5th BCK Film Symposium

“History is not just a matter of date”, said Chris Patten in his last speech as British Governor of Hong Kong, shortly before the United Kingdom handed administration of the province back to China in 1997. In Decameron, Rita Hui Nga Shu combines this speech and other historical sources with fiction and contemporary images. Her gripping documentary takes a critical look, for example, at the question of what Hong Kong actually is at this particular moment in time.

The title of this ambitious video essay refers to Giovanni Boccaccio’s Medieval literary masterpiece, which was likewise created in the wake of an epoch-making worldwide plague. As in Boccaccio’s literary text, different stories, timelines and perspectives merge. The kaleidoscopic film Decameron presents a coronavirus-ravaged Hong Kong that is also still struggling with traumas from the recent past. The result is a valuable political document which, by placing the recent protests within a broader context, enters into a complex dialogue with the city’s present, past and future.

In 1884, 14 European countries organized a meeting in Berlin in order  to divide Africa into colonies and trade zones, drawing borders, in a land unknown to them, disregarding the cultural and linguistic boundaries already established by the native people of the continent.  In the 19th century industrialization in Europe required raw materials to be turned into marketable goods, therefore Europeans sought a source of raw materials but also a market for manufactured goods in Africa. In addition, ideologies of racial hierarchy were prevalent in Europe in the 19th century and many Europeans viewed themselves as the most advanced civilization in the world, while  some saw it as their mission to “enlighten” and “civilize” people in the rest of the world. Many inaccurate and racialized stereotypes of African peoples, which existed at the time, were used to justify colonialism in Africa. Civil wars, corruption, poverty, migration, lack of industrial and technological development, insufficient education and the suppression of African culture are some of the effects of colonialism in the continent.

As far as cinema is concerned, until independence, films in Africa were financed, directed and distributed by Europeans and Americans. It was only after independence in the 1960s that an independent, indigenous film industry was able to develop. During the colonial era Africans were depicted by Western film makers as exotic and wild and there was a total lack of interest in native African culture. However, France’s goal of assimilating colonial subjects in its colonies into French culture provided aspiring African film directors with opportunities to become involved in film production. After independence these film directors took the lead in African cinema. One of them, Ousmane Sembene, is seen as the father of African cinema and his 1963 ‘Borom Sarret’ is regarded as the first African film. Currently, collectives, institutes, initiatives and festivals in Africa are trying to promote African cinema, inside and outside of the continent, in order to  showcase their culture and talk about the social issues that are prevalent in their countries. The “Voices of Africa” is a collection of documentaries, from western and african or of african descent  filmmakers, that  aims to spread the voices of africans and african descendants,  to talk about their countries, their personal experiences, the stigma and the discriminations they face due to their origin, the effects of colonization and the drivers of migration.

Gypsies or Roma people are members of one of the most populous minorities in Europe and they are often victims of extreme racist prejudices and assaults because of their lifestyle and culture. Their fundamental human rights are violated systematically and they have been victims from the time of the Holocaust until the last crisis in Kosovo. In Greece, according to government sources, they are about 100.000 Roma, although the  Greek Helsinki Monitor estimates that they are 300-350.000. Although they have been living with us for almost 600 years, how much do we know about the Roma people? In cinema, Roma people are portrayed as exotic, mysterious beings, full of passion, focusing on their delinquency or their “care free” lifestyle, restricting them in cliché behaviors and depriving them the right to their own voice.  During the Symposium a selection of short documentaries will be presented where the Romani speak with their own voice and through the eyes of others, raising questions about the problems and challenges they face. The screening will be followed by a discussion with mr. Kostas Paiteris, President of the Greek Union of Roma Mediators & Collaborators,  to reflect on the stereotypes and prejudices that follow the Romani people until today.

For three days ZOETROPE hosts the video installation DECOLONISE: SCREENS IN LOOP, including six screens with programs curated by the BCK team. 41 short films are screened in total.

