Iqa’ al-haya

silent green, in cooperation with the Arsenal, is taking sixty years worth of world cinema and film art from the series “Das kleine Fernsehspiel” as an opportunity to think about the cultural heritage of television and film for the first time. The film IQA’ AL-HAYA, by Egyptian documentary filmmaker Atteyat Al-Abnoudy, who laid the foundation for the archive of Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre in Cairo, marks such an intersection. It was first broadcast on German television in 1988, then screened again in 2019 at the Arsenal. “Rhythm of Life,” according to the press release from 1988, “shows what dignity manual labor can have.” But Al-Abnoudy undermines the nostalgic tone in her film by showing that this work is almost exclusively done by women and old men, while young men try their luck abroad. And when the potter claims that water from a clay jar tastes better than in a plastic bottle from the refrigerator, this raises pertinent questions: Have Western promises of progress made to those in the South, especially to women, delivered on the promise of a better life?
An event by silent green Film Feld Forschung, funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.