Nisimazine Bratislava #5

#5

Nisimazine A Magazine by NISI MASA, European Network Of Young Cinema

03//12//11

Gay focus

editorial

photo by Lucille Caballero

Verletzte Menschenrechte, Katastrophen, Diktaturen, Ökologie und Revolutionen - nach ein paar Tagen des Festivals entfaltet sich ein Panorama der Themen, denen sich das One-World-Festival angenommen hat und die unter der Etikette des «Aktivistenkinos» verhandelt werden. Es stellt das Verhältnis von FilmemacherIn und Engagement in ein besonderes Licht.

Unternimmt man einmal den vorsichtigen Versuch einen Überblick über die Filme geben, scheint das - wenig überraschende - größte Anliegen zu sein, Ungerechtigkeit aufzuzeigen und die Verantwortlichen auf die Anklagebank zu bringen. Und schon sind wir im Setting einer Justizpraktik, in der es Richter, Kläger, Angeklagte und Schuldsprüche gibt. Gerade wenn es um ein institutionalisiertes Kuratorium geht,

sind immer auch Abgrenzungspraktiken im Spiel: hier wird die Frage nach einem Selektionskriterium durch die Orientierung der Filme an Justizpraktiken beantwortet.

Doch was passiert, wenn ein Film wegen Propaganda auf die Anklagebank gerät?

Dieses Setting untersuchen wir in unserem fünften Focus über ACTIVIST QUEER CINEMA eingehender und flankieren den Focus durch

ein Interview mit der Filmemacherin Mária Takács.

Der Artikel über den sehr sehenswerten The Red Chapel macht auf die Kraft des subversiven Humors in Nord Korea aufmerksam, während Kapitalism - Our Improved Formula vor allem eine desillusionierende Perspektive auf das Erbe des Ceausescu Regimes frei gibt.

Johannes Benke

reviews

Kapitalism, Our Improved Formula Alexandru Solomon, Romania/France

Nicolae Ceauşescu ist zurück. Zumindest in den düsteren Fantasien, von denen Alexandru Solomon verfolgt wird, sobald er an die 20 Jahre seit der Revolution in Rumänien denkt.

Als er an die gegenwärtigen moralischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen des Staates denkt – die Vetternwirtschaft, Korruption und die immer größer werdende Kluft zwischen den neuen Eliten und der armen Bevölkerungsmehrheit – , beginnt er sich zu fragen, was der Genosse Ceauşescu zu all dem zu sagen hätte. So lässt er dieses Gespenst noch einmal auferstehen und begleitet ihn durch die kapitalistische Wunderwelt, zu der Rumänien nach Ceauşescus Exekution wurde.

The Red Chapel Mads Brügger, Denmark

“Mads Brügger, don’t you have any moral scruples?”, Jacob asks his director at one point, when once again he can’t believe what Brügger expects him to do. Well, he doesn’t. That’s what one has to appreciate after watching his documentary The Red Chapel. Brügger travels to North Korea, determined to “explore the very core of evil” he suspects is at work there. To do so, he’s not only armed with a lack of scruples, but also with Jacob Nossell and Simon Jul Jørgensen, a Danish comedy duo with roots in South Korea. Simon is grumpy looking, baldheaded and heavily tattooed; Jacob is young, funny and – by his own definition – a spastic.

It’s Brügger’s firm belief that comedy can expose the weak spots of all dictatorships. Thus he plans to show the real face of North Korea by confronting it with a good dose of Danish humour: The Red Chapel, their fake comedy troupe, hits Pyongyang. It’s a colourful, yet not very funny mixture of slapstick, tap dancing, whoopee cushions and Oasis songs that they want to perform in front of an exclusive audience in North Korea’s capital. Of course, laughter is not what the trio is aiming for; they want to provoke some cracks in the stiff masks of the most loyal followers of Kim Jong-Il. But can you play the court jester in an evil kingdom, where millions of people have been systematically starved to death by their dear leader? Is it possible to surprise an audience

that has been living under a totalitarian Stalinist rule all its life with Danish skits from the 1960s? And is it really a clever idea to ask a handicapped comedian to perform in a place where it’s suspected that people like him are killed right after birth or sent to detention camps?