In addition, #5BCKFS hosts an audio installation curated by Our Stories, an oral history project of migration to Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, and Queer Athens, a bilingual podcast interview series that shares the stories and experiences of Greek LGBTQ+ people from the 1960s to the present  day.

For three days ZOETROPE hosts the video installation DECOLONISE: SCREENS IN LOOP, including six screens with programs curated by the BCK team. 41 short films are screened in total.

In addition, #5BCKFS hosts an audio installation curated by Our Stories, an oral history project of migration to Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, and Queer Athens, a bilingual podcast interview series that shares the stories and experiences of Greek LGBTQ+ people from the 1960s to the present  day.

What’s in a nation? A broad definition of a nation is a community of people formed on the basis of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. In the name of the one and homogenous nation, states have oppressed ethnic groups with a different religion or language, civil wars have erupted and borders have been breached to claim the territories of “others” that supposingly pose a threat. Until the present day, minorities have their rights violated, language and religion demonized, freedom of expression banned and lands confiscated. Even the activists that fight for minorities’ rights are persecuted and threatened. In order to deconstruct the states’ narrative of the “homogenous” nation and the sovereignty of the state, BCK presents a selection of documentary films that address the issues that minorities faced in the past and experience in the present, in the midst of a new wave of growing fascism, nationalism and colonialism.

For three days ZOETROPE hosts the video installation DECOLONISE: SCREENS IN LOOP, including six screens with programs curated by the BCK team. 41 short films are screened in total.

In addition, #5BCKFS hosts an audio installation curated by Our Stories, an oral history project of migration to Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, and Queer Athens, a bilingual podcast interview series that shares the stories and experiences of Greek LGBTQ+ people from the 1960s to the present  day.

Water and culture are inseparable elements of human life. The aesthetic, cultural, spiritual, and ecological values that local societies ascribe to water constitutes an integral part of a society’s cultural identity. Water encompasses lifestyles, value systems, traditions and beliefs. Water has a presence in our daily lives but is treated mainly as a ‘resource’ for irrigation, water supply and sanitation. A hydrosocial cycle is a socio-natural process by which water and society make and remake each other over space and time and it promotes a critical analysis of water-society relationships, positioning humans within the hydrologic cycle, where humans and water co-construct themselves based upon complex interactions of social, political, historical, economic, and hydrological factors. These films are interconnected through water. They use it as a location, background, source of life or symbol, a drop, a tear or rain. Diverse and unique stories unfold and reveal the process of decolonising relations between humans and between humans and nature.

Decolonial speculative fiction and fantasy is a sub-genre that emerged in the late 1960s alongside decolonial movements across the world, and the Civil Rights Movement in the US. While part of a global boom in science fiction publishing, it represented a break from what Naomi Alderman has called the “Science Fiction masculine space cowboy epic” of the 1960’s. Decolonial speculative fiction and fantasy is part of a broader recuperation of writers from colonised territories (former or current), often reclaiming mythologies and indigenous history appropriated by colonial and imperial anthropology, and incorporating modern narratives of oppression. Its specific contribution to the genre is its consideration of the challenges of radical change at a transnational level, which involves confronting and dismantling the material processes, social identifications, and political ideologies that have characterised global capitalist relations of (re)production. And through this, remembering and forming other ways of living together, in other possible worlds.

An open workshop exploring some basic aspects of decolonial thinking and the decolonization of the gaze with Mina Karavada and Mata Dimakopoulou.

The language of the event is in Greek. The discussion is curated and moderated by Myrto Tapeinou.

The specific topics that will be discussed with the audience are: the revival of the black face in Greece, the role of the critic today in relation to issues of inclusivity, gaze and representation, the possibilities and limits of humour in public and online discourse, as well as the instrumentalisation of inclusivity by advertising companies, businesses, institutions, etc.

The discussion will be broadcasted live by FADE RADIO. The discussion is organised in collaboration with GENΕRATION 2.0

The 5th BCK Film SYmposium presents a rich online programme, available admission free for the audience without geo blocking. Films will be available from the 19th of November till 26th of November 2022.