Directors Lounge Screening
Laurence Favre: Digging the Archive

Laurence Favre from Switzerland and living in Berlin, works with photography, film and video on projects. She creates narratives concerned with collective and individual memories, and how they relate to archives or individuals. Found material, 8mm found footage, was a reason for her to visit places, talk to and interview people. In the case of a hospital in South-Africa, a Swiss mission during the time of racial segregation, the construction of a collective memory become problematic, however,  the collection of different stories and divert personal memories may become even more important.

Double Feature: Déjalo Ser + Tercer Ojo, Tercer Mente, Tercer Mundo

Txema Novelo from Mexico City is joining us for a Berlinale special to present a double feature of his new film “Déjalo Ser” together with compilation of music videos that he created for alternative rock musicians in Mexico. Since Novelo started creating super-8 films for a punk music label he has managed in Mexico City, he expanded his creative production in an exponential curve; with making his own films, and with exhibitions of drawings and installations.

The artist, musician and composer Thanos Chrysakis was born in Athens. He lived for sixteen years in London until he moved to Belarus in 2015. He is a trained musician who performs his music internationally in festivals, in concert halls and alternative places. He always had a strong connection with images and thus has created his own videos, or has found people for sound/image collaborations. Since 2007 he operates the record-label 'Aural Terrains' focusing in electroacoustics, composed and improvised music.

In the times of public intrusion into the private sphere, right wing populists and religious fundamentalists threatening the freedom of expression and diversity, and conservative politicians pressing for control and surveillance, the expressions of private life become a political affair again. Related to the slogan of 1968 "The personal is political", the here presented films talk about personal or private affairs in relation to the public sphere and the urban space.