The Red Chapel proves that it is actually possible. But it’s not fun and games to do so. From the very beginning, the trio is embraced by their own little dear leader, the omnipresent Mrs. Pak. She’s the system’s watchdog, their “caretaker of the virtual reality”, as Brügger puts it. A reality in which children are not starving but smiling, and where Jacob isn’t detained but smothered by care. The whole project is always at risk of being taken over by the state’s propaganda and turned into a part of Kim Jong Il’s obscene vaudeville act – a situation which is sometimes unbearable for the team.

It’s Brügger’s voiceover commentary that doesn’t allow the audience to forget: North Korea is not a surrealistic fantasy, and behind all the fake smiles there’s a disgusting reality, consisting of fear and unbelievable violence.

By Jens Geiger

Screening time 15:00 - KC Dunaj

Einerseits ist es ein bitterer, manchmal schockierender Dokumentarfilm. Um die Frage zu beantworten, wie aus einer sozialistischen Gesellschaft ein superkapitalistischer Staat werden konnte, trifft Solomon einige Angehörige der neuen rumänischen Elite. Und sowohl Solomon, wie auch sein fiktiver Co-Regisseur Ceauşescu erkennen in ihnen alte Bekannte, alle einst hochrangige Mitglieder von Ceauşescus Machtapparat. Sie erzählen mit erschreckender Offenheit davon, wie sie vor und nach der Revolution Profit machten – alles ohne jegliche Skrupel.

Andererseits kombiniert Solomon virtuos Originalaufnahmen aus der Ceauşescu-Ära mit Bildern des modernen Bukarest und es gelingt ihm mittels animierten Spielzeugsequenzen, ein hochkomplexes Thema, nämlich ökonomische Transformationsprozesse, anschaulich darzustellen. Über allem schwebt aber der sarkastische Kommentar Solomons, wie er der Anpassungsfähigkeit der neuen und alten Strippenziehern ironisch Respekt zollt. Es ist diese zutiefst desillusionierte Stimme des Regisseurs nach 20 Jahren des Hoffens auf eine wirkliche Veränderung, die das Publikum auch nach verlassen des Kinos verfolgen wird.

Jens Geiger

Screening time 16:15 - Cinema Lumiére - K1

Then and Now: Activist Queer Cinema

The films dealing with the GLBTIQ issue (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer) at the One World Film Festival can be divided into two categories according to the country of origin. In the first category, there are the ones where homosexuality is illegal and in the second category, the ones where it is legal but where GLBTIQ people do not share the same rights as the heterosexual majority.

These two factors define the themes of the four films.

Whereas Secret Years and Love Thy Neighbour deal with the communist past and the ‘democratic’ present in Hungary and Slovakia, The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan and Cameroon, Coming Out of the Nkuta focus on victimization and the erasure of homosexuality. However all films have one motif in common the intersection between culture and homosexuality. Whereas GLBTIQ Eastern Europeans fight for recognition and achievement of the same rights as the heterosexual majority (such as registered partnership and adoption rights), in Afghanistan and Cameroon being a homosexual means to live in constant danger. Interestingly the four films not only depict the relationship between power and sexuality but also unveil the cultural, sexuality and gender discourses in which homosexuality is mythologized, demonized, made taboo and ignored.

Concretely, in Cameroon, Coming Out of the Nkuta homosexuality is demonized based on the myth that it serves as a way of obtaining power: it is the post-

colonial remnant of the white man. In the film it is explained that these myths exist as means of decrypting the secret and complex power relations in Cameroon. An anthropologist explains that the gaining of power was very opaque and that it depended on the will of the ruler. To get higher up in the hierarchy, a man had to sleep with other men (which used to be the Westerners). It is the colonizer’s illness that infiltrated Cameroonian culture. Also because homosexuality is illegal, it is a simple means of corruption. The director describes situations in which she needs to bribe the police officers so that her lesbian friends are not charged with homosexuality. In The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan homosexuality is being erased: the word never appears and the men sleeping with young dancing boys do not define it as homosexuality.

