Film & Video: Reality and documentation

Reality and its documentary perspective Which cinematic form would correspond perfectly to the portrayal of reality? A documentary seems most appropriate, thus proven by several contributions to transmediale's video programme: While Viola Stephan's (Germany) film reflects on filming documentaries, Denise Garcia (Brazil), Rozbeh Asmani (Germany), Sarah Vanagt (Belgium) and Solbaz Shahbazi (Iran) have portrayed their own cutouts from reality, staging female rap musicians from Brazil's favelas, Berlin's migrant kids, Teheran's post-revolutionary youth or orphaned children who survived the genocide in Rwanda.

Rio de Janeiros' funk music scene consists of many female MCs and girl groups, because their participation guarantees a success for the dance-hall business. "I'm Ugly but I'm Trendy" by Denise Garcia introduces Rio's funk universe - but from a female perspective: it shows the hard-rapping women also off-stage in "real" life, as mother, wife or student. (Video-Screening "ugly but trendy", February 4, 21 hrs). Denise Garcia also presents her works at transmediale salon (February 5, 17 hrs).

Berlin's migrant kids and their rage against a society considered hostile are the protagonists in the video "Wedding 65" by Rozbeh Asmani. They reflect on their daily life between juvenile delinquency, unemployment and social engagement. Hip Hop and Break Dance suit their desire to express their own identity between parental origin and contemporary German reality (Video-Screening "ugly but trendy", February 4, 21 hrs).

Two documentaries by Iranian filmmaker Solmaz Shahbazi show the reality and the history of Teheran and the life of young people, focusing on central questions of today’s situation in Iran. In "Good Times, Bad Times" young Teheranians, born after the Islamic Revolution 1978, talk about their hopes, sorrows and opinions on the relations between sexes, love and marriage, about religious issues and political reality. "Tehran 1380" is a homage to the uncontrolled growing metropolis in concrete and neon that does not seem to fit into any western expectation of it (Video-Screening "good times, bad times", February 7, 18 hrs).

Rwanda's new calendar refers to April as the month of mourning. While the country was commemorating the tenth anniversary of the genocide Sarah Vanagt spent the Easter holidays in a so-called "children's republic" housing solely wartime orphans. Rwanda has deleted the subject history from schools' curriculum and banned the words "Hutu" and "Tutsi" from all reference books. "Begin Began Begun" shows the genocide's orphans creating their own history and reality (Video-Screening "grinding borders", February 7, 16 hrs).

Seeing is believing. Out of all possible methods of examining creation the camera is regarded as the most truthful one. Viola Stephan's documentary on the approach and progress of neuroscience is also a film about vision and filmmaking. "The Making of" is based on the analogy of visual perception and filmmaking. The central question is: how creative is science and how objective is film? (film programme "The making of", February 5, 12.00 hrs).