Die Fünfte Wand – Film and Discussion: Behind every Curtain

Film: Behind every curtain,

Navina Sundaram, 1989, 43:43 min, German OV with English subtitles

Guests: Madhusree Dutta, filmmaker, author and curator
Dr. Ponni Arasu, queer feminist performer, activist, researcher

Navina Sundaram’s Behind every curtain documents a theatre workshop in 1989 in Kasauli, India. Theatre practitioners and representatives from literature, art, music and feminist theory are developing a scenic manifesto from biographical stories that combine mythological female figures with contemporary theories of feminism. They want to break up clichéd images, shift accents, change history and create a new theatre form between self-representation and agitprop. Much like the “Workspace” of the archive The Fifth Wall, the documentary highlights a collaborative approach, made vulnerable and vibrant as a result of its distributed authorship.

A discussion between Madhusree Dutta and Ponni Arasu will carry forward the porosity of the film into the cinema space, stitching together the past and present.

Venue: Betonhalle, silent green

Host or Publisher silent green