The film thus depicts a culture of nonexistent women that produces loci where young boys serve as sexual objects for those in power – the rich men and the warlords. However, the culture of cross-dressing and gender fluidity in

Asia (mostly men taking the feminine roles and performing as women) used to be common in the pre-colonial times. Under colonization this kind of culture was suppressed and marginalized. Contrary to Cameroon, Coming Out, Dancing Boys of Afghanistan does not reveal these hidden cultural meanings and pinpoints only the issue of child abuse.

Secret Years and Love Thy Neighbour depict another issue in two different ways. Secret Years deals with personal stories of lesbians during Communism and in the present, whereas Love Thy Neighbour is an informative short documentary about the second Slovak Rainbow Pride event in May 2011.

These two films however have one important motif in common and that is the emancipation of GLBTIQ people by contrasting their culture openly with the hetero-normative culture, either by parading through the streets of Bratislava or by living openly as a lesbian couple in a small Hungarian village.

Although it might still be dangerous to be openly queer in post-communist countries, the trend to be traced in both films is the ‘commercialization’ of a queer subculture that is fighting for the institutionalization of gay partnership, even marriage – something which it actually used to go against in the 1980s.

from Love thy Neighbour

All in all, the films show the way in which homosexuality and queerness changes under the influence of different discourses: in Cameroon homosexuality serves as means for greater corruption, in Afghanistan it is hidden and being constantly erased under the pretext of old traditions, and in Hungary and Slovakia it is entering mainstream discourses of marriage and the traditional family.

// NISIMAZINE BRATISLAVA

SATURday 3 DECember 2011//# 5 A magazine published by the NISI MASA in the framework of a film journalism workshop for young Europeans Avec le soutien du Fonds franco-allemand en pays tiers, de l’Institut Francais et du Goethe Institut

EDITORIAL STAFF Director of Publication Matthieu Darras Editor-in-Chief/Layout Maartje Alders Editor Jude Lister VIDEO TUTOR Severine Beaudot Contributors to this issue Johannes Bennke, Lucille Caballero Jens Geiger, Michaela Pňačeková

NISI MASA 99 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, 75010, Paris, France.

Phone: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 europe@nisimasa.com, www.nisimasa.com

You can read all our coverage online on

www.nisimazine.eu New Videoblog!

Filmmakers and activists: Wael Omar

vimeo.com/nisimasa

Cameroon, Coming out in the Nkuta 03/12 - 17:45 Cinema Lumiére K1 Secret Years 03/12 - 19:00 Cinema Lumiére K1 Love Thy Neighbour 03/12 - 18:10 Cinema Lumiére K2 04/12 - 18:00 A4 zero space Debate: Sexual Orientation - public affair?

04/12 - 18:40 A4 zero space

By Michaela Pňačeková

focus

interview režisérka filmu Utajované roky (Maďarsko)

Mária Takács

photo by Lucille Caballero

Mária Takács je lesbická aktivistka a režisérka. Jej film Utajované roky popisuje život jedenástich lesbických žien vo veku od 40 do 70 rokov v Maďarsku v komunizme až po súčasnosť. Prostredníctvom rozhovorov s týmito ženami ukazuje ťažkú situáciu lezieb v minulosti, kedy síce homosexualita nebola ilegálna, ale ignorovaná v snahe byť vymazaná.

Utajované roky patria k filmom pojednávajúcim o minulosti GLBT ľudí, konkrétne o lesbickej minulosti. Prečo si tento film natočila, a akú majú podľa teba takéto filmy v queer kinematografii úlohu?

