XVIII. Black International Cinema 2003

Berlin

Impressions

The Oasis

The Oasis is a real or imagined place of refuge from strife, stress, hopelessness, visionlessness and fatigue. People need an atmospshere and environment of emotional, visual and auditory respite, leading to intense satisfaction. Fortunately, even though the heights of pleasure are finite, memory preserves all or most of the experience. The intensity of anticipation grows until the moment of culmination, then finally the goal is reached, contact and involvement within The Oasis. The Oasis contains sounds, smells, tastes and sights, which are wonderful to experience, enjoyable to be a part of and associated with; a perspective and setting leading the individual and group to feel at home, within The Oasis. The construction of The Oasis requires years. Whether by nature, nurture or a combination of both, the progress towards The Oasis is gradual, but determinedly and increasingly successful and rewarding. Once the setting is reached, the seekers may rest, relax and absorb the thoughts, emotions, discussions and visual delights of The Oasis. The pleasures and rewards of The Oasis are there to be shared with one and all, during the

XVIII. Black International Cinema Berlin/Düsseldorf/Ljubljana Germany-Slovenia 2003. We await you and everyone is welcome!

Fountainhead® Tanz Theatre

Die Oase

Die Oase ist ein realer oder imaginärer Zufluchtsort vor Unmut, Stress, Hoffnungslosigkeit, Visionslosigkeit und Müdigkeit. Die Menschen brauchen eine Atmosphäre, in der Ihre Emotionen und visuellen und auditiven Sinne ruhen können, auf dem Weg zu intensiver Zufriedenheit. Glücklicherweise, auch wenn die Höhen der Freude begrenzt sind, bleiben in der Erinnerung alle oder die meisten Erfahrungen bewahrt. Die Intensität der Erwartung wächst bis zu dem Moment des Höhepunkts, dann endlich ist das Ziel erreicht, Kontakt mit und Beteiligung an der Oase. Die Oase enthält Geräusche, Gerüche, Geschmäcker und Sehenswürdigkeiten, die wundervoll zu erfahren sind, und man freut sich an ihnen teilzunehmen und mit ihnen in Verbindung zu stehen; eine Sichtweise und Umgebung, die den Einzelnen oder der Gruppe ein geborgenes Gefühl vermittelt, innerhalb der Oase. Die Erschaffung der Oase bedarf Jahre. Ob es natürlich, durch hegen und pflegen oder durch eine Kombination beider geschieht, der Fortschritt, der zur Oase führt, ist graduell aber entschieden und zunehmend erfolgreich und belohnend. Sobald der Ort des Geschehens erreicht ist, darf der Suchende sich ausruhen, entspannen und die Gedanken, Emotionen, Diskussionen und visuellen Köstlichkeiten der Oase aufnehmen. Die Freuden und Belohnungen der Oase sind da, um sie mit allen zu teilen während des

XVIII. Black International Cinema Berlin/Düsseldorf/Ljubljana Germany-Slovenia 2003. Wir erwarten Sie und alle sind willkommen!

Fountainhead® Tanz Theatre

Page 1 of 5

Die Tageszeitung
junge welt

founded in 1947
Saturday/Sunday, May24/25 2003
No. 120

Selling Out
Slave and Religion Business: On the weekend, an anti-racist film festival is running in Düsseldorf

In the middle of May, the 18th Black International Cinema festival took place at the Berlin Klick cinema directly at Stuttgarter Platz, where at the beginning of dusk, a slightly provincial atmosphere of beer garden meets the awakening activity of pimps who brief their female staff - so everyone goes about one´s work, the principle of exchange doesn´t allow any excuses.

But the ideal place for a festival is described by a poem set before the program - it is the oasis: "The Oasis is a real or imagined place of refuge from strife, stress, hopelessness, vision-lessness and fatigue." The visitor of the festival will learn again to see, think and adjust to the unique experience of being treated with genuine friendliness.

On the personal level, this image which calls for restoration of peace within the African Diaspora, fits pretty perfectly: It is considerably the most likeable festival I have ever visited! Festival director Donald Muldrow Griffith and his colleagues don´t let any stress arise considering all - also mentioned in the poem - hard work: "The construction of the oasis requires years."

