Residing in the Borderlands

For the second take of our new year-long, monthly film series Residing in the Borderlands, we are delighted to have with us filmmaker and visual artist Amelia Umuhire. In her work, she tackles issues of belonging and transnational domesticity. On the occasion of TAKE II, we will screen Claire Denis’ film 35 Shots of Rum, chosen by Amelia, and think through some of these topics in a discussion afterwards. Amelia explained her choice saying: “I chose the film because Claire Denis has a way of entering the protagonists soul which allows us to see the world through the eyes of people we might overlook in our day to day life. I love her films and thought it might be nice to watch this together.”

Amelia Umuhire   is a Rwandese artist and film director who grew up in Kigali, the UK and Germany. She wrote and directed the 2015 web series Polyglot, which is set in Berlin and London and follows young deracinated Rwandese artists. The series screened at various international festivals such as Festival D’Angers, Tribeca Film Festival, and Geneva International Film Festival, where it won Best International Web Series 2015. Her short film Mugabo, set in Kigali, is an experimental film about the return to the homeland and the question of what to do with our past. The film screened at Film Africa, Uppsala Film Festival and Blackstar Film Festival 2017 where it won "Best Experimental Film" and was part of the official selection of IFFR 2018. It has also been shown in various museum and gallery contexts. In July 2018 she produced and directed the radio feature Vaterland, commissioned by the German radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur and in February 2019, presented her first solo exhibition FKBP 5 at Decad Berlin.