In its actual exhibition ‘The Divine Comedy -Heaven, Hell, Purgatory revisited by Contemporary African Artists’ the Museum for Modern Art, MMK, shows the work of 60 contemporary African artists.

In addition, the German Film Museum’s cinema presents from the extended African film context a series of films, which deal with the motive of the voyage into the afterworld: a world underground, of zones of perseverance, prisons and paradises of waiting, and as stories of men and women and their impossible love, though which the real, un- or surreal relate to each other and mirror the challenges of postcolonial identities.

Curated by Marie-Hélène Gutberlet in cooperation with Abrie Fourie and Guy Wouete.

6. MAI

6pm
MINE (Shorts)

Mine // William Kentridge, 1991, 5’50“, engl. OF /// Gangster Backstage // Teboho Edkins, 2013, 37’43“  engl. / Africaans, engl.UT /// Playing guitar for goats // Jacques Coetzer, 2010, 2’09“ /// Projected Identities // Barend de Wet 2013, 3’37“ /// The Swing (after after Fragonard) // Donna Kukama 2009, 4’54“

The word MINE means the ‘mining plant’ and is also the possessive pronoun „mine“. It creates a relationship between the depths of mining and the idea of ownership. MINE is the video archive project’s name created by the artist and curator Abrie Fourie. Five videos by South African artists from this collection will be shown; they seek to dive behind the surface, to explore and comment on their history and position within post-apartheid landscapes.

Guest: Teboho Edkins

8.30pm
Heremakono 
(Spielfilm / fiction), Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauretanien / Frankreich 2002, 95′, OmU

HEREMAKONO plays in Nouadhibou, a small town at the Mauritanian Atlantic coast. It is a place of transition, where one waits for happiness and see-saws between the desire to leave and to stay. The film finds precise and striking images for the moods of waiting, travelling, and hope. He received the international film critics awards in Cannes in 2002 and won the grand prize at the Fespaco Filmfestival in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in 2003.

13. MAI

6pm
Orfeu Negro
(Spielfilm / fiction), Marcel Camus, Brasilien / Frankreich / Portugal 1959, 107′ OmU

ORFEU NEGRO – one of the most striking French-Brazilian productions – transfers the antique myth of Orpheus and Eurydice into the present of the carnival of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the actors are Brazilian non-professionals, the leading parts are played by the American-French actress Marpessa Dawn and the Brazilian football player Breno Mello. The film marked the international breakthrough of bossa nova.

20. MAI

6pm
Sans Titre
(Shorts)

N12º13.062’/W001º32.619′ Extended // Vincent Meesen, BE/BF, 2005, 8’30“ /// Reconstructing Damon Albarn in Kinshasa // Jeanne Faust, D, 2010, 10’, franz./engl./dt. mit engl. UT /// Sans-Titre // Neïl Beloufa, F/ALG, 2010, 15’, algerisch/franz. engl UT /// Atrophy // Palesa Shongwe, ZA 2009, 8’, engl. OF /// NORA // Alla Kovgan, David Hinton, USA/ZI, 2009, 35’, engl. OF (feat. Zimbabwean dancer Nora Chipaumire)

The artist films from the archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen gathered in this programme focus on surreal moments in real life, that is moments of rapture, of deferment and transgression, of pictorial dissolution and dance.

8.30pm
En attendant les hommes
(documentary), Katy Lena NDiaye, Mauretanien / Frankreich 2007, 56′ OmeU

The village Oualata is located in the Eastern part of the Mauritanian Sahara. Many men left for Europe. Their wives stayed, some of them wait for them since decades. They do all daily work by themselves. While waiting, they decorate their red clay houses with incredibly beautiful motives and speak very openly about their relationships and longing.

Octobr
(fiction), Aberrahmane Sissako, Mauretanien / Frankreich / Russland 1993, 37′, OmU

In 1982, Abderrahmane Sissako went to Rostov to learn Russian and then moved to Moscow to study film. He belonged to the third generation of African filmmakers, who were trained in the Soviet Union, which at the time when he was making his final degree film, was already in dissolution. OCTOBR tells the story of a failing relationship between an African man and a Russian woman, it depicts life in the ‘zone’, that is the migrants’ no-mans-land, and catches moments of disillusionment and downtime in Moscow’s cold season.

27. MAI

6pm
Six Videos by Guy Wouete 
In Atendence of the artist

Corridor // 2010, 10’44“, DVD (Malta), OmeU /// Who Cares? // 2009, 5’11“ DVD (Marrakesch, Marokko), OmeU /// Rite // 2008, 16’48“, DVD (Penja, Kamerun) /// L’imminent Tsunami // 2007, 4’53“ DVD (Bamako, Mali), OmeU /// Afri-can Traffic // 4’34“ DVD (Cotonou, Bénin), OmeU /// Esperamos // 2009, 1’10“ (Havanna, Kuba)

‘My art does not belong to any geographic space nor does it cling to colours or genres. My art basically does not speak about pain and evil that cuts into the flesh and perverts the psyche. My art draws its energy from the delicate within the here and now. It explores the conflictive mind, this vital moment, in which the said and the unsaid (un)reasonably meet.’ (G.W.)

8.30pm
Man No Run
(documentary), Claire Denis, Frankreich 1988, 90′, OmU

Claire Denis’ documentary attends the Cameroonian avant-garde band Les têtes brûlées during their tour through France in 1987. It focuses on the backstage life of the musicians and their encounter with the extraterrestrial French province. Then, at the very end of the film, the energy of their music discharges to atmosphere.

Deutsches Filmmuseum, Schaumainkai 41,
60594 Frankfurt am Main
Fee: 7 / 5 Euro & 9 / 7 with guests
Reservation: 069 961 220 220

www.deutsches-filmmuseum.de