KINSHIP – Kaleidoskop

UN PETIT FRÈRE

June 12, 2023/in 2023 /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

In the early 1980s, Rose moves from Abidjan to Paris with her two sons Jean and Ernest. Between independence, wage work, heartbreak, and the task as a single parent to ensure attention and care for her children, clefts break open, which she disappears into time and again. UN PETIT FRÈRE tells a compassionate story of a family spanning two decades. Time jumps and changes of perspective across various stages of life elucidate the volatile relationship between the three protagonists. Their experiences are layered over each other, sketching a somewhat dissonant picture of their complex, shared world of experience. Touching narrative gestures trace the entanglements of growing up, living together, and drifting apart; being close and distant in a confined space between the metropolis of Paris and the port city of Rouen in Normandy, France. Subjective strategies to cope with and shape everyday life, to chart a future and strive for a sense of kinship and intimacy. A trio that reinvents forms of community in constant change.

LINGUI

November 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

Amina lives on the outskirts of N’Djamena with her 15-year-old daughter Maria and upcycles old truck tyres into fire bowls to make a living. When Maria gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion, Amina is faced with the harsh reality of strict laws and religious condemnation. She does everything in her power to help her daughter escape the cycle of sexualised violence she has been a victim of herself and, ultimately, to take revenge and challenge the structural mechanisms of patriarchal domination. LINGUI is a powerful plea for action and resilience in the face of the most adverse circumstances. Mother and daughter experience social cohesion and kinship through Lingui, the sacred bond of solidarity formed by generations of women in a society shaped by men. (dp)

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Due to a storm warning, the screening of LINGUI in July at Kaleidoskop – Film und Freiluft am Karlsplatz 2022 leider nicht stattfinden. unfortunately could not take place. All the more we are happy to celebrate the Vienna premiere of the film now as a winter matinee at Filmcasino (Margaretenstr. 78, 1050 Wien).

Free entry!
Reserve your seat: filmcasino.at/film/lingui/

Accessibility
• Barrier-free access
• Induction loop for CI and hearing aid users
• Introduction with Austrian Sign Language interpretation
• Film: Arabic/French with English and German subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

A heartfelt thank you to Bezirksvorstehung & Kulturkommission Margareten and the team of Filmcasino for their support!

NIGHT RAIDERS

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

CLOSING NIGHT

In a dystopian future, democratic societies in North America have collapsed; children are the property of the state. They are separated from their parents and detained in institutions where they are trained to become fighters for the military regime. So far, Niska and her 11-year-old daughter Waseese have managed to survive in the wilderness. When Waseese is discovered and detained following a severe injury, Niska joins a First Nations resistance group determined to free the abducted children. In the meantime, Waseese learns to unleash the extraordinary powers within herself. Poetic and disturbing at the same time, NIGHT RAIDERS is a parable about the situation of First Nations in North America. Using Cree languages, Canadian director and scriptwriter Danis Goulet juxtaposes the crimes committed against them and the attempted destruction of their cultures with a gripping story of resilience, courage and love. (lm)

MONEYBOYS

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

Fei has left behind the village he grew up in and is now living in Beijing as a moneyboy – a sex worker. Still grieving the loss of his first love and mentor Xiaolai, he is caught between the diversity of lifestyles in the capital and the economic responsibility for his family back home. A surprise encounter with his childhood friend Long threatens to upset the fragile balance he has found. C.B. Yi’s first feature-length fiction film cleverly captures the subtleties and nuances of diverse lifestyles in a society dominated by patriarchal structures. Alternating between explicit scenes and long and visually impressive takes that give the viewer time to empathise, MONEYBOYS also leaves deliberate narrative gaps and room for imagination. (dp)

FREDA

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

Inspired by her own experience, Gessica Généus’s debut feature follows the lives of a family amid the vibrant everyday life of Port-au-Prince. FREDA portrays the relationship of the eponymous protagonist with her older sister Esther and their single mother Jeannette: three women with very different attitudes towards, and expectations of, life. With growing economic pressure, patriarchal social structures and political instability, staying in the country presents more challenges every day. Despite the dire situation, Freda – whose name refers to the Vodou goddess of love and abundance – is determined to stay and build a life for herself in Haiti. Documentary footage of the street protests in Port-au-Prince against the embezzlement of PetroCaribe funds in 2018 conveys a visceral sense of the protests against the turmoil the country is facing. (dp)

