Lisabona Rahman initiates a series of film screenings and discussions in the spirit of solidarity
Throughout the exhibition run of 'Para Sekutu yang Tidak Bisa Berkata Tidak' (The Acquiescent Allies), Lisabona Rahman (moving image preservation and presentation consultant) invites you to watch and discuss films. The program features four film screenings. While each film is by a different filmmaker, they all share a distinctive leitmotif: the spirit of solidarity in search of freedom. Raslene is the assistant curator in this program.
Although the struggle for freedom can be lonely, the selected films prove that it does not always have to be that way. Some freedom fighters call for allies or argue for their case in an effort to make the path less lonely. They choose to do so in the presence of cameras and microphones, performing and recording in order to transmit their cause.
This program provides a stage for such calls, voiced in the past with echoes of solidarity that can still be heard today. Some answers to the calls may come from the future, as the struggles for liberation remain relevant and urgent.
Online discussion: Memanggil para Sekutu… (Calling for Allies)
Wednesday, 9 February 2022, 16:00-17:30 WIB
Speakers: Grace Samboh and Lisabona Rahman
Moderator: Tjatur Wiharyo (analyst, Historia.ID)
Livestreamed on:
The discussion is planned as the opening, introduction and trigger for the film program. It provides space for the speakers to convey different perspectives, such as curatorial texts showing historical narratives and artist responses in exhibitions. Topics to be discussed include the research process in the formation of this program, the context of the selected films and their relationship to one another as well as their relationship to the narrative of the exhibition.
Film Screening: Off Frame aka Revolution until Victory (2016)
concludes with a hybrid discussion with director Mohanad Yaqubi
Friday, 4 February 2022, 19:00-21:00 WIB
Ruang Seminar, Galeri Nasional Indonesia
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The film was produced as an essay assembled from footage of the Palestinian struggle shot between 1968 and 1982. The materials were created by the Palestine Film Unit, a group founded in the 1960s that was the cinematic front of the Palestinian movement. The film traces the transformation of identity among Palestinian freedom fighters as their struggle unfolded and was recorded by themselves. The act of assembling the film by filmmaker Mohanad Yaqubi is a response coming from the future to a call placed in the past. It is a reading into the psyche of a community and its struggle for recognition from the past by carefully picking up clues from a variety of fragments. The film is a cinematic relay that passes down ideology from one generation to the next.
Film Screening: Spell Reel (2017)
concludes with a hybrid discussion with director Filipa César
Friday, 11 February 2022, 19:00-21:00 WIB
Ruang Seminar, Galeri Nasional Indonesia
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Four young students from Guinea Bissau were sent to pursue film studies in Cuba in the early 1960s: Sana Na N’Hada, Flora Gomes, José Bolama Cobumba and Josefina Crato. They had one task: to be the eye observing the country's moment of liberation and emergence. The collective struggle drew allies from near and far as a response to the growing nodes of knowledge making. Thanks to digitization, the films from the past re-emerge as a new call to recognize possibilities of liberation in a collective endeavor. This call should continue to travel and to touch upon many places and peoples, extending lessons to both ends of colonialization—the master and the subject.
Film Screening: TongPan (1976)
Director: Euthana Mukdasanit, Surachai Jantimatorn
concludes with a hybrid discussion with Kong Rithdee & Putthapong Cheamrattonyu from Thai Film Archive
Friday, 18 February 2022, 19:00-21:00 WIB
Ruang Seminar, Galeri Nasional Indonesia
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Tongpan was shot with non-professional actors by the Isan Film Collective, a group of leftist student activists from the mid-1970s. The film reconstructs a seminar that took place two years after the 1973 student movement for democracy in Thailand. Its realistic performances are far removed from theatrical dramatic gestures in studio-produced films.
Tongpan is a call for humanity and justice coming from village farmers and signals solidarity with student activists. The alliance cuts across class boundaries and was formed in the face of global technical assistance and bureaucracy.
Tongpan is a rare document showing civilian alliance at the height of Southeast Asia’s Cold War period.
Compilation Film Screening: Indonesia Calling
concludes with a hybrid discussion with Rizki Lazuardi
Friday, 25 February 2022, 19:00-21:00 WIB
Ruang Seminar, Galeri Nasional Indonesia
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- Berita Film Indonesia (Berita Film Indonesia, 1945)
- Indonesia Calling (The Waterfront Unions of Australia/Joris Ivens, 1946)
- Gelora Indonesia No. 497 (Produksi Film Negara, 1963)
This compilation consists of newsreel style manifestos. The call in this compilation starts with
Berita Film Indonesia, a cinematic front of liberation for the new republic. The films were made on the run, using handwritten subtitles and filming graffiti of anti-colonial messages. It was shown to international journalists and toured with Indonesian diplomatic missions to gain solidarity and recognition. When the Dutch colonial power was trying to reclaim its former colony, it was faced by a dock worker strike at the Sydney harbor that was about refusing to tend to Dutch ships. This was the first response, a gesture of solidarity. Another gesture arrives also at the dock, this time in Jakarta, when food was brought as gift of solidarity for Muslim holidays.
