Opening Program: Fortress Europe March 3, 2011 6:30PM Johns Hopkins University, Shriver Hall Screening presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Where Do We Migrate To? About the Films Grossraum (Borders of Europe) Lonnie Van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan 2004-2005, 35mm, 35 minutes, The Netherlands A poetic triptych shot on 35mm, Grossraum examines three distinct border zones of Europe. Van Brummelen and de Haan’s piece presents visually stunning, fluid images of these landscapes, as well as the daily activities that unfold at these sites of transit. The checkpoints presented are Hrebenne (situated between Poland and Ukraine), Ceuta, a small Spanish enclave surrounded by mainland Morocco, and Nicosia in Cyprus, divided between the Turkish occupied northern and Greek southern part, each place pregnant with cultural, political and historical significance. Import / Export Ulrich Seidl 2007, 35mm, 135 minutes, Austria Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl’s feature film narrates two distinct trajectories of import and export across New Europe. While a young Ukranian nurse abandons her infant child in search of a more hopeful life in Austria, a debt-ridden Viennese youngster embarks on a reverse trajectory to the Ukraine, helping his stepfather install outmoded gambling machines. Through these stories, which simultaneously address the economic and existential crises that shape life across Europe, the film ruthlessly delineates various relationships of exchange between East and West. About Where Do We Migrate To? This film program, curated by Sonja Simonyi and presented in partnership with the Film and Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University, presents a series of audiovisual materials, feature length fiction films, documentaries, as well as experimental videos. The selected films demonstrate the diverging ways in which networks of migration, experiences of displacement, and questions of belonging and rootlessness have been addressed by artist and filmmakers in recent years. While a selection of films engage with migratory practices as central to our understanding of the present-day self in increasingly globalized and multicultural settings, other works investigate the complex historical processes that frame these contemporary conditions. The program thus provides a rich sampling of ways in which the ongoing circulation of people across regions, nations and continents, is addressed and questioned from multiple political, social, cultural and historical perspectives in film and video art.
