How can
we encounter such images? What conclusions do we draw from them? Pennell’s
short essay film examines the image, but also our relationship to it, and
questions the role of witnessing and the responsibilities that come with
seeing.
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- Director: Miranda Pennell
The mines in the Moroccan city of Jerada have been officially closed since 2001. However, mining has continued in an informal economy ever since. Together with workers, Randa Maroufi has developed a collaborative approach that allows her to reconstruct the work in the mine, the memories of struggles, and the stubbornness of the local population, condensing them into impressive images. She does so without endangering their safety and at the same time revealing the political core of collective activities.
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Bit by bit, a family living room is brought out of private life and into the public sphere: carpets and furniture, people take their seats, hot çay is served. Selin and her siblings Hêlîn, Firat, and Serhat grew up in a small Swiss village. They share memories, talk about experiences of alienation and exclusion, about anger and stubbornness, about standing together and insisting on their own story. An act of cinematic visualization of self-assertion.
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Nominated:
A38-Production Grant Kassel-Halle
“Texas Switch” is a term used to describe a cinematic trick in which a stunt double replaces an actor without it being easily noticeable. In Darren Dominique Heroux’s film, women talk about visibility and invisibility in a broader sense: gendered gazes, perceptions of age, social invisibility. Heroux uses the possibilities of cinema to make people and things disappear or appear in an almost magical way for a cinematic reflection on the broader social significance of seeing and being seen, on what disappears in a life and what remains.
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- Director: Darren Dominique Heroux
