2012 | Two-Channel Video Installation | HD | 16 minutes | Loop
On March 31st 2011 the small island Mayotte in the Indian Ocean officially received the status as the 101st department of France. Since that day, a new external frontier of the European Union separates Mayotte from Anjouan, its African sister-island belonging to the Union of the Comoros. Both Islands were for a long time part of the French colonial empire. In the wake of the African decolonization movement of the 1970s, referendums were organized on both islands. While Anjouan declared its independence, the overwhelming majority in Mayotte voted for remaining a part of France. Since then, Mayotte profits from French investments into its infrastructure, education and health system, while Anjouan looks back onto a history full of coups d’états, political turmoil and economic depression. Many Anjouanais thus try to clandestinely reach their neighbor-island in nighttime crossings with small motorboats, called Kwassas.
‘A Tale of Two Islands’ describes the postcolonial space that originates from this complex political situation. It consists of two synchronized films that are projected onto two opposing screens. They chart both islands’ lifeworlds in precisely composed tableaux, revealing the invisible bonds that connect them. The installation immerses the spectator in these two realities by placing him on the very border that shapes the life on each island.
Stream online:
http://dafilms.de/film/9786-a-tale-of-two-islands/
CREW
Director | Steffen Köhn, Paola Calvo
Producer | Steffen Köhn
Screenplay | Steffen Köhn
DoP | Paola Calvo
Editor | Steffen Köhn, Paola Calvo
Line producer | Myriam Eichler
Translator | Halidi Yahaya Soidikh
Sounddesign | Daniel Engel
Dialogue-editor | Takis Christos Sariannidis
Sound re-recording mixer | Alexandre Leser
SCREENINGS AND EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
Berlinale, Berlin International Film Festival, Forum Expanded section
Melancholy in Progress. Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Hong-Gah Museum Taipei
Monitoring, Documentary Film- and Video Festival Kassel
THE NEW MEDIUM III – Multi Screen Cinema, MAMI Mumbai
Vienna Art Week. Galerie Hinterland
Anthropologies Numériques. Le Cube, Paris
X-Border Art Biennial, Lulea, Sweden
DoKKa Festival Karlsruhe
Go East Festival Wiesbaden
International Short Film Festival Cairo
Danish National Museum, Copenhagen
Museum of Ethnology, Dresden