Program 1

Short film program consisting of:

DETOURS WHILE SPEAKING OF MONSTERS
GRANDMAMAUNTSISTERCAT
I DON’T WANT TO BE JUST A MEMORY

Total running time approx. 61 min.

detours while speaking of monsters

A 4000-year-old aquatic monster is rendered invisible in present-day Turkey. Its myth dates back to the ancestors of Armenians and Kurds around Lake Van, a region that witnessed the ethnic cleansing of both peoples. However, the monster remains somewhat alive in the tales of the inhabitants, resisting falling entirely into oblivion. In this blue landscape, on the crossroads of mythological, political, and personal realms, different forms of erasure are concealed. Meanwhile, old gods are upset with us, and I am upset with my father.

Grandmamauntsistercat

Created from archival materials of the Educational Film Studio in Łódź, the film tells the story of a matriarchal family through the eyes of a child grappling with the reproduction of ideological and representational systems. Originally created as didactic and propagandistic tools in communist Poland, the footage is repurposed as a site of auto-fictional memory, its scientific register shifted toward a treatment of the images themselves as specimens.
The classic Slavic witch figure, Baba Yaga, is reimagined as a prehistoric goddess from the time of matriarchy. This transformation provokes layered reflections on kinship and identity as the child navigates binary gender roles. The women of the family find a home in the archive, engaging in a process of self and world-making that transforms the often sexist and anthropocentric images into tools of freedom and resistance.

I Don’t Want to Be Just a Memory

Fellow members of the Berlin queer community mourn together the loss of their dead friends due to substance abuse and the mental health crisis as well as the loss of urban safe spaces in general. By sharing personal materials, stories, and honest criticism about the club scene, working on this film becomes a means of healing for this group of friends. Resembling glow-in-the-dark fungi, they radiate light together as a network of support and care, they transform dead bodies and memories into a collective structure that sustains future living.