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Cinema Elvire Popesco -
Thursday, December 11, 2014 - 20:00
Written by:
Arash T. Riahi
Cast:
Silke Grabinger
Cinematography:
Arash T. Riahi, Arian Jalaeefar
Editing:
Arian Jalaeefar, Arash T. Riahi
Sound:
Naurak, Arian Jalaeefar, Atanas Tcholakov
Producer:
Ola Swietlicka
Production:
Golden Girls Filmproduktion & SILK Cie
Romanian premiere
A choreography-film charged with political significance, THAT HAS BEEN BOTHERING ME THE WHOLE TIME brings up issues of freedom and prohibition in the life of Muslim women. Here the burka represents a form of self-expression. The viewer is kept at a distance through disparate shots of a moving body, while very intense rustling and breathing places him right in the middle of the scene. Since this could never actually be possible in public, the short’s statement can only be done by showing that the film itself is an illusion. The final behind-the-scenes shot shows that everything was just a performance, hijacking cinema through cinema. (Bianca Bănică, BIEFF)
Director:
ARASH T. RIAHI is an independent filmmaker and screenwriter born in Iran, but currently living in Austria. In his work he often approaches themes related to human rights, mixing documentary and experimental features. He met success with EVERYDAY FAMILY MOVIE, which won the prize for Best Documentary at the Chicago International Film Festival, in 2006. He is also working as a producer, being one of the co-founders of the production company Golden Girls Filmproduktion.
Contact:
arash[at]goldengirls[dot]at
Festivals, awards:
- Cinema XXI International Film Festival Rome 2013
- Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema 2014
- Hong Kong International Film Festival 2014
- New Horizons Film Festival Wroclaw 2014
Director's statement:
The film can be seen as a utopian suggestion. What happens if you let a woman in a Burka do a performance, which could never be allowed to show publicly. At the end, the set-up is brought back to reality. We don’t claim this to be a real woman in a Burka, it becomes clear, that this is only a representation. (Arash T. Riahi)
Curator's comment:
Although solely fragments of the body can be discerned at first, the gestures, strides and sounds convey an awareness of the body we would expect of a martial-arts fighter. As soon as the dancer is shown in full, all this reverses: the clothing can now be identified as a burka, the complex history of which charges each movement and gesture with political significance. As it obviously wasn’t Arash T. Riahi’s intention to gloss over reality, this almost optimistic image is soon followed by a radical rupture: In the next shot the dancer hangs in the air like a marionette, all her freedom of movement and any possibility of personal expression taken away. Her motionlessness signals the end, though this isn’t the final image in this unusual dance film: In a figurative sense the filmmaker lets the curtain fall and shows in colorful images that what we have seen is «merely» the impressive result of an extremely experimental fusion of modern dance, political issues and physical liberation. (Christa Benzer, Sixpackfilm Catalogue)
The film can be seen as a utopian suggestion. What happens if you let a woman in a Burka do a performance, which could never be allowed to show publicly. At the end, the set-up is brought back to reality. We don’t claim this to be a real woman in a Burka, it becomes clear, that this is only a representation. (Arash T. Riahi)
Curator's comment:
Although solely fragments of the body can be discerned at first, the gestures, strides and sounds convey an awareness of the body we would expect of a martial-arts fighter. As soon as the dancer is shown in full, all this reverses: the clothing can now be identified as a burka, the complex history of which charges each movement and gesture with political significance. As it obviously wasn’t Arash T. Riahi’s intention to gloss over reality, this almost optimistic image is soon followed by a radical rupture: In the next shot the dancer hangs in the air like a marionette, all her freedom of movement and any possibility of personal expression taken away. Her motionlessness signals the end, though this isn’t the final image in this unusual dance film: In a figurative sense the filmmaker lets the curtain fall and shows in colorful images that what we have seen is «merely» the impressive result of an extremely experimental fusion of modern dance, political issues and physical liberation. (Christa Benzer, Sixpackfilm Catalogue)