Residing in the borderlands

Following our previous film series HOW DOES THE WORLD BREATHE NOW?,  SAVVY Contemporary will start a new year-long, monthly, film series in April 2019 intent on creating a new cartography of Berlin through diasporic perspectives. As part of our mission of diasporic place-making, we will explore different film-worlds, considering both the visual and the auditory. Through the cinematic experience, we aspire to reach another way of being present, thinking of film as a form of movement that can also propel us into previously unthought of futures.

To this end, we will invite twelve speakers, each from a different diasporic community, and with occupations within and beyond the cultural sector, to choose a film that represents their experience moving through the city. The film need not be about Berlin or even set in the city, but must capture some essence, or essential question that has shaped our guests’ perspectives. After we screen each film, we will host a discussion in which the guest will locate themself within the city and talk about points of intersection with the different communities to which they belong. Film exists between written, visual, and auditory modes of storytelling. It has the power to capture the smells (cherry-blossomed avenues of Pankow), tastes (pungent durian from Dong Xuan), and textures (root-knotted bike-paths) of the world it portrays. As we unearth the diasporic polyphony in which we live, spaces that may be just a facade at the edge of our peripheral vision, become concrete places embodied by the experiences of the individuals who inhabit it.

all screenings