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La battaglia di Algeri [The Battle of Algiers] (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
Dec
18
Arabic Language Day
Petit Omar (Mohamed Ben Kassen) reading out a letter to Ali La Pointe (Brahim Hadjadj) in the قصبة, (Cashbah). If it were not for the leads' jeans and sneakers, this scene could be in any century. DP: Marcello Gatti.
“The first section's dead. There's no one left. We lost contact with the second. The third is reorganizing. All that's left is the fourth. It's enough to start over with.”
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Les statues meurent aussi [Statues also Die] (Ghislain Cloquet, Chris Marker + Alain Resnais, 1953)
May
18
International Museum Day
A Black African woman looks at objects of African origin – several statues, a mask, an object decorated with beadwork – in an antique store's window. Behind her white people pass by. It's raining. DP: Ghislain Cloquet.
Commissioned by the #PanAfrican literary magazine Présence Africaine to make a short film about African art, Chris Marker and his collaborator Alain Resnais – the latter still emboldened by his Van Gogh (1948) – were struck that unlike the Dutch painter's work, this #art was not on display in the Louvre or a similar cultural temple, but in the ethnological Musée de l'Homme.
“An object dies when the living glance trained upon it disappears. And when we disappear, our objects will be confined to the place where we send black things: to the museum.”
– narrator
These works of “Negro” art that embody such a deep cultural and artistic significance for the creators and the people they are part of, were, within the boundaries of Western civilisation, merely things. The editing (Alain Resnais), photography (Ghislain Cloquet) and dialogue (Chris Marker) bring life to these works. Through these voices they speak to the viewer, escaping the institutes' walls.
This voice was enough for the CNC to censor Les statues meurent aussi; only the first third of the film, the segment that's not blatantly #AntiColonial, was to be watched. And to this day, the documentary still has not seen a restored, digital release.
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Bakit Dilaw Ang Kulay ng Bahaghari? [Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?] (Kidlat Tahimik, 1984/1994)
Jan
23
First Philippine Republic Day
Young Kidlat Gottlieb Kalayaan in the midst of defacing political pamphlets of Ferdinand Marcos. DPs: Kidlat Tahimik & Roberto Yniguez.
“When you work with the cosmos, suddenly you get ideas for how to treat some visuals, like some images that had no intention of being in the film. That’s the freedom of the independent. Normally when you’re making a movie, it's almost pre-set, what elements will go in, so it will have “a unified structure”. But for me, I shoot so many things impulsively, that once I start editing a movie, suddenly there is an imperative for this obscure shot to come in here … or there. You keep juggling until you find on organic flow. You don't have a script, you just do it by feel. You're surprised that audiences like it.”
– Kidlat Tahimik, via
