by Lorna McDowell // Sept. 26, 2023
How does the art of documentary film empower the voice of “the Other”? After a three-year hiatus, documentary film festival Dokuarts is returning to Berlin from October 4th to 15th to ponder this question, with a program centred around the theme: ‘Visual Alterity’. The festival “presents and examines the filmic look at the Other” with a selection of films that focus on the artistic creative process, biographical portraits of artists and essay films. The program concept draws on the notion of “the Other” in philosophical thought, particularly the work of 20th-century philosopher of ethics, Emmanuel Levinas, whose “alterity of the Other” has gained a renewed popularity in contemporary thought and film studies.
Both filmmakers and audiences alike are continually fascinated by the mystery and aura of the creative process. This led Andreas Lewin, artistic director and founder of Dokuarts, to initiate the festival at the Academy of Arts in 2006, with the aims of gathering films about art and artists for an ever-curious audience, and ensuring forms of memory of the arts in our era of rapid technical and media evolution. This year’s selected films demonstrate the expressiveness and reflexivity of the documentary film, with styles that contextualise artistic work and explore their subjects authentically and beyond over-prescriptive television formats.
Lea Glob: ‘Apolonia, Apolonia,’ 2022, film still // Courtesy of Danish Documentary Production
A highlight of this year’s festival is the award-winning ‘Apolonia, Apolonia’—the first solo documentary feature by Danish director Lea Glob. ‘Apolonia, Apolonia’ began as a biographical project about Apolonia Sokol, a young painter raised in an art commune in an underground theatre in Paris. Over the course of 13 years, the project evolved into a captivating cinematic conversation between filmmaker and painter, the resulting footage conjuring a “double portrait” of two women grappling with their artistic identities.
‘Dokuarts: Visual Alterity’ also presents ‘Inside My Heart’ by multimedia artist and stage, opera and film director Saskia Boddeke, for which Boddeke collaborated with the Dutch theatre group Kamak—an ensemble of professional actors with intellectual disabilities. Boddeke documents the group’s rehearsals of the opulent Baroque period drama ‘Furia’ with vivid, tableau-like imagery, saturated colour and a richly imaginative style that blurs the line between fiction and reality.
Saskia Boddeke: ‘Inside My Heart’, 2022, film still // © Saskia Boddeke
Described by critics as “ethno-techno art” or “chicano cyber-punk performance,” the performances of Mexican/Chicano performance artist and activist Guillermo Goméz-Peña and his international artist organization ‘La Pocha Nostra’ have provoked debates about the borders of institutions and identities for the last 40 years. With the film ‘100 Way to Cross the Border,’ Dallas-based director Amber Bernak presents her first-hand experiences with Goméz-Peña, alongside exclusive archival material, in an immersive portrait that evokes a whirlwind of chaos and humour.
Amber Bemak, ‘100 Ways to Cross the Border’, 2022, film still // © Amber Bemak
Amber Bemak: ‘100 Ways to Cross the Border’, 2022, film still // © Amber Bemak
Also not to be missed is Tokyo-raised, Korean-American director and producer Amanda Kim’s portrait of Nam June Paik—arguably the most famous Korean artist in modern history and a key figure of the 20th-century American avant-garde. In ‘Nam June Paik – Moon Is The Oldest TV,’ Kim charts Paik’s artistic evolution and the collaborations with the experimental Fluxus movement and John Cage that preceded his roaring success in the New York art scene.
Amanda Kim: ‘Nam June Paik – Moon Is the Oldest TV,’ 2023, film still // Courtesy of Sundance Institute, © Amanda Kim.
Delving further into the festival’s exploration of how we might shape our own shifting identity through the encounter with “the Other,” Curaçao-born director Sherman De Jesus documents his search for the origins of the only photograph he has of his grandfather in ‘The Photograph.’ De Jesus uses striking visual and musical material to illustrate his quest, which leads him to the former studio of 1920s photographer and Harlem Renaissance movement member James Van Der Zee, and into a story about resistance, past and present.
Sherman De Jesus: ‘The Photograph,’ 2021, film still // © Memphis Features
The full program of selected films will be shown across three partner cinemas: the Kino in der Kulturbrauerei in Prenzlauer Berg, BrotfabrikKino in Weißensee and the KLICK Kino in Charlottenburg. They are accompanied by the new Dokuarts Forum, an event taking place on October 6th and 7th that features talks, lectures and a panel discussion. ‘Dokuarts: Visual Alterity’ will present 44 screenings of 18 films from 14 countries—12 of them directed by women—that promote the valuable genre of documentary and testify to the transformational power of identities.
Festival Info
Dokuarts
‘Visual Alterity’
Festival: Oct. 4–15, 2023
Admission: € 9 (reduced € 7)
Dokuarts Forum: Oct. 6–7, 2023
doku-arts.de
Kino in der Kulturbrauerei, Schönhauser Allee 36, 10435 Berlin, click here for map
BrotfabrikKINO, Caligariplatz 1, 13086 Berlin, click here for map
KLICK Kino, Windscheidstraße 19, 10627 Berlin, click here for map
