thursdays 4 - 9 pm film screenings 17./24./31.1. and 7./14./21./28.2.2019

We live in the Anthropocene, Capitalocene or Chthulucene – an age in which the human influence on Earth decisively shapes the fate of many living beings. What we do today determines our environment and the coexistence of human and non-human beings – animals, plants and machines – far into the future.

To start off the series “Wir wollen machen!” (We want to do something!), the DAZ is presenting an installation consisting of three films that deal artistically with the theme of ecological change.

The following films will run from 4 pm to 7 pm in the loop:
Pumzi (by Wanuri Kahiu, Kenya 2017, 22 minutes)
A Film Reclaimed (by Ana Vaz and Tristan Bera, Portugal 2015, 19 minutes)

At 7 pm Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival (by Fabrizio Terranova, Belgium 2016, 90 minutes, original version) will be projected.

Drinks will be provided during the film screenings.
Free entry, there no registration necessary.

Information about the films:
Pumzi (by Wanuri Kahiu, Kenya 2017)
Filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu sees herself as a storyteller and seer: In Africa, stories have always been “science”, “science fiction” or “fantasy”. In this sense, Pumzi (Swahili for breath) is not science fiction, even if the film is about a dystopian time after the water war. It is a resource-efficient world without nature, ruled by women. A seed and the smell of damp earth give the protagonist the vision of another life, which she feels with her measuring instruments as well as with her senses. So she sets out to break out of the closed surveillance society and plant a tree in the desert. She gives the “Mother Tree” her last water and lies down with it.

A Film Reclaimed (by Ana Vaz and Tristan Bera, Portugal 2015)
For Ana Vaz and Tristan Bera, the Anthropocene is not only a geological age, but “a political, economic and social crisis” that they reflect by means of cinematography: Image and text assemblages based on self-made images and found footage tell of the influences and effects of human action on the ecology of the earth and its inhabitants. In their poetic essay, the two succeed in creating new and multiple perspectives on history and the present through formal innovation and ethnographic and speculative references.

Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival (by Fabrizio Terranova, Belgium 2016)
Fabrizio Terranova’s film is a portrait of the biologist and feminist philosopher of science Donna Haraway, one of the most influential thinkers and commentators of our time. Brussels filmmaker Fabrizio Terranova spent several weeks with Donna Haraway at her home in Southern California. Terranova explored Haraway’s personal universe and the development over many years of her views on kinship and planetary welfare. This leads to a portrait in which Haraway speaks in her personal environment. Her narrative techniques – painting a rebellious and hopeful universe filled with living beings and transpecies – are visualized by Terranova with green screen projections and archive material.

The film “Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival” was provided by Icarus Films.

The selection of films is taken from the exhibition “Eco-Visionaries. Art, New Media and Ecology after the Anthropocene” at HeK (Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel), curated by Sabine Himmelsbach, Karin Ohlenschläger and Yvonne Volkart.