Documents from the South: An encounter between documenta 14 and Kassel Dokfest:
Megara
by Yorgos Tsemberopoulos and Sakis Maniatis

NOV
19
Film screening
1:30 pm
Kleines Bali, Kassel

Megara (1974) by Yorgos Tsemberopoulos and Sakis Maniatis represents a turning point in the last phase of the military dictatorship in Greece (1967–74), both as a cinematic achievement and with respect to the events it deals with. The year is 1973. Megara is about the fight of a village by the same name against the confiscation of farm land by the state and its clearing by a private investor. The trigger for the villagers’ outrage was the destruction of an ancient olive orchard, and their revolt soon developed into the first mass protests against the military junta.

Greek with English subtitles.

With an introduction by Angela Melitopoulos.


Documents from the South: An encounter between documenta 14 and Kassel Dokfest

documenta 14 is hosting the program Documents from the South as part of the Kassel Dokfest. On November 18 and 19, Angela Melitopoulos and Manthia Diawara will each present two program sessions, including screenings of their own films as well as works by other filmmakers. In the films and in conversations following the screenings, the artists discuss what documents from the South could look like and which stories they tell.

Documents from the South takes its cue from the title of the magazine South as a State of Mind, which is published during the years of work preceding the exhibition of documenta 14 and helps define and frame its concerns and aims. “South” is no longer understood as a geographical orientation, but refers to a culturally and historically produced location charged with psychological and political meaning.

Two documenta 14 artists discuss these concerns in relation to their own work with the Dokfest audience: Angela Melitopoulos, in whose films and video installations different phases, ruptures, and mobilities between Germany and Greece play an important role; and filmmaker and writer Manthia Diawara whose films and books have shaped and expressed the critical self-assertion of the African diaspora since the early 1990s.