This anti-religious Soviet film revolves around a corrupt religious Mullah who cheats, drinks, and abuses women. As is common to many Soviet films of this period, this work of propaganda emphasizes how the arrival of the Bolshevik Revolution brings justice to peasants and liberates women. The struggle against ignorance and illiteracy, the revolution, and the rights of women were central themes in Azerbaijani Soviet films of the 1920s. However, Bismillah also reflects the colonizer’s perspective in its problematic portrayal of the local culture of the time and its depiction of Muslims as barbaric. Sharifzadeh, the first Azerbaijani filmmaker, made this film under the influence of the propaganda machine; tragically, he himself fell victim to the regime during the peak of the Great Purge.

– Leyli Gafarova, Salaam Cinema

Bismillah screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 21:30 on 7 July 2024, as part of the Cinema of Commoning Symposium.

Every Thursday, a group of students from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria organizes a film club where they come together to watch and discuss films. Through the works of filmmakers like John Akomfrah and Med Hondo, the small lecture hall is transformed into a political agora and heated discussions around topics such as decolonisation, feminist struggles and student rights take place. Kinshasa-born French director Alain Kassanda observes the ordinary lives of Nigerian students in the midst of the challenges they face, showing the immediate proximity between the struggle on the streets and the political energy emanating from the cinema space.

– Can Sungu, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA

Coconut Head Generation screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 21:30 on 4 July 2024, as part of the Opening of the Cinema of Commoning Symposium. Register to attend here.

In his feature debut filmmaker Ghassan Halwani seeks to understand and find answers to the fate of the 17,000 citizens who disappeared in his country’s brutal civil war. At a time when Lebanon refuses to deal with its own stigmas and seeks instead to erase them through the archaic politics of oblivion, Halwani revisits the deadly war and Lebanese collective memory through the perspective of the missing ones. To excavate the past, he deploys archival practices and animation as a way to give life to memory. Erased,__ Ascent of the Invisible seeks to (re)trace history by questioning absence.

Indeed, Halwani’s film and Metropolis Cinema seek to explore a common ground: how do we deal with archives within an absence of images? Through the project Cinematheque Beirut, Metropolis attempts to preserve Lebanese and Arab film heritage to make it accessible both locally and internationally. Halwani belongs to an emerging generation of talented Lebanese filmmakers and artists who are challenging the status-quo by addressing the past in order to give their present a meaning. Metropolis’ mission is to encourage and support such crucial initiatives.

– Hania Mroue, Metropolis Cinema

Erased,__ Ascent of the Invisible screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 20:00 on 14 March 2024.

Babou Diop lives in a house together with his son Sada, his wife Coumba, and a sheep, who nine-year-old Sada has developed a close friendship with.. A few days before Tabaskil, a festival in which the sheep is to be sacrificed, Babou realizes that it has disappeared along with his son. Helpless, he sets off in search of the pair. After an exhausting day full of adventures, they are eventually found, but the reunion is not without consequences: Babou is now faced with a difficult dilemma.

Le Mouton de Sada is an authentically Senegalese film that delves deep into the cultural roots of our society. It’s a challenging film, both in pre-production and post-production, and one that truly embodies the work of Senegalese technicians. The post-production, carried out by Centre Yennenga, added an extra dimension to the aesthetics of the film. Selected to represent Senegal at FESPACO where it won the Jury Prize, Le Mouton de Sada stands as a flagship project of Senegalese African cinema.

– Sara Gadiaga, Yennenga Centre

Le Mouton de Sada screens SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 20:00 on 10 April  2024.

Farah was born in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution in Iran. With her camera, she captures joyful moments in her daily life, which stand in stark contrast to the social and political repression which surrounds her. She also collects 8mm films from strangers who still dance, sing, and enjoy vibrant social lives in their private spaces. Through her obsession with recording and collecting, she creates her own “planet” that no one can  take away from her.  A connection to Leyla, a university professor who left Iran during the revolution, also finds its place in this archive.

