Presented by Goethe Pop Up Seattle
Shaping the Past: How do we interpret the past on screen?
Within the framework of
STP-on-Demand, Goethe Pop Up Seattle presents the film
Muttererde (2017), a film by Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor in collaboration with Astrid Gleichmann, that calls for femme forms of ancestral history. It is a powerful archive of voices that, similar to the project
Story Porch, affirms the appreciation for ancestral remembrance and reclaimed memory culture.
About the film:
Germany, 2017, 45 min.
Languages: English, German
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Muttererde calls for femme forms of ancestral history in the face of the often interrupted historical knowledge of the African diaspora in Europe and elsewhere. What are rituals, teachings, and abilities passed on from our matriarchs? How do these inherited skills serve us or inhibit us today?
The conversations with five Black femmes on the knowledge and non-knowledge of their mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, and as far back as the knowledge carries them, create a rich and powerful archive. They explore themes of motherhood, migration, cultural differences, beauty standards, queerness, kinship, death, and rebirth. Their stories, although from five different countries, intertwine to weave a tapestry of
herstory through the African diaspora. Through their testimonies, the viewer discovers that ritual, memory, and oral history can challenge the status quo.
The film features the stories of Camalo Gaskin, Tobi Ayedadjou, Niv Acosta, Natalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro and Fannie Sosa. It was supported by the Decentralized Cultural Work Tempelhof-Schöneberg, District Kunst und Kulturforderung Berlin, and A Prima Vista Filmproduktion.
About the filmmaker:
Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and community organizer. Her roots are in the Southern United States, born in Mississippi and bred in Florida on former Timucan land. Taylor's work manifests through performance, text, dialogue, dance and community building for Black People and People of Color. Her work centers on themes of ritual, visibility, and identity mythology. She is chiefly concerned with ways to dismantle oppressive institutions and the creation of racial equity in art and theater. Taylor hosted and moderated the salon series
Black in Berlin until 2017. Her film,
Muttererde, a series that calls for femme forms of ancestral history, has been screened in five countries. She is currently undergoing a Masters of Art in Black British Literature at Goldsmiths University of London. She is newly based in Oslo, Norway.
Please RSVP to gain access to this film. The screening link to the film and the password will be sent out on Thursday, November 12, at 7:00pm PST. The film will be available to view until Sunday, November 15, at 7:00pm PST.
RSVP
Shaping the Past / Gestaltung der Vergangenheit is a project of the Goethe-Institut in North America (Canada, USA, and Mexico) in partnership with Monument Lab and the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung / bpb). It connects with and builds on the work of emerging leaders of local, national, and transnational movements to remember through reflection and with urgency.
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