I Witness

• Avó (Muidumbe) / Granny (Muidumbe)
  Mozambique, 1960, before the beginning of the war, portrait of a colonial family. A sequence of archive footage filmed by my grandfather, former colonial administrator, is the point of departure for a documentary on the history of the decolonization and its memory. Double memory or memory split in two: the lived and descriptive memory of the colonizers (their texts and images) vs. the invented memory of their descendants. This film is an attempt to represent my indirect memories of Mozambique.
  Director/author: Raquel Schefer 
  Portugal   2009
  Film & Video Video 10 min.
  
   
• Fresh Cherries (Swieze Wisnie) / Swieze Wisnie
  Actress, undergoing Hellinger's therapy. We see her in the roles of a woman raped by Russian soldiers and a German woman forced into prostitution in Auschwitz. Another female protagonist, Joanna, is working on a ground-breaking doctoral project on prostitution in former concentration camps, There is a cinematographer and a controversial documentary filmmaker, pursuing the project of making ›a film about Auschwitz.‹ And there is one more man, present though absent, Lars von Trier. Anna Baumgart, director of ›Fresh Cherries,‹ plays a witty game with the documentary film convention, our cultural memory - given to denial and taboo, a controversial way of handling trauma. In Fresh Cherries, an actress portrays a German woman forced into prostitution at Auschwitz and a Polish woman raped by Russian soldiers who must deal with those stigmas by following the women's memoirs. She takes part in a filmed Hellinger Constellation as a victim, though the film forces audiences to ask whose constellation is actually being arranged...
  Director/author: Anna Baumgart 
  Poland   2010
  Film & Video Video 19 min.
  
   
• House in the North Country / House in the North Country
  House in the North Country is based on a play by Talaya Delaney about a sister's denial of her brother's death.
  Director/author: Kevin Jerome Everson 
  USA   2010
  Film & Video 16 mm 9 min.
  
   
• Natascha / Natasha
  Natascha, eight years old, has many friends and lives in Uniza, a village in one of the most desolate parts of Russia. Most of the windows of the house where she lives are nailed shut, except for one room with four iron beds, a chest of drawers and many cardboard boxes. One of these boxes contains Natasha's clothes. She is just puttin’ on her prettiest dress. She is openminded, chatting away frankly and unintentionally. But what she says affects you in an unexpected way. An experimental documentary, since the film is based on a coincidental encounter, and results from a game with Natasha, a microphone, a Super 8 camera and a camera.
  Director/author: Anja Strelets 
  Germany   2010
  Film & Video Video 9 min.
  
   
• Tropic Pocket / Tropic Pocket
  The Chocó area in Colombia remains isolated between sea and forest. There, religious missions, military operations and tourist projects, amongst others, have come and gone, coexisted and ignored each other at the same time. Judgment put aside and free of narration, Tropic Pocket captures images to witness and justify these actions, leaving behind their argumentative weight. The spectator will decide which amongst these layers of reality and mystification are the most deceitful.
  Director/author: Camilo Restrepo 
  Colombia   2010
  Film & Video Video 13 min.