EUROPE

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

Hospital. Post office. Swimming pool. Next stop: Europe, a housing development on the outskirts of Châtellerault, France. Most of Zohra’s life takes place here: between her apartment, the kebab shop and family visits to Europe, the hospital and the pool. It is summer, the streets are empty, half of France is on holiday. The tarmac is baking hot in the sun and the pool doesn’t only have a cooling effect. The long-planned trip to Algeria and her husband Hocine’s visa must wait when Zohra’s residence permit is not renewed and she loses her job and her apartment. The perspective changes while she tries to return to the previous normality and shed her sudden invisibility. Struggling to keep her place in Europe she becomes ghostly transparent as she imagines future scenarios. (mch)

HOW THE ROOM FELT

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

The title of Ketevan Kapanadze’s documentary debut is taken from a poem by Audre Lorde; the room in question is one of the safe spaces that a group of young queer people have created for themselves in the Georgian city of Kutaisi. Some of them play in the same football team. They are like family to each other, sharing accommodation and everyday life, caring for and supporting each other. The future hovers over their shared moments of smoking, drinking and talking. For now, the present and their kinship are more important. But while sharing rooms and hanging out together provide some kind of protection, a different reality forces its way into the apartment with the hateful slogans of queerphobic activists. HOW THE ROOM FELT is a gentle attempt to capture a feeling and bring it to the cinema: the spirit of togetherness in a group which has to strengthen itself against outside aggression and does not want to surrender the right to enjoy closeness and intimacy in peace. (lm)

LA MIF

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

A residential home for girls in Geneva. Girls doing their makeup, smoking, swearing and playing loud music. Conflicts, and talks to resolve them, are also part of the everyday life of the home’s residents and support workers. Gradually, the biographies and mutual relationships of Audrey, Novinha, Précieuse, Justine, Alison, Caroline and Tamra unfold. For most of the young actresses, this is their first acting experience and they share their teenage emotions without inhibition. The dialogues are partly improvised and partly written by the girls themselves, blurring the line between fiction and documentary. In recurring sequences such as elliptical time loops we dive deeper and deeper into the dramatic realities of the girls’ lives, while the home’s manager, Lora, is fighting her own battle against the shortcomings of the child protection system. (mch)

DIDA

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

A charmingly chaotic to-and-from between Belgrade and Switzerland, between a mother and a grandmother here and a partner and a large part of the protagonist’s own life there. Alternating between different cities, needs and paces of life. After his grandmother, who has always looked after his mother, dies in in Belgrade, Nikola’s priorities and responsibilities start to shift. The conditions of dependence and independence are re-negotiated – both for Nikola and his mother, Dida. Testing the boundaries in a constant process of failure and re-adjustment. While they never lose their love and their humour, the protagonists do occasionally lose a bit of themselves. Video calls and schnapps at the grave, a red sofa, piles of fleece blankets, a little puppy and some bric-a-brac. The family structure is constantly being redecorated in this never-ending work in progress called life. (dca)

KRAI

June 9, 2022/in /by jdtgf_kaleidoskop

Planning to shoot a »historical film«, Russian-born director Aleksey Lapin and his crew travel from Vienna to Yutanovka, a small village near the Ukrainian border where he used to stay with his relatives every summer. Amid the rural reality of local festivals, church attendance and daily routines, a cinematic interaction between the crew and the villagers begins. A casting is held and down by the river two protagonists muse about cinema and the process of filmmaking itself. The Russian word krai means edge or border. Shot in black and white, both timeless and timely, the film also blurs the border between fiction and documentary with subtle irony and a fond interest in the whimsical. From staged scenes and everyday observations emerges an image of reality that resists straightforward categorisation. And above it all stands one vision: »Cinema has to bring together different worlds and different people and, ultimately, remind us that we are all part of one humanity.« (lm)

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