At the same time, Farah’s mother, who suffers from Alzheimer, motivates her in her fight against forgetting. In autumn 2022, when women in Iran take to the streets to stand up against patriarchal tyranny, the filmmaker also reaches a turning point in her life. The personal becomes political, dancing becomes a form of resistance, and from anger grows courage.

– Can Sungu, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA

My Stolen Planet screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 21:30 on 6 July 2024, as part of the Cinema of Commoning Symposium.

Neto Joseph’s Penzi La Misukosuko is a love story, an action film and a supernatural horror in one. Drawing from three genres of Tanzanian popular cinema dominant in the 2000s and utilizing both interior and exterior aesthetics of urban and domestic Dar Es Salaam for key set pieces, the film exhibits the energy, vision and ambition of a particular period in grassroots Tanzanian cinema. Through its choreography and soundscape, Penzi La Misukosuko also showcases the reverence of this period and mode of filmmaking for cinema itself.

– Jesse Gerard Mpango, Ajabu Ajabu

Restless Love screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 21:30 on 5 July 2024, as part of the Cinema of Commoning Symposium.

სოციუმის პატიმარი (Prisoner of Society)
Rati Tsiteladze, Georgia, 2018, 16 min, Azerbaijani with English subtitles

Le jeu de Mariage (The Wedding Game)
Adina Balatova, Belgium, Dagestan 2018, 35 min. French, Russian with English subtitles

Святый Боже (Holy God)
Vladlena Sandu, Russia 2016, 25 min, Russian with English subtitles

Bir dəfə Şanxayda  (Once Upon a time in Shanghai)
Leyli Gafarova, Azerbaijan 2018, 35 min, Azerbaijani, English, French, German with English subtitles

Şanxay, Baki (Shanghai, Baku)
Teymur Hajiev, Azerbaijan 2017, 20 min. Azerbaijani with English subtitles

A compilation of stories from across the Caucasus Mountains, all of them different tales of people living amidst the remnants of the post-Soviet era and the amalgamation of diverse cultures. Whether it’s about queer lives, war, or modern cities, the Caucasus is full of paradoxes that cannot be described in simple terms, much like this compilation of short films. This programme serves as an introductory window into the distant road that stretches between the East and West, the South and North, and everything in between.

– Leyli Gafarova, Salaam Cinema

Short Films from the Caucasus screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA  at 20:00 on Thursday 18 April.

Cinémathèque de Tanger is an alternative center for film conservation and circulation based in Tangier Morocco that promotes Moroccan and international film culture through a vibrant, multi stranded program, as well as contributing to global cinema heritage through its collection of features, documentaries and experimental films.

Casablanca. Young filmmaker Asmae El Moudir is trying to unravel the lies that have been passed down in her family. Using a model of her childhood neighborhood and miniature figurines of each of her relatives, she re-enacts her family history. Through this process the wounds of a whole community emerge and the forgotten past of Morocco is revealed.

–Amaal Meftouh Ezzeyany, Cinémathèque de Tanger

The Mother of All Lies screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 20:00 on Wednesday 22 May 2024.

Vera’s serene everyday life is disrupted by her husband’s unexpected suicide, followed by an unwelcome, menacing parade of relatives who claim ownership of their village house. When the tendrils of an underworld scheme begin to surface, Vera’s world faces danger and appears on the verge of collapse. Fear and mistrust force Vera to take the family’s fate into her own hands. Steeped in an ominous atmosphere, Vera Dreams of the Sea is an intimate yet universal portrait of a woman who has to face the reality of going against the deeply-seated gender issues that still engross our times.

Vera Dreams of the Sea is one of the most acclaimed and timely examples of the mainly women-led New Wave of Kosovar Cinema. Not engaged with the war, but rather the social, economic and cultural context in its aftermath, through Vera’s experience the film presents a struggle that is simultaneously local and relatable to the experiences of women across the world.

– Ares Shporta, Lumbardhi Cinema

Vera Dreams of the Sea screens at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA at 20:00 on Wednesday 29 May 2024.