Figurations of Solidarity

Images and sounds “have begun to circulate under our coats on the markets. They transport a message in the name of nostalgia,” we hear in the remix of the Battle for Algiers from the year 2016. This film program visits the city of Algiers as the “daughter of all the rebellious syllables” (N. Tidafi), so as to hear some of these messages beyond the realm of nostalgia. This program presents artistic witnesses of the internationalism of the Algerian revolution. Their dissemination and vanishing points in space and time—whether official, well known, or secretly under codenames and coats—con/figure a network active to this day. In the cinema, between the distinct individual image and convergences of moving images with poetry, painting, and song, these films offer various and diverse answers to the key question: “What image can we pit against the colonial expropriation?” (H. Djahnine). In our selected approach to the materiality of the images and the rhythmical demands of the sounds, we have to repeatedly rethink complicities and liberation movements. “Give us your bombers, we will give you our flow and those words that bring the stillness in our hearts to the boil.”

Programm

Rabah Donquishoot ft. Diaz (MBS), La Bataille d’Alger – Version 2016, 2016, 6 min
Farid Dendeni [René Vautier], Le Glas, 1964, 5 min
Haile Gerima, Child of Resistance, 1972, 30 min
Naeem Mohaiemen, Abu Ammar is coming, 2016, 8 min
Assia Djebar, La Zerda et les Chants de l’Oubli, 1982, 58 min
Algiers, Remains, 2015, 3 min

Presented by Viktoria Metschl

Viktoria Metschl is a film scholar and author. She lives in Vienna and Algiers