Parallax Views

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Bero Beyer

With a slight shift in a viewer’s position, a different image of the visual universe appears. This is called parallax and the human brain uses it to measure distances and create the illusion of depth, by combining the different views of our stereoscopic vision. Cinema has always had the capacity to offer different perspectives on pressing issues. In the Perspectives section, IFFR investigates relevant social and political issues in its thematic programme.

This year, in a pivotal moment of political shifts, the world seems more divided than ever. Differences are emphasised, opposition sought, contrasts increased and fault lines of inclusion and exclusion become ever more apparent. The growing visibility of these fault lines in our societies, as well as the increasingly toxic discourse that plagues the 24-hour media news cycle, have inspired IFFR to highlight works that address these issues with urgency, creating new lines of sight and engagement. Parallax Views is IFFR’s agenda-setting platform where filmmakers, artists, thinkers, journalists and the public are invited to discuss the current shifts and fractures, as they are represented in films featured throughout the festival programme.

In the Perspectives section of the festival, IFFR highlights four distinct cases where these fault lines become visible or are challenged. In Black Rebels, filmmakers from the African diaspora comment on the cultural divide and emerging racism. We take a closer look at one of the most visible and contested fault lines of the last century through Palestinian cinema – a hundred years after the Balfour letter – in a programme called Picture Palestine. In an impression of the new Punk, anarchists, idealists and terrorists set off to bring down the rotten system in a line-up of films called A Band Apart. In a selection called Criss-Cross, French political thrillers use the popular genre of action thriller to harshly criticise power structures, racism and divisiveness in France and, in so doing, actively try to bridge the societal and cultural divide by combining entertainment with enlightening narratives.

To complement these programmes, IFFR is hosting a series of public talks to question the role of journalism and the media, the power of ‘the cinema of abjection’, as well as the role of the filmmaker in a time of political upheaval. The audience is invited to join in and speak its mind.

Parallax Views

Bero Beyer

 

With a slight shift in a viewer’s position, a different image of the visual universe appears. This is called parallax and the human brain uses it to measure distances and create the illusion of depth, by combining the different views of our stereoscopic vision. Cinema has always had the capacity to offer different perspectives on pressing issues. In the Perspectives section, IFFR investigates relevant social and political issues in its thematic programme.

 

This year, in a pivotal moment of political shifts, the world seems more divided than ever. Differences are emphasised, opposition sought, contrasts increased and fault lines of inclusion and exclusion become ever more apparent. The growing visibility of these fault lines in our societies, as well as the increasingly toxic discourse that plagues the 24-hour media news cycle, have inspired IFFR to highlight works that address these issues with urgency, creating new lines of sight and engagement. Parallax Views is IFFR’s agenda-setting platform where filmmakers, artists, thinkers, journalists and the public are invited to discuss the current shifts and fractures, as they are represented in films featured throughout the festival programme.

 

In the Perspectives section of the festival, IFFR highlights four distinct cases where these fault lines become visible or are challenged. In Black Rebels, filmmakers from the African diaspora comment on the cultural divide and emerging racism. We take a closer look at one of the most visible and contested fault lines of the last century through Palestinian cinema – a hundred years after the Balfour letter – in a programme called Picture Palestine. In an impression of the new Punk, anarchists, idealists and terrorists set off to bring down the rotten system in a line-up of films called A Band Apart. In a selection called Criss-Cross, French political thrillers use the popular genre of action thriller to harshly criticise power structures, racism and divisiveness in France and, in so doing, actively try to bridge the societal and cultural divide by combining entertainment with enlightening narratives.

 

To complement these programmes, IFFR is hosting a series of public talks to question the role of journalism and the media, the power of ‘the cinema of abjection’, as well as the role of the filmmaker in a time of political upheaval. The audience is invited to join in and speak its mind.