Film | #4 In die Wüste

El Mar La Mar | Bodies of the Desert

D: Joshua Bonnetta, J.P. Sniadecki, USA 2017, 94 min, OV with English subtitles | D: Trinh T. Minh-ha, Jean-Paul Bourdier, USA 2005, 19 min, Engl. OV

Fri, Aug 7, 2020
10 pm
5€/3€
Open air on the roof terrace
El Mar La Mar, film still, Source: Arsenal

El Mar La Mar

D: Joshua Bonnetta, J.P. Sniadecki, USA 2017, 94 min, OV with English subtitles

The sun beats down mercilessly on all those who cross the Sonoran Desert between Mexico and the United States. Aside from the few people who live here, it’s the poorest of undocumented immigrants that make the crossing, who have no choice but to take this extremely dangerous route, followed by border guards both official and self-appointed. El Mar la Mar weaves together 16-mm shots of nature and weather phenomena, animals, people and the tracks they leave behind with a polyphonic soundtrack, creating a cinematographic exploration of the desert habitat, a multi-faceted panorama of a highly politicised stretch of land, a film poem that conjures up the ocean. (Hanna Keller, abridged)

Bodies of the Desert

D: Trinh T. Minh-ha, Jean-Paul Bourdier, USA 2005, 19 min, Engl. OV

In the desert, the mind forgets but the body remembers: reptilian, vegetal and mineral bodies standing still, walking, crawling, winding, rolling, slithering on rocks or sinking in the vast expanse of white. First shown in Jean-Paul Bourdier's solo exhibition of photography Mineral Time at Gallery Blu in Santa Clara in 2005 and released with Bourdier's book of photography, Bodyscapes (2007).