In Your Eyes, I See My Country

Q&A

As part of the Q&A series of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021, the director Kamal Hachkar met with musician and Shakuhachi player Clive Bell to talk about their film In Your Eyes, I See My Country (Morocco & France 2019).

The documentary portrays the journey of two judeo-moroccan musicians, Neta Elkayam and Amit Haï Cohen, to Morocco. From one musical encounter to another, this journey will reshape their perception of who they are and who they want to become and help them create new connections with their ancestors’ homeland.

Cut: MR LU*
Production: Christopher Blatter

Trailer

This video is part of the Q&A program of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021. The talk was recorded on January 29, 2021, via Zoom.

Biography

Clive Bell is a musician and composer specialising in East Asian musics. He studied the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) in Tokyo, and the khène (mouth organ) in Laos and Thailand. His solo album, Asakusa Follies, is on Cusp Editions. Recent collaborators include Jah Wobble, Sylvia Hallett, Sidsel Endresen, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, Kazuko Hohki, Complicite and Karl Jenkins. Based in Tottenham, London, he writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire. Follow him on his Website.

Links

Keith Kahn-Harris: «Tongues and Borders Are Immutable» (Norient)

Published on April 28, 2021

Last updated on May 19, 2021

Topic

Belonging

All Topics

Specials

Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

Norient Festival

print as pdf

It Must Make Peace, Tapi! & Contradict

Q&A

by Nana Akosua Hanson

As part of the Q&A series of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021, the directors Paul Chandler (It Must Make Peace, Mali 2017), Jim Chuchu (Tapi!, Kenya 2020) and Thomas Burkhalter and Peter Guyer (Contradict: Ideas for a New World, Switzerland/Ghana 2020) came together and talked about their films. The session was moderated by radio moderator and activist Nana Akosua Hanson.

A conversation between the four directors and Nana Akosua Hanson about the connection and common theme of the three documentaries: music as a means of expression. With the increasing influence of extremists, the effects of the pandemic, and a global neoliberal music business, the work of artists is becoming increasingly difficult. Each documentary tells in its own way the process of capturing the voices of music artists and their struggle to be heard.

Cut: MR LU*
Production: Christopher Blatter

Trailers

This video is part of the Q&A program of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021. The talk was recorded on January 29, 2021, via Zoom.

Biography

Nana Akosua Hanson is a writer, journalist, actress and a feminist activist in Ghana. She has worked for seven years in radio and TV and runs Drama Queens, a non-profit theatre organization, which has feminism and pan-Africanism as its core defining values. Drama Queens seeks to centre women’s stories through theatre and aims to contribute to a cultural revolution by having the necessary conversations through Public Conversations called Speakeasies and sex education workshops. In 2016, Hanson was part of the Mandela Washington Fellow in President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative. Follow her on Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Links

Simon Broughton: «Fighting Back with Music» (Norient)

Kamwangi Njue: «No Life for the ‹Living-Dead›» (Norient)

Grace Takyi: «Nobody Dey Get Us» (Norient)

Published on May 19, 2021

Last updated on May 19, 2021

Topics

Capitalism

Colonialism

Protest

Tradition

All Topics

Specials

Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

Norient Festival

Contradict

print as pdf

Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island

Q&A

by Ksenija Stevanovic

As part of the Q&A series of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021, the director Serdar Kökçeoğlu and producer Dilek Aydın met with music producer Ksenija Stevanovic to talk about their film Mimaroğlu: The Robinson of Manhattan Island (Türkiye and USA 2020).

A talk about Serdar and Dilek’s approach to portrait two free spirits: Legendary electronic music composer İlhan Mimaroğlu and his vibrant wife Güngör who both emigrated to the U.S. from Türkiye in the early 1960s. Using the couple’s personal archives, the documentary captures İlhan’s career as an edgy artist, and the power of his life-long companionship with Güngör which started off amidst a family crisis. In a multi-layered structure, the film talks about immigration, music, love, and disappointment.

Cut: MR. LU*
Production: Christopher Blatter

Trailer

This video is part of the Q&A program of the 10^th Norient Film Festival 2021. The talk was recorded on January 29, 2021, via Zoom.

Biography

Ksenija Stevanovic is a music journalist and musicologist from Belgrade, Serbia. She has been specializing in New Music for 15 years and is a permanent member of the public cultural channel RTS 3 as well as president of CHINCH – Contemporary Music Initiative Belgrade. Follow her on LinkedIn.