CN: Thematization of violence
History is inscribed into the memory of a building, a city and its inhabitants. Polished facades next to crumbling ones, lines and symmetries from different periods, layers of concrete and ruins overlap and store the information of eras, myths, and wars. Yet the space is the scene of ongoing battles for the sovereignty of historical interpretation. Attempts are constantly being made to redraw and mark it. Often, however, the movements are not linear, but circular, even running backwards. This program is dedicated to the memory of architecture. (Linn Löffler)
London, megapolis. Newly built towers in multiple areas of accelerated regeneration across the city, construction sites, cranes, and dazzlingly modern high-rise facades next to historic buildings. A melange of new and old, abstracted by the free-falling camera movements. The abstraction is an attempt to recapture and restructure the London skyline.
… >>>What does it mean to read a city? Boris Dewjatkin undertakes forays through the city as a multi-layered space of signs, based on his own youth in Berlin. Graffiti becomes a symbol of a form of appropriation that resists the dominant practices of order. The city museum, which the film celebrates, is the counter-model to the state museum and its division of public space and historical memory. An ode to the chaotic obstinacy of the city's inhabitants.
… >>>War for our attention has suddenly become an actual war. Information technologies appear not just as mere means for somebody’s ends but as something having their agency, as one of the acting forces rendering possible a horrific event, which is very hard to accept and almost impossible to comprehend. We have no control over it and are doomed to scroll through the newsfeed.
… >>>Newly uncovered footage from US Army archives recorded the bare land of Hiroshima and the questions of war tactics on the human race. I WAS THERE is a trilogy of experimental documentary films that explores the problem of radiation, our society's fading collective memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the unresolved debate between ethics and science. Part II deals with the immediate effect of weaponized nuclear technology on the environment and the trauma caused by the disaster.
… >>>On a recent trip to Tokyo and lured by the promise of an exceptional view of Mt. Fuji, the filmmaker finds herself staying overnight in a villa overlooking Sagami Bay. But her hope of seeing the mountain is interrupted by a storm that’s building up, confining her indoors. The involuntary solitude prompts her to delve into the villa's storied past. The grip of history on individual identity intertwines with the spaces, supplanting the tales we merely visit with those we intimately host.
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