Artist
FILIPA CESAR
is an artist and filmmaker interested in the fictional aspects of the documentary and the politics and poetics inherent in the moving image. Since 2011 César has been looking into the imaginaries of the Guinea-Bissau’s Liberation Movement and its cognitive potencies, developing that research into the ongoing collective project
Luta ca caba inda (the struggle is not over yet). In 2017 she premiered her feature-length essay film
Spell Reel at the 67th Berlinale. César has been a professor in the field of Film & Video at Merz Akademie Stuttgart, Germany, since April 2021. She has exhibited at IFFR, Rotterdam; DocLisboa; Cinéma du Réel, Paris 2018; 8th Istanbul Biennial; Forum Expanded, Berlinale; Serralves Museum; Jeu de Paume; SAVVY Contemporary; Tensta konsthall; Mumok, Vienna; Gasworks, London; Flaherty Seminar, New York; MoMA, New York; Harvard Art Museums, Boston; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
GEORG HENRI ANTON „JORIS“ IVENS
was a Dutch documentary filmmaker. Among the notable films he directed or co-directed are A Tale of the Wind, The Spanish Earth, Rain, ...A Valparaiso, Misère au Borinage (Borinage), 17th Parallel: Vietnam in War, The Seine Meets Paris, Far from Vietnam, Pour le Mistral and How Yukong Moved the Mountains.
GRACE SAMBOH
is a researcher and curator. She is a co-founding member of the research group Hyphen (est. 2011), the Project Director for RUBANAH Underground Hub, Jakarta (since 2019), a member of the curatorial team for “Jakarta Biennale 2021: ESOK”, and she is undertaking a doctorate in Arts and Society Studies at Sanata Dharma University.
THE ISAN FILM COLLECTIVE
was formed in the mid-’70s by a group of Thai countercultural and student activists who promoted socialist ideals and supported the pro-democracy movement. One of its key members was Surachai Jantimathawn, whose songs are featured in Tongpan and is considered the ‘father of folk rock’ in Thailand.
KONG RITHDEE
is the Deputy Director of the Thai Film Archive and a documentary filmmaker and scriptwriter. He has been writing about film, art and politics for 23 years. His documentary films
Baby Arabia and
The Convert about Islamic culture in Thailand were shown at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Yamagata Documentary Film Festival and many other places.
LISABONA RAHMAN
is a film preservation and presentation consultant. She focuses on Indonesian film history and political economy, film restoration and archival film presentation. She began her career as a film journalist and cinema programmer in the early 2000s. She is a co-founder of Lab Laba Laban, an artist collective whose activities include preserving film and opening public access to films under the State Film Company (PFN). Lisabona graduated from the MA program in Moving Image Professional at the University of Amsterdam in May 2013, after which she worked at the L'immagine Ritrovata film conservation and restoration laboratory in Bologna, Italy (2014–2016). Lisabona is also one of the founders of the Women's School of Thought, an initiative to intervene in knowledge production systems that exclude women.
MOHANAD YAQUBI
is a filmmaker, producer and founder of the Ramallah-based production house Idioms Film. Yaqubi is also a co-founder of the research and curatorial collective Subversive Films, which focuses on militant film practices, and most recently a resident researcher at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Gent, Belgium. Yaqubi's first feature film
Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2016) played at TIFF, Berlinale, cinema du reel, Dubai IFF, and Yamagata plus 50 other screenings around the world.
PUTTHAPONG CHEAMRATTONYU
joined the Thai Film Archive in 2012 as a film programmer. He has since curated Thai and international films for screening at the archive as well as for special events and festivals, principally the annual Thai Short Film and Video Festival. With a knowledge of Thai cinema history, he helps edit the archive's bimonthly newsletter.
RASLENE
is a researcher and artist whose work focuses on social, political, gender, archiving and sustainability themes. Her career as an artist began in 2012 when she participated in the 2012 Jakarta 32ºC exhibition and continued in 2015 along with research that caught her interest. While working at Kinosaurus (2016-2020), she broadened her interest in space and project management. In September 2021, Raslene completed her SEAD fellowship program with the Mekong Cultural Hub and the British Council.
RIZKI LAZUARDI
is an Indonesian artist and curator who has experience in working with motion pictures and expanded cinema. He completed his education in film and media arts at HFBK University of Fine Arts Hamburg. His practice often intersects with institutionalized narratives. His works and programs have been presented at a number of museums, festivals, and artist-run spaces, including IFFR Rotterdam, Yokohama Triennale, Jakarta Biennale, YCAM Yamaguchi, and Image Forum Tokyo. In 2019, Rizki was commissioned to conduct artistic research on colonial film archives at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision Hilversum. Currently, Rizki is an Arsenal Berlin consultant for the Berlinale Forum program.
TJATUR WIHARYO
is an analyst at Historia, an Indonesian online magazine that focuses on presenting history through approachable ways. Prior to his tenure at Historia, he has worked in various mass media, including Bola.com, Kompas.com, and Suara Pembaruan. He graduated from the English Language and Literature/Letters school at Universitas Sanata Dharma in 2005.
Just like your all-time favorite songs, this exhibition presents a selection of works from the collections of Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, and Singapore Art Museum in a fresh perspective. The exhibition is curated by Grace Samboh, with Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Gridthiya Gaweewong and June Yap as part of the long-term project Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories. The exhibition runs from 28 January to 27 February 2022 at Galeri Nasional Indonesia.
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