Border Crossings touches on crucial issues that surround the increased militarization of the U.S. / Mexico border. The United States Border Patrol, now part of the new formed Department of Homeland Security, has a history of abusing its power. Examples of this abuse range from sexual assault to unnecessary use of deadly force.

Observatory Archives 2000

/ CONTEXT 1994 - 2020

Observatory Archives 2000

OVNI 2000 brings toughener a series of works which we hope may serve as a plural and multifaceted reflection on the notion of COMMUNITY, understood not as ideal, a closed and defined paradigm, but as a reality: spaces for social, anthropological, cultural and emotional relationships where we already find ourselves, irrespective of the acceptance, participation or conflict we develop within tem.

COMMUNITY as a key reality, often hijacked, transformed by media, caricatured by states, by markets and ideologies. The “community” in this way is separated from the necessities of day to day chores and realities. Singularities, unique people are kept from forming communities unless the declare conformity to ab identity, or pertain to a group. Instead masses od individuals are constructed, eliminating, however, whats is always alive underneath, what remains of a people, indescribable, without a nam, without boundaries, whose lack of definition gives it its force and its grace. (1)

(1) Contra el hombre Agustin Garcia Calvo. Fundació Anselmo Lorenzo. Madrid, 1996 . La Comunidad que viene. Giorgio Agamben. Pre-Textos. Valencia 1996 .

Thematical screenings

Hall and Auditorium.Simultaneous Screenings

Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

Montalegre 5. 08001 Barcelona

Khaled, a Syrian worker earns his living in old town Beirut. He was born transvestite. Ever since he suffered of his sexual identity. Yet, he has determined to change his sex by a surgery which allows him to become a woman. This film enters into Khaled's intimate world, daily struggle and damages that inflict him in an intolerant society.

Prodein, a Melilla-based children's rights association, documents the difficult situation of sub Saharans who try to cross the border between Africa and Europe in search of a better life. “Murder” is the best way to describe the deaths that took place - and continue to take place - on the border at Melilla and Ceuta. The summary shooting of all migrants who attempt to climb the fence... “with their backs turned and defenceless, without previous arrest, without administrative or legal proceedings” can only be called “murder”.

Ceuta, which has always been governed by the right, is the door to Europe for thousands of sub-Saharan migrants. This was the first demonstration supporting migrants in Ceuta, one of the North African enclaves in Spain, organized by many different European organizations and individuals after the murder by shooting of more than 14 black Africans as they tried to cross the border fence.

Set in an imagined present in which a bridge spans the Strait of Gibraltar, Atlantropa mixes fact and fiction by connecting the bridge to contemporary news reports and to a modernist architect's vision: to dam the Strait and create a new continent. Originally intended as a symbol of unity between Africa and Europe, the bridge is eventually seized by EU forces and takes on a completely different meaning. The Gilbraltar Bridge, first mentioned in science fiction by Arthur C. Clarke, has more recently been investigated as an actual possibility by the United Nations.

Anya displays a double trajectory. On one side, an exploration of the imagined frontier that makes up the Bosphorus, and on the other a tale, recounted offscreen, of a young Iraqi woman waiting for a visa for Australia during 12 years. A waiting time made of hope, disappointments and forced perseverance.