WITHIN

Film Festival: Where the Wind Scatters Seeds;
7.−9. February 2025
Filmhaus Köln

Where The Wind Scatters Seeds, memories bloom from barren ground of tears in the soil, whispers of forgotten friends, shadows of distant homes, erased faces on torn photographs. Echoes of yesterday, dreams of tomorrow. 

Over the course of three days, a carefully curated film program, born from interdisciplinary collaboration - takes shape. 
Weaving together the intersection of memory, dislocation, and radical solidarity, the program uses film to confront, as well as imagine beyond colonial violence and the ways it warps our sense of self, community, time and space. Complimenting the film program with alternative media forms such as food, music, an interactive drawing corner & a healing conversation circle, the cinema is transformed into a space for nurturing ancestral forms of belonging. It reflects on the essence of home—its presence, what it carries, and the void left in its absence. The showcased works examine the act of remembering, transforming archives into dynamic spaces for resistance, reclamation, and processes of un-learning.

Curated by:

Schaho Balbas

Vincent E.

Ido Hassan

Julia Jesionek

Lan Mi Le

Polina Resnianska

Sarah Savalanpour

Shadi Tabibzadeh

Safiya Yon

DAY 1: (DIS)LOCATION WITHIN

What does home look like? What do the spaces we inhabit carry? What myths feed the walls that grow around us? The light traveling through the lens of the camera might not be able to reach into the nuanced lived collective and individual experiences, encouraging experimentation through other media. The “caméra-stylo” manifests itself in drawing, embroidery, collage, found footage; all these techniques form constellations of visual exposure refraining from the canonical categorization of art, articulating the subtleties of recall, summoning memories from hidden intimate spaces, and discovering transcultural mutualities.

Program #2: WITHIN

When the family tree has been uprooted, the personal mythology might stay in the land. As day turns into night, and night turns into day, dreams become enmeshed in the habitual nightmares of the mundane. Unable to distinguish between realities, one turns to introspection, seeking to picture what lies behind the faint lines of nostalgia. Distress morphs into homesickness for an unknown place. As the ambivalence of memory amalgamates with the rich tapestry of animation’s visual abundance, what is achieved in the personal documentary goes beyond mere representation but into the translation of the act of remembering itself. Defying the principles of high art through the material interrogation of film, once forgotten images from the past are re-animated and bloom anew in surreal sceneries.
Do you recognize that place? The place you cannot visit, the place that is merely a memory, an image etched into your mind, a distant rustle of disjointed shards, a recurrent flash of dark.

Films:

Girl from Moush

Poppy Flowers

Wild Flowers

Bye, Little Block!

The Fifth Floor

Comma

Night

Curated by Julia Jesionek and Polina Resnianska

IMPORTANT NOTES

If you don't have a ticket, come by and we will put you on the waiting list.

If you have a ticket, please come earlier (at least 15min). If you are late, we might give your places to the people on the waiting list.