Opening with Bernd Scherer (Director Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (Co-Director Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst)
1.9.2021 18:00 Arsenal Cinema
Ephraim Asili, USA 2020, 35mm, OV, 100 min
In attendance of the director.
Julian inherits a house in West Philadelphia from his grandmother and asks his girlfriend Gwen to move in, although she turns out to be just the first member of the commune that sets up home with him within its brightly colored walls. Together with the founding couple, the collective is soon reciting African-American poetry, reading post-colonial theory, holding seminars on Sudanese languages, and enjoying jazz-inflected jam sessions, with the chest of materials on the wider Black experience apparently left behind by the grandmother proving perfect inspiration to this end. With the prominent poster of Godard’s LA CHINOISE hanging in the kitchen, it’s tempting to read their funkily cerebral exploits as pure fiction, yet they’re actually a reenactment of Asili’s own experiences in a Marxist commune.
THE INHERITANCE was part of the Berlinale Forum program in 2021. More information about the film is available here.
Funded by:
