The Culturist Film Club - Online: Short Films about Work and Labour (May 10)
For the month of May, the film club will focus on films related to multifaceted themes of work and labour.
I’ve selected 5 short films from Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art’s online streaming programme of films this week, which is also focusing on “the subject of work”. They are free to watch and online until May 15.
Quite a few of these films are rare/hard to find, so I hope you take this opportunity to watch them this week and join me for a discussion.
The selection below includes films from Germany, India, Cuba and Egypt. The five films are listed below with the relevant link, and these are the instructions on how to watch each film.
How to watch: Open a new window and go to https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/join/arsenal-3/login.html. Type in the following username and password.
Username: arsenal3
Password: stayhealthy
After that, click on the film titles listed below, or on the images, or copy/paste the links I’ve added after each synopsis. You will land directly to the relevant film page.
Online film club discussion date: Sunday, May 10 at 9.00pm (UAE / GST)
Register: Send an email with the subject line RSVP SHORT FILMS to hind.mezaina@gmail.com by May 10, 2.00pm (UAE / GST).
Discussion format: Group session on Zoom. I will send a link after receiving your registration.
Für Frauen. 1. Kapitel / For Women – Chapter 1
Director: Cristina Perincioli
1972, Federal Republic of Germany, 29 min
Equal pay for equal work! Four female employees at a West Berlin supermarket go on strike to demand the same salary that their male colleague gets. The band Ton Steine Scherben sings along that “Everything changes if you change it / But you can't win as long as you're alone!”
With a lay cast, the film fulfils the demand for solidarity that it preaches – “this film was made by saleswomen and housewives. They came up with the story and acted themselves. The film students helped them”.
Watch it here: https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/join/arsenal-3/films-of-the-month/week-7-8/fuer-frauen-1-kapitel.html
Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali / Tobacco Embers
Director: Yugantar
1982, India, 26 min
The film documents, re-enacts, and takes forward one of the largest movements of unorganised labor of its time and context, which sparked unionising processes across India throughout the 1980s.
In the spirit of mobilising for the leftist labor and the women’s movements the Yugantar collective spent four months with female tobacco factory workers in Nipani, Karnataka in India, listening to their accounts of exploitative working conditions, discussing strategies for unionising and steps to broaden solidarities for strike actions, and filming previously unseen circumstances inside the factories. (Nicole Wolf)
Watch it here: https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/join/arsenal-3/films-of-the-month/week-7-8/tambaku-chaakila-oob-ali-1.html
Idhi Katha Matramena / Is This Just a Story?
Director: Yugantar
1983, India, 27 min
Through an intense period of a consciousness raising style sharing of their own varied and multi-layered experiences of domestic violence, Yugantar collaborated with the research and feminist activist collective Stree Shakhti Sanghatana and created a script that focuses on isolation and depression while also developing a complex female character in the process of articulating her situation and finding support in female friendship.
Given the prescribed screen presence of female characters in other Indian fiction films at the time IDHI KATHA MATRAMENA radically expands the figure of woman as victim and subject. The film travelled extensively, spoke powerfully to diverse female audiences and sparked debates amongst feminist activists. Filmed within one week, with limited resources and enacted by members of the collectives, the film’s capacity to speak to multiple experiences appears equally strong today. (Nicole Wolf)
Watch it here: https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/join/arsenal-3/films-of-the-month/week-7-8/idi-katha-matramena.html
Microbrigades - Variations Of A Story
Director: Florian Zeyfang
2013, Germany, 31 min
Aside from health care and education, housing was one of the main pillars of the revolution in Cuba. Due to the perpetual lack of living quarters, the “Microbrigadas” were set up in 1971.
Until today these construction units continue to build their own multi-story apartment blocks as well as community buildings all over Cuba. Images of architecture, archival material, and interviews are combined into an experimental collage about this phenomenon of a revolutionary modernity.
Watch the film here: https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/join/arsenal-3/films-of-the-month/week-7-8/microbrigadas-variationen-einer-geschichte.html
Azziara / The Visit
Directors: Nadia Mounier, Marouan Omara
2015, Egypt, 42 min
The film observes a TV crew accompanying the visit of an inspection team from the World Bank to an Egyptian village a few years after the revolution. The team of inspectors wants to find out about the progress of the agricultural management since the political upheaval.
A drainage channel and a local museum are being built. Everything seems to be as it should be. However, the documentary’s authors leave the camera on even after the TV crew has finished their work. The film tries to explore the role of the mass media in a society where the media have become the main tool for creating and reshaping the public opinion.
Watch it here: https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/join/arsenal-3/films-of-the-month/week-7-8/azziara.html
About The Culturist Film Club:
The Culturist Film Club is something I started on April 19, an online activity where participants have a few days to watch a film I suggest, and then we meet online to discuss on a specific date.
My film programming for Louvre Abu Dhabi is currently on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, and I so I thought I’d give this a try. There are countless film viewing parties online right now, and I wanted to do something different by suggesting a film you can watch at your own pace and time, and then have a few of us get together online to talk about it.