Critical Cinema Lab launch and film screening entitled Other/Cinema

The series of screenings and discussions starts on Thursday September 28 at 18 at Aalto Kallio Stage, Pengerkatu 11A. The series is curated by Erol Mintaş, a Kurdish director.

The series looks into alternative ways of representing the narratives of the Middle East. Currently, when the divisions between 'Us' as 'Them' are aggressively drawn, we want to invite everyone interested in sharing thoughts and experiences to do so beyond this polarized and politicized context. We introduce Mintaş and his  film "Song of My Mother" (2014), together with the Kurdish short film "Silent" (2012) from director L. Rezan Yeşilbaş from Turkey. The films have English subtitles. 

After the screening, Mintaş will lead a discussion with author and filmmaker Elina Hirvonen. Her upcoming novel “Red Storm” (working title) is based on the stories of the family of Hussein Al-Taeen, who moved from Iraq to Finland as a refugee child. The discussion will be held in English.

OTHER/CINEMA deals with the theme of ‘Other’ from a variety of perspectives, relating to marginalized themes, topics, forms or distribution and markets. The series explores the ways films can connect to the acute debates by inviting different artists, specialists and active members of society to watch films and share a space by talking and listening to others.

Critical Cinema Lab is an art-practice-led & artistic research entity, based at the Department of Film, Television and Scenography at Aalto University. It fuses film-thinking and filmmaking – theory and praxis – in order to catalyze new expression, approaches, experiments and modes of filmmaking elaborating the critical, reflexive, ethical or political potential of cinema. http://www.criticalcinemalab.com/

Other screenings: Nov. 30, Feb. 22, 2018, April 26, 2018, May 25,2018. Free entry.