Curated by Karina Griffith, this virtual film program is presented as part of the Goethe-Institut North America's project Shaping the Past.
Films are available to viewers in the USA, Canada, and Mexico from
07-01-2021, from 7:00 AM (PDT) through 07-04-2021 at 7:00AM (PDT)
RSVP VIA EVENTIVE
Past as Process: Reshaping the “Single Story”
Documentaries that understand histories and pasts are plural.
Past, Present, Tense
Germany, (2015) 32 minutes. Director: Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo
German with English & Spanish subtitles.
Predominantly East-German-socialized interviewees look back on German reunification and the hostile time that immediately followed, where racist attacks of arson in Rostock and riots were commonplace. The engaging discussion surrounds the question of German identity and who is served by fixing this position in whiteness. Characteristic of D'Angelo’s work, the conversations remain fluid, intimate, and personal, while speaking volumes to the responsibilities of colonial histories and detriments of cultural amnesia.
Born in Evin
Germany, Austria, (2019) 95 minutes. Director: Maryam Zaree
In German, English, French, Farsi with English, French, & Spanish subtitles.
Humor mixes seamlessly with sorrow in this personal documentary by actress Maryam Zaree, who arrived in Germany with her mother as a political refugee from Iran. Zaree seeks answers for her recurring nightmares, her anxiety, and the silence in her family surrounding their imprisonment in the political camp, Evin. The dramatic and tactile visual motifs of floating and flying serve as effective metaphors for letting go. Through her collective process of inquiry, Zaree finds a way to release, not her memories, but any notion of them being the whole truth of her birth and early childhood in captivity.
Shaping the Past / Gestaltung der Vergangenheit is a project of the Goethe-Instituts and Pop Ups in North America (Canada, USA, and Mexico) that connects with and builds on the work of emerging leaders of local, national, and transnational movements to remember through reflection and with urgency. It is a partnership between the Goethe-Institut, the Monument Lab, and the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung / bpb).
Back
