Past – Present – Tense
Filmscreening: December 8th 2015, 7pm
HD Video / Color & Sound / German with English Subtitles / 32.00 min, 2014 – 15
“PAST PRESENT TENSE” is a video work that examines the question of German identity and its relationship to racism of the past and present day.
Through various interviews the viewer observes social and political transitions in Germany – the GDR, Post-reunification and the pogroms starting in Rostock, and contemporary Germany society.
The work seeks to redefine social positions and identities within the framework of intimate dialogs that challenge the status quo on how to define not only German identity but geopolitics in the context of white Europe. As such, the audience is posed with questions on what are the responsibilities of dealing with colonial pasts and how do we reflect on dominant ideologies and discourse in a time of constant mobility and global shifts?
In a time of cultural amnesia, recalling the past and the retelling of memories is becoming more and more under-rated in a time when forgetting is common practice. Through telling interviews that discuss the perspectives of Germans of minority descent, the film highlights many of the experiences and opinions that are otherwise unheard and unseen within our shared public space.
It thus asks the audience to realign their perception of class, race and privilege that run alongside labels that ultimately offer a limited scope on the complexity of identity politics rooted in colonial exclusionary traditions.
After the screening there will be an Q&A with the director Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo and the interviewee Jasco Viefhus
Director / Editor – Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo
Subtitles – Jason Harrell
Post-Production / Video – Bastian Hopfgarten
Sound Editing / Audio Mastering – Paul “SNAX” Bonomo
Supported by District Berlin
Featuring – Anonymous, Abini Zoellner, Anetta Kahane, Minh Nguyen, Martin Hyun, Jasmin Truong, Jasco Viefhues, Kien Nghi Ha, Noa Ha, Jan Riebe
Special Thanks: Jason Harrell, Sander Houtkruijer, Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, Reistrommel e.V.
Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo is a US-American artist based in Berlin. Over the last few years D’Angelo’s work has evolved into a research based art practice that encompasses political issues concerning the politics of representations regarding class, race, sexuality and gender paradigms that exist within our shared media landscape.
D’Angelo’s work explores the production of race in both transnational spaces and urban areas within Eurocentric and American media zones, highlighting the questions of “exoticism” and object fetishism as a form of racism. Her work attempts to reconstruct conventional modes of identification, while rejecting the restrictive categories of identity in order to adopt a more plural way of experiencing race, gender and sexual relationships.
D’Angelo’s work has been featured in Art in America, Artforum, The Huffingtonpost, Kenzo’s Kenzine, and she has exhibited in Volta Artfair NY, Galerie Suvi Lehtinen, The September Gallery, Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow and was the 2014 studio grant holder from District Berlin.
Jasco Viefhus is active in the field of New Media, Graphic Design and Film. He has worked for several publicity agencys and productions as a freelancer for many years now. Currently he is a
student at the renown Filmacademy Berlin (dffb) – focussing on directing. From 2008 – 2012 Viefhus was a fellowship holder of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. In 2010 he was nominated for the German Short Film Award with his Film „Capernaum“. In 2014 his Film “Internal Body Shots”, one part of the Compilation “Fucking Different XXY” held it’s Premiere in the Panorama section of the 64. International Filmfestival Berlin (Berlinale).