Wolf Kino: Unknown Pleasures #15 – American Independent Film Fest
Same time, different place. Unknown Pleasures will also open the Arsenal year in 2025, albeit not in our own cinema this time - the new Arsenal in silent green is still under construction. Instead, we will present the US independent film festival from 2 to 12th January as part of our Arsenal on Location program with and at Neukölln's Wolf Kino. We look forward to our first stop. The seven independent features again highlight emerging filmmakers and artists. Beyond their country of production, however, all of these films have a common thread, all dealing with loss. Each in their own way, they focus on life-changing events, be they personal, historical, or political, and show the myriad of ways how we process the impermanence of things.
GOOD ONE, the debut feature from India Donaldson, follows a teenager as she takes a hiking trip with her father and his closest friend. FAMILIAR TOUCH from Sarah Friedland is a profoundly moving portrayal of the ageing process and the transformation of self that comes with getting older. The acclaimed contemporary artist Titus Kaphar processes his own childhood experience of his abusive and absent parent in his film debut EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS, in which a painter wrestles scars of his childhood after his father’s sudden return. TENDABERRY examines a gentrifying neighborhood in New York through the eyes of a young woman trying to navigate heartbreak in a rapidly changing city. THE BALLAD OF SUZANNE CÉSAIRE re-constructs the biography of Suzanne Césaire, attempting to restore her to a place in history as well as examining an historical moment of artistic and political optimism. The death of the filmmaker’s father informs INVENTION, whose form tries to process the complexity of mourning a parent. Finally, EEPHUS beautifully portrays masculine relationships in the shadow of the destruction of a baseball stadium, a space that for many of these men offers a place of community and support.
Despite the centrality of loss in these films, they all offer something hopeful. They show the varieties of ways in which loss can be transformed - into community, into art and invention, into political action and networks of care and support. They remind us not to be smothered by the weight of grief and change, but that this can be a necessary process to bring us together to face the seemingly innumerable struggles we face as both individuals, and as a society. (Kris Woods)
At Wolf Kino, Weserstr. 59, Berlin-Neukölln
Arsenal on Location is supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
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