02.04. um 19:00 "Mithly"
Film Screening and conversation between Najwa Ahmed & Julian Volz
Until the early 20th century, unlike any other region in European imagination, the
Arabic-speaking world was associated with male homoeroticism. Through their writings
and travels, intellectuals such as André Gide and Oscar Wilde contributed to
establishing the "Orient" as a place of gay longing. While these imaginations still
resonate, the Arabic-speaking world today is usually marked as deeply homophobic.
Much less present in the West are the testimonies of homosexual struggles for
emancipation and a lively queer culture that is sometimes lived more openly and
sometimes more covertly. These struggles persist in contrast to the ostracism and
criminalization of same-sex desire introduced by the former colonial powers and
promoted by Islamist movements.
The film Mithly deals with orientalist fantasies about homosexuality and examines
the role of same-sex desire in the construction of two supposedly incommensurable
and hierarchically ordered cultural spaces. It also provides insights into the
positions of artists from the region itself who confidently counter these
orientalist approaches with their own queer visual practice.
(B 2019, 94 Min, D: Julian Volz) Two-Channel Documentary film with: Mohamad Abdouni, Antoine Idier, Abdellah Taïa & Akram Zaatari
Language: French and English with English subtitles
Najwa Ahmed: a Palestinian writer, curator, and filmmaker, based in Berlin. Her artistic practice explores themes of intersectional
identity, gender, displacement and disbelonging using diverse artistic mediums such as Land Art, writing, filmmaking and visual art. Her
curatorial work is motivated by her belief in our collective memory and the need to platform our own narratives.