Create, resist, exist
Trailer
Directed by Monika Salzbrunn, edited by Sara Wiederkehr and Robbie I’Anson Price. Assistants: Raphaela von Weichs, Federica Moretti and Sara Wiederkehr, duration: 01:15:33
Poster and description
Create, Resist, Exist. Artivistic Engagement in Cameroon, USA, France, and Italy is a documentary film that illustrates how various art forms are utilised by activists in Cameroon, California, France, and Italy to mobilise against gentrification, mass tourism, and precarity. With carnivals, performances, and festivals, artists and activists demand recognition for their work, asserting their autonomy and their right to the city. They reclaim the streets by creating carnivalesque performances, comics, murals, and carnivals.
Directed by Monika Salzbrunn, the film presents from the research project ARTIVISM. Art and Activism. Creativity and Performance as Subversive Forms of Political Expression in Super-Diverse Cities, which she has led at the University of Lausanne. The were made in collaboration with artists and activists from the different contexts explored during the project in Douala, Yaoundé, Los Angeles, Viareggio, Genoa, Nice and Marseille.
Messa Partigiana
Trailer
Directed by Monika Salzbrunn and edited by Pascal Bernhardt and Monika Salzbrunn, duration 00:11:11
Poster and description
The feminist “Messa Partigiana” (Partisan Mass) was held on the Italian National Day, April 25th, in the ruins of the Santa Maria in Passione church in the historical part of Genoa. Directed by artist Simona Ugolotti, the satirical performance reinvented the Catholic mass in a carnivalesque way to commemorate Italian resistance activists such as Teresa Mattei and Ada Bernardi. Their memory was invoked by the performer, who saw herself as “guardian of memory”, and encouraged the participants to follow her example.
In producing this documentary film, the research team and film crew led by Monika Salzbrunn worked closely with Simona Ugolotti and those who participated in the event to incorporate their feedback into the filmmaking process. A first edited version was screened on the anniversary of the founding of the artists’ squat where the performance took place.
Street
Street Art and Political Expression in Cameroon
Trailer
Directors: Monika Salzbrunn and Raphaela von Weichs; Camera: Raphaela von Weichs; Editors: Sarah Silva and Raphaela von Weichs, Duration: 00:24:45
Poster and description
In Yaoundé, Cameroon, street artists come together for a week to create mural art in a complex political context. As they portray their dreams and hopes on the walls, they discuss their craft and their country. Not far from these walls, a show takes over the streets of central Yaoundé – this colourful cultural caravan traverses the agitated cityscape and exposes its residents’ creativity and passion for art in the urban space.
Raphaela von Weichs filmed during these two events to show subversive artistic practices of political expression in the context of authoritarianism and censorship in Cameroon.
Défilé Maddalena La Superba
Movie
Directed by Pascal Bernhardt and Monika Salzbrunn, duration: 00:05:57
Poster and description
In the historical part of Genoa, Italy, a group of tailors, fashion designers, and vintage shop owners with different backgrounds and origins stage a fabulous fashion show – an artivist event first held in 2017. Art and creativity are harnessed to tell stories of migration, poverty, and dreams in the port district, which is locally reputed to harbour prostitution and drugs. With this film, the research team led by Prof. Monika Salzbrunn in collaboration with filmmaker Pascal Bernhardt aims to counter the stigmatisation of the neighbourhood by showing the activism, creativity, and place-making of its residents.
The film was presented at the UNESCO International Conference on Urban Cultures, Heritage and Superdiversity, 15.–16.2.2018, Utrecht; at the Colloque Carasso Pratiques artistiques contemporaines d’Afrique: formes et enjeux politiques, Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux, 17.-18.5.1208; and at the International Visual Sociology Summer School Decolonizing the Gaze – Reviving Colonial Archives, Concordia University Montreal/University of Genoa, 11.–15.6.2018.