Film Screening of Das Alphabet der Angst (2015) & Hannah Arendt (2012) and Discussion with Dhianita Kusuma Pertiwi & Dini Adanurani
Das Alphabet der Angst, 2015, John Albert Jansen
2 PM
The documentary film, The Alphabet of Fear, is about the Romanian-German author Hertha Müller, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. The film goes far back in her history to trace the origins of her work.
With her father serving in the SS during World War II and her mother imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp after the war, Herta's adolescent and adult life was overshadowed by the repression of the Ceausescu regime and the harassment of the Securitate. For Müller, literature became the only weapons she had to endure a life of fear and to come to terms with her traumas and anxieties from these experiences.
Source: moviepilot.de
Hannah Arendt, 2012, Margarethe von Trotta
4 PM
In 1933, Hannah Arendt left her native Germany, went to France first and then to America in 1941. There, she worked as a journalist and advanced to become a recognized political philosopher and intellectual. In 1961, she was commissioned by the magazine "The New Yorker" to follow the sensational trial of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Arendt tries to understand the character and motivation of the notorious Nazi. Her observations and thoughts are processed in several articles, which shortly thereafter also serve as the basis for what is probably her most famous and, at the same time, most controversial book: "Eichmann in Jerusalem. Ein Bericht von der Banalität des Bösen" (Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil). It was met with harsh criticism and incomprehension in some quarters, as she did not describe Eichmann as a "monster" but rather as a "banal" bureaucrat who wanted to carry out his cruel orders as carefully as possible. Despite all the social exclusions and professional hostility, Arendt does not deviate from her view.
Based on this phase of her life, the film also depicts in flashbacks from her time in Germany before 1933 and her relationship with Martin Heidegger.
Source: Filmportal.de
After the second film screening, there will be a casual discussion with two female writers, Dhianita Kusuma Pertiwi and Dini Adanurani. They will respond to the films particularly within topics such as “fear” & ”politics” as displayed cinematically and reflecting their experiences when confronted with such topics as pictured in the films.
Dhianita Kusuma Pertiwi is a Jakarta-based writer, translator, and editor. She co-founded Footnote Press in 2020 and currently serves as the publisher’s editor-in-chief. Her writings are both in fiction and non-fiction where she mostly focused on the history of 1965-66 Indonesia mass killings and its aftermath. Her latest work is Mengenal Orde Baru (2021), a collection of 167 short essays in encyclopedic format on popular, commonly used terms during the New Order.
Dini Adanurani is a writer and researcher living in Jakarta. She is interested in film criticism, art, and reflections in everyday life. She completed her studies in philosophy at the University of Indonesia. She writes regularly for Journal Footage and researches for Kultursinema.
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