Video Concerning the Arab World

TransArab Itinerant 2003-2005

2003 / 2005 / 2006 / 2009 - TransArab

Video Concerning the Arab World

This programme is not intended to provide an overview of independent video in Arab and Islamic countries, nor does it seek to be representative in any way.

The works being presented, like the programme as a whole, reflect the notion of “slices of reality”, in the sense that they are subjective visions, aware of their partiality, which do not exclude contradiction or conflict. Visions that perceive a strong tension on their surface and take up these eddies of confusion and violence as cause for  urgent reflection and knowledge.

Images and stories, realities in themselves, rhizomatic realities: interwoven without a centre or a fixed meaning. And for that very reason, instead of giving rise to cultural dualism based on opposition, they engender a web of underground connections.

Algeria is a young country, made through a long history. The 20th century was full of unprecedented historic upheavals that brutally affected societies and cultures, casting doubt on value and belief systems that had been constructed over the centuries. “Aliénations” is a modest attempt that looks at the suffering that Algerians can experience today, as they face a crisis in many senses: religious, political, economic and within the family.

Anthem is a post-industrial lamentation, structured on the single piercing scream of a young girl as she stands in the vast chamber of Union Station in Los Angeles. Viola relates this structure to the form and function of religious chants, particularly Gregorian chants (using a harmonic scale in a resonant hall) and Tantric Buddhist chants (ritual exorcism and conversation with demons). The original scream is extended in time and shifted in frequency to produce a scale of harmonic notes that comprises the soundtrack, to which Viola juxtaposes images of materialism -- industry and the worship of the body, giant oil pumps and the beating human heart, cars streaming along a freeway and blood flowing through veins, modern surgical technology and tree branches in an ancient forest. The anguished scream cuts through the corporeality of the body and contemporary culture as a living organism. For Viola, the piece is a ritual evocation of "our deepest primal fears, darkness, and the separation of body and spirit."

The paintings and stories of the painter Don Pablo Amaringo's Amazonian and religious realities subtly guide you through this film, in which you share space and time with a series of teachers who are experts on the language of the Amazon's plants, seen by many as “the world's pharmacy”. This documentary is called “Ayaruna”, which means “deceased” in Quechuan, and acts as a bridge between different realities, setting up a profound philosophical dialogue that deals with the language of the spirit and covers subjects like the mystical experience and medicine in our time.

A document about the ritual of a religious service; faith and ecstasy as means of survival in the Puerto Rican community of the South Bronx, in New York.

Syrian director Anmar al-Beik uses a series of imaginative artifices to approach a small monastic community that seeks to experience Islamic-Christian dialogue.

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

Daughters of Wisdom is an intimate portrait of the nuns of Kala Rongo, a rare and exceptional Buddhist Monastery exclusively for women in remote northeastern Tibet. Here, these women are receiving unprecedented educational and religious training, and preserving their rich cultural heritage even as they slowly reshape it. Some shy, some outspoken, all committed to the often difficult life they have chosen, the nuns graciously allowed the camera a never-before-seen glimpse into their vibrant spiritual community and insight into their extraordinary lives.