Playing with the illusion of a two-layered scenario, Grada Kilomba created a silent film in which the characters move inside a white space while the artist, outside, gives voice to the images and becomes a contemporary ‘Griot’, complete with post-colonial urgency. “Sometimes, I feel that I live a space of timelessness,” the artist narrates, “in a space where past and present seem to coincide.”
To explore this coexistence of times, in which the colonial past seems to interrupt the present and the present is sometimes experienced as if we were in the past, Kilomba restages the myth of Echo and Narcissus using the African oral tradition of storytelling. Narcissus becomes a metaphor for a society which has not resolved its colonial history, taking itself and its own image as the only objects of love. How do we break out of this colonial, patriarchal mould?
Also in this combined programme
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Confusion Is Next
Thai noise musician Thom AJ Madson confines himself in a room for an experiment to give a plumeria tree a sound. He alternates between creating… -
Song X
A group of teenagers conducts a cremation ceremony for a man who is entering the afterlife while still being sought by the military for deserting. -
While I Write: Act III of The Desire Project
With the written word as the only visual element, Grada Kilomba gives a voice to an individual who has been historically silenced by colonial narrativ -
Plantation Memories: Part I
An exploration of everyday racism reveals how much this places the black subject in a colonial setting where s/he once again is reduced to the… -
Plantation Memories: Part II
An exploration of everyday racism reveals how much this places the black subject in a colonial setting where s/he once again is reduced to the…
Film details
- Countries of production
- Brazil, Germany, Portugal
- Year
- 2018
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2018
- Length
- 35'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
