Films, Documentaries, TV Series

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Trauma, Memory and Religion

Freek Bakker, Lucien van Liere (eds.)

Journal for Religion, Film and Media (JRFM), volume 4, issue 1 (2018), pp. 7-77

"How can we screen trauma? This question might lead the perception of documentary movies about atrocities in the 20th and 21st centuries, like S21 The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (Rithy Panh, CAMB/FR 2003) about Cambodia, The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer, ID/DK 2014) about Indonesia or Das Ra ... dikal Böse about Nazi-Europe. The first concern emerge as we watch movies on atrocities is whether these artistic representations perhaps guide the public away from what “really happened”. There certainly is a huge gap between, on the one hand, the immediate experience of the event that lies behind the interpretative screening and, on the other hand, watching the director’s material while neither part nor ever having been part of the event. Yet often filmic representations are not intended to show what happened; instead they present case studies to be explored in the present. Rity Panh, director of S21, argued in an interview with Joshua Oppenheimer, that if we can’t distinguish between perpetrator and victim, it becomes impossible to mourn. For Panh, his film is more than historic interpretation or a perspective on memory; it poses the broad question of how we think about perpetrators and victims in multiple contexts. In S21 Panh shows how in post-genocide Cambodia perpetrators are confronted by one of their victims. The question of why they acted as they did is swiftly transformed into a question of how they did so. The confrontation is set in Tuol Sleng, a former high school in Pnhom Penh where torture was carried out during the Khmer Rouge regime. In films like S21, Das radikal Böse and The Act of Killing, one question continually resounds for the audience: Is this what we are as human beings? What appears on the screen therefore challenges the audience with a moral question: what would you do? It is this question, heard in the present, that makes movies like S21, Das radikal Böse and The Act of Killing so immediate. In a way they look to confront a public that might already know the language of human rights. Breaking through established idioms by portraying perpetrators in specific situations, sometimes with the perpetrators playing themselves as in S21 and The Act of Killing, seems a missionary purpose for these directors. Indeed, their movies are hardly about a past; they establish a critical link between past and present and break through the dichotomic simplicity of good guys and bad guys. But the questions raised by the movies are hardly open questions. Often the movies contain an inherent critique of genocidal violence and present humanistic perspectives on obedience. Mostly, these movies underline the humanity of the victims, seeking to give names, faces and biographies so that they are much more than just numbers." (Editorial, pages 7-8) more

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Filmische Zeugenschaft im Abseits: Kulturelle Dekolonisierungsprozesse und Dokumentarfilme zwischen Mosambik und Portugal

Robert Stock

Bielefeld: transcript Verlag (2018), 284 pp.

"Wie wird koloniale Gewalt historisch thematisiert? Wie gehen dokumentarische Filme und geschichtspolitische Diskurse mit ihr um? Robert Stock nähert sich diesen Fragen mit kritischem Blick auf den Kolonialkrieg Portugals in Afrika und den nationalen Befreiungskampf Mosambiks. Dabei fokussiert er s ... more

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O Holocausto no cinema

Revista do Instituto Humanitas Unisinos, issue 501 (2017), pp. 14-49

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Der Film Hara Harwaa Reihaby von Emma Chodzaa als Instrument der staatlichen Beeinflussung des kollektiven Gedächtnisses in Abchasien

Annika Gläser

Frankfurt, Oder: Europa-Universität Vidriana, Bachelor Thesis (2016), 53 pp.

"Die Fallanalyse hat gezeigt, dass eine Erzählung vom Krieg 1992-93 propagiert wird, die einer abchasischen Version des Narrationsschemas 'Die Vertreibung von fremden Feinden' entspricht. Ein zentrales Element der Erzählung ist zudem, so ergab die Interpretation, eine betont positive Darstellung d ... more

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Wem gehört die Geschichte? Erinnerungskultur in Literatur und Film

Michael Braun

Münster: Aschendorff (2013), 208 pp.

"Nirgends ist die Vergangenheit des 20. Jahrhunderts so präsent wie in Romanen und Filmen. Zahlreiche Werke der Literatur und des Films erinnern diese Zeitgeschichte, indem sie darüber Geschichten erzählen. Auf diese Weise wird eine Erinnerungskultur gestiftet, die identitätsbildend und zugleich ... more

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Dialogue Through Film: A Handbook

London: Conciliation Resources (2012), 58 pp.

"Dialogue Through Film is a unique initiative bringing together young Armenians from Nagorny Karabakh and Azerbaijanis to make short films about the conflict that divides them. Over 30 young film-makers have taken part, and thousands of Armenians and Azeris have watched their films. This handbook of ... more

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Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations

E. Ann Kaplan, Ban Wang (eds.)

Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press (2004), 288 pp.

"The book discusses how trauma presented in the media spills over national boundaries and can be found in images across divergent cultures in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and America." (Publisher description)