12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art

Babylon

Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 30, 10178 Berlin

Cinema hall 2

Free admission

Tickets are available online and at the box office.

Offering formally radical auteur hybrid and personal works, the film program of the 12th Berlin Biennale is conceived to hinge on the different programmatic manifestations and motifs of the exhibition, such as decolonizing imaginaries, thus inverting the gaze with engaging archival footage and healing through ritual and community.

Ali Essafi’s compelling film Qabla Zahf el-Zhalam [Before the Dying of the Light] blends the testimony of a political dissident living in the underground during Morocco’s “years of lead” in the 1970s, all the while surfacing archival traces that show the audacity of subversive artists,  filmmakers, and musicians. Bouba Touré’s and Raphaël Grisey’s riveting Xaraasi Xanne [Crossing Voices] also engages with archival footage, honoring the incomparable legacy of Bouba Touré, a photographer, videographer, and activist who dedicated his life to chronicling the  struggles of undocumented African migrants in Paris and of migrants returning to Africa who built a unique agricultural cooperative. Vincent Meessen’s Juste un Mouvement [Just a Movement] blends archival footage with staged scenes and documentary footage to revisit the  mysterious death of a Maoist Senegalese rebel, Omar Blondin Diop, and interrogate the reality of Chinese entrepreneurs in Senegal. And Marta Popivoda’s Pejzaži Otpora [Landscapes of Resistance], a visually stunning feat that has blazed through international festivals, explores  the forgotten legacy of a pioneering partisan woman in the resistance against Nazi occupation, braided with deep reflection on the trappings of memory.

31.8.2022, 8 pm
Qabla Zahf el-Zhalam [Before the Dying of the Light]

1.9.2022, 8 pm
Xaraasi Xanne [Crossing Voices]

13.9.2022, 8 pm
Juste un mouvement [Just a Movement]

14.9.2022, 8 pm
Pejzaži Otpora [Landscapes of Resistance]

Curated by: Rasha Salti