Vlastne som tento film spravila pre väčšinovú spoločnosť, ale samozrejme aj pre GLBT komunitu. Keď som sa však nad tým viac zamyslela, rozhodla som sa venovať tento film väčšinovému publiku. Preto som nakoniec rozhovormi poverila novinárku, neznalú problematiky.

Dôvodom bolo, že som väčšinu žien osobne poznala a boli sme si veľmi blízke. Bolo by zvláštne pýtať sa na ich osobné životné cesty, pretože som ich poznala. Keby som kládla otázky ja, určite by som sa na isté veci nepýtala, pretože boli rovnako pre mňa ako i pre nich úplne jasné. Taktiež by som ako lesbická aktivistka začala z iného uhla. Bola

Ako bol film v Maďarsku prijatý?

Veľmi dobre. Na premiéru prišlo okolo tristo ľudí. Film bol rovnako úspešný v našej komunite, jako aj vo väčinovej spoločnosti. Na siedmom ročníku dokumentárneho festivalu o ľudských právach Verzio v Budapešti sme vyhrali cenu divákov.

priateľky – boli sme fascinované fenoménom tanca pre páry rovnakého pohlavia, sledovali sme súťaže v tanci vo svete. Bolo kľúčové podeliť sa s publikom o túto skúsenosť.

V roku 2000 sme založili lesbickú filmovú radu v Budapešti a vďaka tomu, že sme boli aktivistky známe v komunite, sme tento film mohli natočiť a premietnuť ho na gay pride v Budapešti. Napriek tomu, že sme ho nemohli premietať v normálnom kine, mohli sme ho posielať na festivaly v zahraničí. Dôvodom bolo to, že niektoré protagonistky sa nechceli k svojej orientácii verejne priznať, nechceli ukázať svoje tváre.

Utajované roky boli prvým filmom, kde som jasne svojim protagonistkám povedala, že ak majú strach ukázať sa širšiemu publiku, tak sa filmu nemôžu zúčastniť. Napokon to tri staršie lesby odmietli, aj keď som sa snažila ich presvedčiť.

Venovali ste sa vo svojich predošlých filmoch tiež queer tematike?

Môj prvý film Eklektika Tánciskola (Tanečná škola Eklektika) sa venoval tematike tanečných škôl pre páry rovnakého pohlavia. V tej dobe som študovala na filmovej škole a bolo dôležité vysloviť sa k veci, ktorá bola dôležitá pre mňa a pre moje

Akú rolu podľa teba hrá queer film v post-komunistických krajinách?

Didaktickú. Mal by učiť väčšinovú spoločnosť sa s touto témou zoznámiť a prijať nás. Queer film by mal priblížiť naše skúsenosti, pocity a životy ostatným, ukázať im, že máme spoločné cesty.

Keď som točila tento film, bavila som sa s jednou mladou sociál-

som však prítomná pri každom interview, a keď som mala pocit, že niečo chýba, spýtala som sa na to.

nou pracovníčkou, ktorá bola veľmi prekvapená, že máme svoju minulosť. Myslela si totiž, že lesbická kultúra vznikla iba po roku 1989 a je produktom Západu. Preto je dôležité GLBT minulosť ukazovať.

Utajované roky budú vydané na DVD. Kedy si ho budeme môcť kúpiť?

Mali sme možnosť požiadať o grant, o Cenu Sociálnej Integrácie Erste Bank. Do súťaže sa prihlásilo viac než tisíc účastníkov z desiatich krajín sveta a len tridsať tento grant dostalo. My sme boli jedným z nich. Toto dokazuje, že Utajované roky sú dôležité nielen pre GLBT komunitu, ale aj pre väčšinovú spoločnosť, na ktorú bol tento film cielený. Vďaka tomuto grantu sme mohli financovať vydanie DVD a jeho otitulkovanie do viacerých jazykov (nielen do svetových, ale aj regionálnych, napríklad do slovenčiny). Na pultoch bude v marci budúceho roku.

Michaela Pňačeková Screening time 18:45 - Cinema Mladosť Watch a video of the interview on vimeo.com/nisimasa