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Krieg und Globalisierung |
| ORT: | weltweit |
| ZEIT: | August 2003 |
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Women Videoletters: a second text on war and globalizationInvitation for an international women videoletter exchange.
Women from all over the world produce a short videoletter about their
view on war and globalization and exchange it with all the others. Watch
the invitation-clip and see the invitation text below for more information.
Contact: videoletters@mail2world.com
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Videoinvitation-Clip from the Videoletter group, Berlin, August 2003 Klicke
auf das obenstehende Bild und siehe ein Streaming Video. (5'50 Min., 56kb/s,
english Version) Alternativ hier die Fassung (56kb/s) für den Windows Media Player |
What point of views do women, straight, lesbian and transgender women, have
on the daily life of war or on the 'normality' of war? How do we define what
war is?
the
project started during the war in afghanistan
The idea for this project came up at a meeting around video activism
in Berlin in October 2001, where there were about ten women from different
video initiatives from India, Germany, Mexico and Switzerland who felt
the need to react to the follow ups of September 11th: this was first
of all the war in Afghanistan but also measures like for example the
installation of the racist security laws in Germany. A great need was
felt for the exchange of critical feminist perspectives from women of
different descents and contexts.
In 2002 the first edition of videoletters by women was produced by women
activists and filmmakers from India, Chiapas/Mexico, Berlin/Germany,
USA and France. This first compilation was shown at demonstrations,
political events, university seminars and filmfestivals.
"this
is not war" – film work on the issue of war & the 'normality'
of war
We have discussed films like "Who hangs the laundry, washing, war
and electricity in Beirut" (by Tina Naccache and Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdottir),
"Asurot" ("detained" by Anat Aven and Ada Ushpiz),
"News Time" (by Azza El Hassan) or "Queer Documentary
in Wartime: A New View of the Israeli Palestinian Crisis" (by Ellen
Flanders) as rare examples which show the everyday life or the 'normality'
of war from a personal point of view of women.
In "Who hangs the laundry, washing, war and electricity in Beirut"
Tina Naccache is tells us about war while she is washing her clothes
– a series of actions which is influenced by the shortage of water
and electricity as an effect of the war in Beirut:
"People who haven't gone through a war think that war is when shells
are falling on people's heads and people are being killed. This is not
war, this is just the beginning of war. War is when the canons have
stopped, where there is no more violence against individuals, when there
are no more buildings being destroyed, where there is no more fear and
one looks around and sees what's left over from the war. This is war,
the leftover of what we think is war."
In "Asurot" three Palestinian women live in a house in Hebron: the front part of the house belongs to Israel, the back part to the Palestinian autonomous territory. The Israelian soldiers force their way into the house whenever they like to and the women have to deal with the permanent presence of the soldiers. In "News Time" Azza El Hassan talks about Ramallah being a point of media interest. She shows the presence of lots of different tv-teams and -cameras. Her film describes how this effects her work as a filmmaker, the conflict itself and the construction of masculinity of the young Palestinian participants of the fights against Israel. In "Queer Documentary in Wartime: A New View of the Israeli Palestinian Crisis" (a documentary-in-progress) we hear how the ways queer Palestinians and Israelis live their lesbian and gay identities collide with the situation of occupation. Through these conflicts is thematized, what 'war' means. And Ellen Flanders connects the reflection of her own family story with her critique on the current situation in Israel and Palestine.
Videoletters can provide a means to document projects or political actions, to make statements or to analyse daily life.
Questions
that we're asking ourselves
In consideration of the urgency of war, what happens to the feminist
and lesbian structures, projects and networks we rely on? What happens
to the desires to create different practices and ways of living?
"In a moment of global crisis people don't know why they should
care
about queer politics, about transgenderism and so on and it makes our
concerns seem as if they are petty. They are not and they need to be
folded into these anti-war-agendas. But we have to make explicit the
ways in which queer politics and anti-war politics and anti-capitalist
politics work together. And i think in many ways that's sort of a big
task."
Judith Halberstam, San Diego, USA, videoletter-videoclip
The
videoletters could connect the ‚normality' of war and globalization
with the agendas of feminist or queer politics. They offer an opportunity
to develop a network where we can exchange our differing standpoints.
In the places where the videos are shown they could also function as
a feminist statement against war.
In our group we have different ideas of "feminism", "women's
perspectives", "queer or lesbian/gay/transgender issues".
Some of us understand videoletters as a project, where women from different
parts of the world exchange their differing experiences, analysis or
ideas of resistance. Others understand a feminist analysis as one, which
makes visible experiences or standpoints systematically concealed in
the media and political representation. Or there is an interest in the
question how war and globalization produce and construct special kinds
of gender- or sexual positions and relations. Some want to find out,
how a genderspecific division of labour and sexualised violence are
related to war, the military and nationalism. Anne from Berlin is especially
interested to hear from Tejal and Natasha from Bombay about their experiences
with these issues, related to the religious-fundamentalistic motivated
genocid in Gujarat. And Nadja would like to hear from Ana and the women
from Mexico how this may be related to Chiapas with its ongoing low
intensity war. When we speak about "queer" perspectives we
want to address a common critique of sexism, heterosexism, homophobia,
transphobia and racism, which for some of us is covered by this term.
We would like to begin an exchange of interests and questions between
the participants of the videoletters project.
How can you participate?
The videoletters should be between 1 and 15 minutes in length. The character
of a video as a "letter" may be a starting point to think
about the format of your videos which could be addressed to women in
all regions of the world or addressed to women in a specific region.
We think it would be also a nice idea if we all showed ourselves in
our videoletters – as it is interesting for all of us to get to
know the makers, the "senders" of the videoletters.
We copy all the videoletters, put them together in one compilation and
then send them back to the original senders (which means that you get
all videoletters made). Each author of a videoletter decides in what
context she wants to show the videoletters (at political events, festivals,
exhibitions, feminist meetings, cinemas…).
All videoletters
belong to all the women who contribute their work!
The first screening date is the World Social Forum in Bombay/Mumbai, India
on January 16 – 21, 2004. We could either meet there or/and organize
local screenings during the time of the forum.
Women who are part in the organization of the upcoming world social forum
want to discuss more feminist issues than it has been the case in the last
forums in Porto Alegre. Therefore we think it would be a good idea to support
this wish to change the focus of this critique on globalization in a way which
includes gender- and sexual politics. In advance of the forum some women in
Mumbai will organize a 2-3 days long international queer & feminist meeting
and during the forum they will provide a queer space and a film festival on
gender and sexual plurality.
A non-funded project
The project 'women videoletters' hasn't received any funding yet. Some of
us think that it is better to work on this project without official money
and be independent in a political and artistic sense. After consideration
however, we are in the process of trying to get at least some money for those
who can't do a videoletter without financial support and for costs of material.
But since it is difficult here to get money for a feminist film-project and
for a project quite open in form and content, we can't promise that we will
succeed in this. If some of you have access to funding please get in touch
with us.
If you want to participate in the project, here's some further information:
Write a note to videoletters@mail2world.com telling you want to participate.
And send your comments and ideas concerning the project and the issues mentioned.Please
send your tapes (preferably: miniDV, DV-Cam, Beta SP, otherwise VHS) before
November 15th, 2003 so we can manage to send the sample of videoletters back
to you by the end of December 2003. Please send one original version plus
the transcript and the written English translation – and, if possible,
also a version with English subtitles.
If you cannot produce a videoletter this time but you are interested in the
project, please write us a note anyway!
This invitation comes together with a videoclip (if you haven't got it yet, please send us a mail and we will send you the clip as CD or VHS-copy).
All
our best, from Berlin
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