Beyond Spring - Arab Film Series
Thursday 19.09.2019 7:30 PM | Saal
Admission: €5
Organizer: Werkstatt der Kulturen/ EUME (Europe in the Middle East - The Middle East in Europe) / Mayadin al-Tahrir e.V.
Curation: Viola Shafik
Co-Operation
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The other Side of Tourism in Egypt
Screening and discussion in the presence of the film directors
Dreamaway
by Johanna Domke, Marouan Omara
documentary
Egypt, Germany, 2018, 86 min, Arabic with Engl. ST
Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke have been collaborating as a directing duo since 2012. Their films are cinematic hybrids, wandering around unmarked territory between fiction and documentary. They are crafted with great intelligence and political sensibility, and a beautiful lensed magical realism.
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It hasn't been so very long since rich tourists from around the world came to stay in the luxury hotels of Sharm El Sheikh. But the Arab Spring and the confusion of the post revolutionary period quickly robbed the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula of its charm as a go-to summer resort. An Egyptian filmmaker and a visual artist from Germany demonstrate that partially staging their work needn't be at odds with authenticity.
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In their documentary, saturated with elements of surreal fiction, they set out to visit the last inhabitants of the shimmering city of ghosts – resort employees who feverishly dream among the abandoned hotel suites. How hard is it to balance a traditional lifestyle with the unbridled liberalism of a place in a Middle Eastern wasteland where an island of Western razzle-dazzle is slowly sinking?
Guests
Marouan Omara is a filmmaker based in Alexandria. He received his BA in Applied Arts in Photography and holds a Diploma in Film Directing. He is a Berlinale Talent Campus and Durban Talents alumnus. His films wander around the unmarked territory between fiction and documentary exploring the nexus of power and citizenship. His work has won awards and screened internationally at film festivals including Berlinale, IFF Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary IFF, London Film Festival. He teach film in different universities and is also the managing director of the Regional Conference for Arab Independent Cinema.
Johanna Domke studied Fine Arts in Scandinavia and graduated in Film Directing from the Media Art Academy in Cologne. She produces projects that lie in the space where art and cinema meet, with a combined structural and socio-political approach. Domke has been an active part of the international art scene, showing her films in recognized art institutions and taking part in numerous artist in residency programs. She has been teaching in ground courses in art and photography and is writing papers on media theory.
Arabische Filmreihe Beyond Spring
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Im Jahr 2010 haben die ersten Proteste in Tunesien eine Welle von Aufständen im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika ausgelöst, die als der arabische Frühling bekannt wurden. Die Geschichte der Region geht aber über besagten Frühling hinaus.
Mit einer speziellen Auswahl an Dokumentar- und Spielfilmen, kuratiert von Viola Shafik stellt diese Filmreihe seit 2014 in der WERKSTATT DER KULTUREN Werke aus verschiedenen arabischen Ländern vor.
Ihr Ziel ist es, die sozialen und politischen Verhältnisse in der Region in Augenschein zu nehmen und unser Verständnis von den verschiedenen Aspekten - sei es Klassenverhältnisse, Geschlecht oder Politik - zu verbessern und sich mit Fragen rund um Konfessionalismus, soziale Gerechtigkeit, Geschlechterfragen sowie die Palästina-Frage auseinandersetzen.
Die Aufführungen werden begleitet von Diskussionen und von Expert*innen des EUME (Europe in the Middle East - The Middle East in Europe), einem Forschungsprogramm am Forum Transregionale Studien.
Kuratorin
Viola Shafik, Dr. phil., ist freischaffende Filmemacherin, Kuratorin und Filmwissenschaftlerin. Sie veröffentlichte u.a. Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, AUC-Press, Cairo, 1998 und Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class and Nation, AUC-Press, 2007. Sie lehrte an der American University in Cairo sowie an der Universität Zürich. Sie ist im Auswahlkommitte des Rawi Screenwriters’ Lab und des World Cinema Funds der Berlinale. Sie führte Regie bei mehreren Dokumentarfilmen, u.a. Ali im Paradies/My Name is not Ali (2011) und Arij - Scent of Revolution (2014). Zur Zeit lehrt sie an der Humboldt Universität, Berlin sowie der Ludwig Maximilian Universität, München.
Eine Veranstaltung in Kooperation mit EUME (Europe in the Middle East - The Middle East in Europe).
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In 2010, the Tunisian protest movement triggered a wave of upheavals across the Middle East and North Africa that became known as “the Arab Spring”. However, there is also a history to tell beyond “Spring”.
Since 2014, the WERKSTATT DER KULTUREN has been highlighting films from several Arab countries as part of the Arab Film Series, with this specific selection of films curated by Viola Shafik.
It aims at exploring some major social and political issues in the region and further our understanding of various dynamics in regards to class, gender and politics in general, as well as explore topics concerning confessionalism, social justice and the question of Palestine.
The screenings will be accompanied by moderated panels with academic experts from the Berlin-based research program Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe (EUME) at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin.
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THE CURATOR
Viola Shafik, PhD is a filmmaker, curator and film scholar. She has authored among others Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, AUC-Press, Cairo, 1998 and Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class and Nation, AUC-Press, 2007. She has lectured at the American University in Cairo and Zürich University and is in the selection committee of the Rawi Screenwriters Lab and the Berlinale World Cinema Fund. She has directed several documentaries, most notably Ali im Paradies/My Name is not Ali (2011) and Arij - Scent of Revolution (2014). She currently teaches at Humboldt University Berlin, as well as at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich.
An event in cooperation with Mayadin al Tahrir e.V. and EUME (Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe).
The facilities of the WERKSTATT DER KULTUREN are accessible to wheelchair users.
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