Opening: Thursday, October 23th, 5 p.m
At a time when borders are becoming increasingly impenetrable and official narratives seek to silence, render invisible, or distort experiences that challenge the dominant order, this video programme approaches, from diverse geographies and languages, a careful listening to displaced bodies, territories marked by colonial violence, and strategies of resistance. Through this movement, the works offer unique approaches to documentary staging, building dynamics rooted in the ethics of collaboration and the construction of narrative alliances with those portrayed. This programme unfolds as a space for dialogue that strives to account for the political, social, and economic complexity of the contexts it explores, while making visible the power relations that shape them.
Adrian Schindler (France, Germany)
Tetuan, Tetuán, 2023, 30 min
The trilogy Tetuan, Tetuán addresses Spain’s colonial past in Morocco and the traces it has left on Spain’s social fabric. Through a collaborative methodology, it examines cultural production, public space, and the collective imaginary. Unfolding across three cities, the project explores narrative strategies to re-signify places such as Plaça Tetuan in Barcelona and the Tetuán de las Victorias neighbourhood in Madrid. In the second chapter, a counter-narrative of Madrid is activated from a Moroccan perspective, highlighting the key role of protest songs in preserving memories that some seek to silence.
Florencia Rojas (Spain, Argentina)
Like a Home, 2023, 30 min
Due to the irregular legal status in which Ainara—a Mexican migrant sex worker—still finds herself after her arrest in Madrid, and the fear of potential re-incarceration or deportation, Linda Porn—artist, actress, sex worker, and anti-racist activist—lends her voice to bear witness. In Like a Home, Linda’s performance intertwines with real excerpts from her conversation with Ainara. Two voices tell the same story: one with the intimacy of the body, the other from a distance that we are unable to locate.
Jumana Manna (State of Palestine)
Foragers, 2022, 64 min
Foragers portrays the conflicts surrounding the prohibition of harvesting wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel, specifically ’akkoub (similar to artichoke) and za’atar (thyme). The video combines fiction, documentary, and archival material to illustrate the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these practices, which have resulted in fines and prosecutions for hundreds of people. For Palestinians, these laws represent the ecological veil of legislation that further deprives them of their land. Following the plants from their natural habitats to the kitchen, from the chases between gatherers and conservation patrols to courtroom defences, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embedded in these traditions, as well as their resistance to prohibitive laws.
Image: Jumana Manna, Foragers Akkoub