What is utopian, what is realist? Do these
terms even mean anything regarding the situation in Palestine-Israel? In 2012, Eyal Sivan, an Israeli filmmaker, and Eric
Hazan, the french editor of the éditions La Fabrique which has consistently published on the situation in Palestine for the
last thirty years, published a book together, accompanying the film. The title: A common state between Jordan and the
sea.
The film of the same name assembles a series of 24 conversations regarding the issue
of a common state, with political actors, artists, jurists, young and old, Israelis Jews, Arabs of the occupied territories
and of Israel. The same questions are asked and each person answers in their maternal tongue, in dialogue with the filmmaker:
the screen is partitioned between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian: one talks and the other listens, and vice versa. The screen
brings together what the fragmentation of the situation separates, producing the encounters that occupation hinders day after
day.
On this movie night, we will watch the two-hour film with breaks and discuss each of its thematic chapters.
Hosted by Movie Nights Group: Anahita Asadifar, Sofia Bempeza, Antonia Birnbaum, Yasmina Haddad, Fine Freiberg, Nanna
Heidenreich, Amanda Holmes, Annette Krauss, Alexi Kukukljevic, Andrea Lumplecker, Zeynep Turel, Maria Ziegelböck
Movie Nights is a format for a transdisciplinary exchange: Starting each time from one film, we open the
space for a conversation about the relations between production of images and their conditions – modes of narration, authorship,
history, politics and effects on society. We show fiction, documentaries, movie and television productions in regard to the
actual situation, focusing on Palestinian and Israeli films. The movie nights are hosted and organized by the departments
of Applied Photography, Klasse für Alle, Art and Communication Practices, Philosophy, and Transcultural Studies at the University
of Applied Arts Vienna.
Dr. Rose-Anne Gush is currently Assistant Professor at IZK - Institute
for Contemporary Art at TU Graz. Her research interests include political aesthetics and theories of ‘global art’, the relationships
between colonialism, fascism and capitalism, and gender and ecology. Recent articles are published in Berlin Review, FKW //
Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur, Camera Austria, Brand-New-Life Magazine, Third Text, and Kunst
und Politik. Her first monograph,
Artistic Labour of the Body, is forthcoming in the Historical Materialism book
series with Brill and Haymarket.
Dr. Helmut Krieger, senior scientist and senior lecturer at the
Department of Development Studies at the University of Vienna, holds a PhD in political science. His research areas are, among
other things, Israel/Palestine, social movements in the Arab speaking world, transformative research epistemologies for conflict
and war zones as well as critical political economy perspectives combined with decolonial approaches.
Facing
the Authoritarian Drift: Art Schools as Sites of Critique is organized since Autumn 2024 by teachers at German-speaking
art schools, and confronts the current authoritarian drift. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, under the pressure
of the climate crisis, and in the face of wars and increasing militarization, conflicts are also intensifying within universities
(...). More information
here.
