Forgetting to Remember

The screening brings together four moving image works dealing with questions of preserving histories and uncovering the latent traces of the past: "23 August" (2023) by Simina Neagu, "The City That Has Peace" (2023) by Petra Matic, "The Ghost of Culture" (2023) by Voin de Voin, and “Citrus Tristeza” (2018) by Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan. The title, "Forgetting to Remember", alludes to the dangers of forgetting one's history, erasing one's archive and as a result, potentially repeating old errors, which all four works echo in some way.

Whether we're delving deeper into forgotten moments of solidarity still encapsulated in the architecture of Bucharest and Zagreb, revisiting utopian ideals in the National Palace of Culture or NDK in Sofia, or meditating on the latency of the "fascist virus" as understood by Hungarian anthropologist Karl Polanyi at the beginning of the 20th century, the works move us between the past and the potential of perhaps, a different future. What is there to be uncovered? What lies dormant beneath the pavement, as we go about our daily lives? What needs to be remembered? These are some of the questions that we are left with to answer or to continue grappling with in perpetuity.

- Simina Neagu, curator of the screenings

„23 August” (2023), Simina Neagu, 25’ 24”

'23 August' focuses on the 4th World Festival of Youth and Students that took place in Bucharest, Romania in 1953. In the spirit of recuperating a hopeful, partly utopian story of transnational solidarity for future generations, the story is told through the perspective of two activists – John La Rose, from Trinidad, and Paul Joseph, from South Africa, who forged a life-long friendship after meeting at this anti-colonial and anti-imperialist festival. The film includes archival materials from the John La Rose Estate and George Padmore Institute, fiction and a new interview with Paul Joseph and his daughter Nadia Joseph, as well as archival images from the Senate House Library.

„The Ghost of Culture” (2023), Voin de Voin, 11’ 32”

The film “The Ghost of Culture” drifts between the utopian idea of a universal palace of Culture where different art forms/disciplines merge in order to meet the needs of a larger audience. The film uses archive footage from the construction site dating back to 1977 combined with the actual opening of the palace. Buzzing actions and movement of people draw a picture of prosperity and national Socialist pride, in large.

The year is 2023 — The National Palace of Culture aka NDK — a ghost building – semi private semi public, where entering becomes an obstacle. The second part of the film exposes the power structure dynamics at present, when it becomes apparent that hierarchical and authoritarian principles are still in place and they serve as an active tool and treatment to both citizens and workers by the ones in supreme positions.

The documentary style of the camera captures the present state of affairs and digs into the complex narrative or redirection, or the inability to access or unmask. The movie leaves us with the shadow of both – the benefit and the doubt, of what is there to be uncovered?

„The City That Has Peace” (2023), Petra Matic, 8’ 41”

"The City That Has Peace" is a documentary film following the rise and fall of Zagreb's International Student Friendship Club. Exploring topics of solidarity, war, and community, Sam Bushara and Mohamed Al Younis lead us through the largely forgotten history of Non-Aligned Zagreb. The film follows their arrival to an unknown place as young students from former colonies, through the height of the city's multicultural youth centre concentrated in the International Student Friendship Club, ending with the Club's eviction and arson in the wartime 1990s, symbolised by the flawed, lonely statue of Croatia's first president Franjo Tuđman. Looking back on their journeys, they reflect on the tenderness and unity they encountered in Zagreb but which are no longer there.

‘Citrus Tristeza’,(2018) Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan, 15’14”

Citrus Tristeza is a virus that has led to the death of millions of citrus trees all over the world and has rendered millions of others useless for production. Farmers gave it the name tristeza (sadness), referring to the devastation produced by the disease.

The citrus virus appeared after the First World War and historically coincides with the rise of fascism in Europe.

Benera and Estefan reflect on this historic coincidence, inspired by the unpublished text by Karl Polanyi, The fascist virus (1934). Polanyi identifies fascism with a virus that is always present in society but stays invisible, in a latent state, becoming virulent in times of systemic crisis.

The artists are writing on the city walls by using the juice of squeezed lemons. While the lemon juice slowly evaporates, the text disappears before it can be read.