Concerning Violence – Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense
On Friday, 22 Apr, 7pm and in cooperation with the GRASSI Museum of Ethnography we will screen »Concerning Violence« by Göran Hugo Olsson, whom you may know as the director of »The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975«. Even though this is not particularly African cinema, »Concerning Violence« is more than relevant with regard to the issues we want to address and discuss in the AFRICAN OUTLINES section. The film, which carries the subtitle »Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense« is, for one part, a filmic involvement with the ideas of one of the pioneers of postcolonialism—Frantz Fanon—, and as well a resurrection of concrete African history as director Olsson’s assembles found footage material from the archives of different African national independence movements.
Again, we are working together with AG Postkolonial Leipzig for this screening and Diana Ayeh & Natascha Bing will give an introduction and context to Olsson’s film.
Read more about the film and see the trailer below.
Concerning Violence – Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense
(Doc SE/FI/US/DK 2014, D: Göran Hugo Olsson, 85’, OV with German subtitles, BluRay)
With an introduction by Diana Ayeh & Natascha Bing (AG Postkolonial Leipzig)
In the light of Franz Fanon’s book “The Wretched of the Earth”, the film ConcerningViolence tells of the riots leading to the de-colonizing of Africa. New-found archive footage about the violent confrontation with colonial powers between 1966 and 1984 is combined with quotes from Fanon’s divisive text—a text that at the beginning of the 60s conceived a pan-African vision of a socialist revolution, which as a counterforce was to be directed against both colonial and imperialist oppression as well as against the new, “native” governments. Musician Lauryn Hill reads passages from the text that are displayed and that are structuring and commenting the film material. Images of the liberation movement in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique and the struggle for independence in Guinea-Bissau are contrasted with documentary pictures of Swedish missionaries in Tanzania and of a strike at a Swedish mine in Liberia. A look on current smouldering conflicts shows that even 50 years after Fanon’s death, the consequences of centuries-long European raids and interventions are far from being overcome along old colonial borders. (Film with a preface by Gayatri Spivak)
22 April,7pm – Grassi Museum – € 4/3(red.)
