Atlas Of Belonging
Atlas of Belonging
View Season Brochure
Atlas of Belonging is a film season that presents a series of screenings and a round table discussion, exploring the relationship between liminal locations, identity and memory in the cinemas of the Caucasus region.
The films included in the programme are a combination of fiction, documentary and artists’ moving image work from the past fifteen years, representing a diversity of voices and approaches reflecting on questions of belonging, home, uprooting and identity.
Yet, what all the filmmakers have in common is the perspective of an inside observer capable of distantiating themselves while retaining a strong sense of belonging to the space on sensorial, emotional and intellectual levels. Having left and returned, each of them works with the fabric of the places they film to interrogate and reinvent perceptions.
Season Curator
Galya Stepanova
- Sunday January 23rd | The Lighthouse | Ciné Lumière | 3.45pm
- BOOK NOW
The Lighthouse (Mayak)
Dir. Mariya Saakyan | 2006 | 78mins
+ pre-recorded online Q&A
In her outstanding and critically acclaimed debut, the late director Maria Saakyan, brought to life a highly personal and radically poetic vision of war and its consequences. In a mystical landscape overshadowed by war and loss, Lena, a young woman arrives at her childhood home in Armenia with the hope of taking her grandparents away to the safety of a foreign city. But nothing seems as it should. Torn between the feelings of longing and detachment, Lena begins to welcome her surroundings, and soon the magic and aching beauty of her childhood memories begin to show themselves as she realises that leaving might not be the answer. - Monday January 24th | Taming The Garden | Ciné Lumière | 6.15pm
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Taming The Garden
Dir. Salomé Jashi | 2021 | 91mins
Preview Screening + online Q&A
A group of engineers work around the clock to uproot and transport enormous centennial trees from their homes, across land and sea, to a dendrological park on the Black Sea coast owned by one of Georgia’s wealthiest politicians. As they carefully take out every root of these graceful trees from their soil and home, the everyday life, relationships, feelings and routines in the villages where these tress come from become overshadowed by the departure of the trees — the silent observers of their histories for many decades. A poignant reflection on the ways in which modern power affects the environment we exist in, and above all our relationship with our own roots as well as with nature. - Thursday January 27th | Atlas of Belonging Round Table Discussion | Online | 6.00pm
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ONLINE - FREE TICKETS FROM EVENTBRITE
Participants: Salomé Jashi (director of Taming the Garden), Vigen Galstyan (film historian and curator), Taus Makhacheva (artist, director of Gamsutl and Baida)
The round table will explore how their work reflects on themes of land, belonging and identity in the Caucasus region.
- Saturday January 29th | Gamsutl / Baida | ICA | 2.30pm
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Gamsutl
Dir. Taus Makhacheva | 2012 | 16mins
Baida
Dir. Taus Makhacheva | 2017 | 15mins
+ online Q&ATaus Makhacheva, the Moscow born artist with roots in the Caucasus region of Dagestan, is known for her video, installation and performance works that conceptually, and often humorously, examine questions of historical narratives, regional and cultural identity. Her practice probes the resilience of man-made objects, customs and concepts vas-à-vis nature and the passage of physical and historical time.
In Gamsutl, Makhacheva stages a masculine body re-enacting the spatial memory of the forgotten past of an abandoned ancient Avarian mountain settlement, once a stronghold which is now being taken over by nature. And in Baida, the artist collaborates with the performance maker Tim Etchells, to create a video ‘documenting’ a supposed performance that was to take place during the 57th Venice Biennale. The concept was scripted by Etchells based on the research Makhacheva did with the fishermen from the village of Starii Terek who are working in precarious conditions on the Caspian Sea in Dagestan.
- Saturday January 29th | When the Persimmons Grew | ICA | 3.45pm
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When the Persimmons Grew
Dir. Hilal Baydarov | 2019 | 119mins
+ pre-recorded online Q&AHaving studied at Bela Tarr’s Film Factory in Sarajevo, Hilal Baydarov’s filmmaking career started only in 2018, yet in four years he has prolifically made eight films that have screened at festivals such as, Venice, IDFA, Visions du Réel and Sarajevo. When the Persimmons Grew is Baydarov’s fourth feature documentary and the first film in the Katech trilogy, which explores the relationship between time, home and belonging.
A mother waits for her son in a solitary home of an Azerbaijani village. When the son finally arrives, it is time for the persimmon harvest season. As they grow closer after a long time apart, words and laughter start to emerge from the silence. Poetic and involving, Baydarov’s film is an extraordinary meditation on time in life and in cinema.
Atlas of Belonging - Round Table discussions from 27th January now available to view.
The season is presented in partnership with:
The National Film and Television School
Ciné Lumière London
ICA
It would not have been possible without the support of:
Hazel Arthur, Geoff Badger, Daniel Bird, Kristina Cherniavskaia, Kaveh Daneshmand, Sophie Detterman, Diane Gabrysiak, Vigen Galstyan, Daniel Gvirtzman, Judith Gvirtzman, Elle Haywood, Sandra Hebron, Loic Lefrileux, Victoria Lupik, Nico Marzano, Mehelli Modi, Ryan Ninesling, María Palacios Cruz, Nicolas Raffin, Jonathan Romney, Irene Silvera, Marina Stepanova, Helen De Witt, Anita Wolska, Yvonne Wooton
and
Ciné Lumière London, Dogwoof, ICA London, Second Run DVD, Subobscura Films, The National Film and Television School
Thank you for coming to the season, this QR code will take you to a feedback form for Atlas of Belonging. Please take a moment to scan the code and fill in the Form. Your feedback, thoughts and suggestions would be very valuable and appreciated. Thank you!