Film screening and talk

• Mon 02 10 2017 / 7:30 pm •
Ának Araw Gym Lumbera


with GYYM LUMBERA

Ának Araw, 70', Philippinen/USA, 2013, Englisch und Tagalog

Gym Lumbera’s experimental film Ának Araw is a surreal memory of cultural and linguistic colonization of the Philippines when they were reoccupied by the US after the Second World War. Shot and edited in a haunting monochrome, it tells the dreamlike story of an albino in the hinterland of the Philippines. Convinced that he is the son of an American soldier, he tries to learn English by reading a Tagalog-English dictionary – a process that the film follows in rudimentary, nearly didactic vignettes, full of all-too-literal juxtapositions and strange oxymorons. Mixing archival material from the 1950s with artificially aged footage shot today, Ának Araw recasts fragments of history with splinters from the future. It places the colonial experience in a constructed historical-impressionistic space, where the imposition of language is at the same time an infusion of dreams. The film screening is followed by a discussion between the filmmaker Gym Lumbera and film critic LUKAS FOERSTER.

Venue: Filmclub 813 at Die BRÜCKE, Hahnenstraße 6, 50667 Cologne
7 €
Post-screening discussion with the filmmaker in English

In cooperation with Film Festival Cologne