Passing the Rainbow
An event organized in cooperation with kinovi[sie]on.
The film Passing the Rainbow deals with performative strategies for undermining the rigid gender norms in Afghan society: on the level of cinematographic stagings, in political work and in every-day life. The protagonists of Passing the Rainbow include a teacher who is also an actress; a policewoman whose second job is working as an action film director; an activist in the organization RAWA who advocates the radical separation of state and religion; a girls’ theatre group in Kabul; and Malek_a, who lives as a boy so that she can earn a living for her family. In the movie, directors Sandra Schäfer and Elfe Brandenburger show excerpts of films from the history of Afghan cinema, which accompanied the actresses while shooting and staging new scenes. The local actors were co-producers and a corrective to Western perspectives.
Passing the Rainbow is a film staging scenes from the actresses’ daily lives, reflecting on gender relations and opening new areas of action in fiction. The film sheds light on the construction of representation, revealing interactions and contradictions between images, real life conditions and desires.
Passing the Rainbow/Gozar az zir-e Kaman-e Rostam
Regie: Sandra Schäfer & Elfe Brandenburger
BRD 2007, Mini-DV, 71 Min.
Sandra SCHÄFER is an artist and writer based in Berlin. Her works deal with the representation of gender, urbanism and (post-)colonialism. She works with a focus on film and video installations and collaborates with artists and theorists in Kabul, Tehran, London, Barcelona and Berlin.
www.mazefilm.de
Location
Künstler:innenhaus Büchsenhausen