The program, set up with a low budget by Fountainhead® Tanz Theatre in co-operation with Pan African Film Festival (Salvador/Bahia, Brazil), mainly consists of documentary films and shorts, which are put together very homogeneously in their type and actuality. It ranges from full-length and very didactic portraits, because of production for the U.S. American educational channel (Public Broadcasting Service, PBS), of bigger than life African American hero figures such as Paul Robeson and Langston Hughes, a historical interview with the revolutionary Black nationalist Robert Franklin Williams, who in 1968 had arrived from the People´s Republic of China to Tanzania ("Let It Burn - The Coming Destruction of the U.S.A.) to the most topical (fresh from the editing table) interview material about U.S. soldiers, who by facing the war in Iraq, deserted from the army. ("G.I. Talk" by Darnell Stephen Summers).

One of this year´s emphasis in the program, is the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially Brazil and Cuba. Regarding Pan Africanism, the program editorial staff of aunt Tagesspiegel (a highly reputable newspaper in Berlin, Germany) has fallen into the always repeated idle talk about "the variety of human cultures." Do simply non-human cultures exist? For sure they do also. Nevertheless, festival director Griffith presented a text about a journey to Brazil, in the context of the festival, which has been produced and published in the festival program with much better sentences: The square was filled with people selling, begging, looking, buying." Those are namely the conditions of every cultural transfer - open places where people are selling, begging, looking and buying. How else could society function? The "variety of cultures" is only a system of transactions and transscriptions where subsequently the particular becomes universal and the universal becomes particular (the formular of so called globalization).

One example is the short film "Ife" by Cecil Taylor, U.S.A. 2002 - basically not more than an elaborated sketch in which a notorious womanizer is urged to be true in his marriage by a magical Yoruba masque. Important in this context is only the masque as a complex, overly specified symbol of a distant past, which can only have an effect as a arbitrary fake. Should the magic indeed be of an effect, as a modern New Yorker one could only say: "Let´s get out of here, this is becoming too tricky."

Even more complex are the signs of the sycretistic African religions which have been, coming from West Africa, modernized and transformed in the Caribbean area and meanwhile, as circulating Santeria, Yoruba and other cults in this region, have countless followers. The documentary "When the Spirits Dance Mambo" is demonstrating this factor, using Cuba as an example. There, practicing of the cults has been permitted again since the beginning of the 90´s which keeps the priests who are in business in a permanent tension between the fear of losing authenticity of the religion´s practices and the delight about their growing commercial business.

To speculate on folkloristic authenticity is surely for the documentator an unsuitable concept: the syncretism of these religions goes very far. For instance, in the Santeria the old West African Gods are simply written into the catholic catalogue of saints. The illegitimate cults from slavery time could be seen as a kind of secret code in an idealistic form to deal with everything one finds. The elements of what might have been authentic West African religion have been disseminated whether globally as African Cuban music or locally as the tremendously encoded every-day-tale about racist oppression.

By the way, Robert Fichte examined the religion business in his at the end of the 70´s published book, "Petersilie - Die afro-amerikanischen Religionen IV" ("Parsley - The Afro-American Religions IV"). Quotation: The Whites had discovered attributes of religion from Cuban Blacks through conversation. Therefore, the Blacks could not have been very discreet."

To some extent, it was surprising how much the festival program seemed to follow the dramaturgy of my reading Hubert Fichte. So Fichte did his research of the Santeria cult in Miami exactly at the same time when the fundamentalistic anti-gay-agitator Anita Bryant was at the peak of her activities. Fichte: "Oh, right - I am in Anita-Bryant-Town, in a gay´s-dick-off-joke." And the last documentary of the festival deals exactly with this subject matter: "Chronicle of an Ordinance", direction: Sergio Giral, U.S.A. 2000.

A film about the market of soccer players transfer between West Africa and Europe ("Sold Out", Austria 2002) finally demonstrates clearly what the signs of the time in the world look like right now: " a colonial matter ... slave market." In Ghana, a twelve-year-old talent must care for the financial situation of his 17 family members. In Belgium, a Ghanaian participates in a dozen required games, without a legal status of residence permit and besides, has to clean the shed of the club´s president. The post or better described as the neo-colonial grimace of Franz Beckenbauer grinning:" Not necessarily serious, but the FIFA can´t do anything about it ..."

by Andreas Hahn

Black International Cinema, until Sunday at the Black Box cinema in Düsseldorf, June 11 - 15 in Kino Vic, Ljubljana