Time to Listen

Author and human rights activist Arnold Zable tells the story of Farhad, an artist who fled from Kurdistan to Australia seven years ago. There, the freedom that he was searching for was also denied to him. But Farhad refuses to be intimidated. Then, one day...

A hand that embraces from behind. A foot that embraces from behind. A second body in the clothes. Images of embracing, growing together, merging, encircling - building intensity without words.

The artist Chao Liu talks about his mother, who - growing up in Mao's China of the Cultural Revolution – was not accustomed to hugging someone. Yet, for Chao Liu this gesture is an essential part of himself. What happened when he and his mother hugged for the first time?

A collection of stories about embraces: as an expression of close encounters, but also as a symbol of reconciliation, of overcoming opposites. The stories are told by artists from all parts of the world.

How can we express the momentariness, the inconsistency, the vagueness or the monstrosity of an experience? Authors from all over the world try to do so in these clips: finding their own poetic way.

We invite you to step back, for a long moment, from the overwhelming presence of what’s going on in the world: with a good story – based on true events, freely invented or both at the same time. By storytellers from all over the world.