November 23-In Visible Colours — a micro screening of history

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In Vis­i­ble Colours — a micro screen­ing of history
Part of the Oth­er Places Book Launch Series
Pro­gram­mer Zain­ub Ver­jee in Attendance

Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 23 6:00PM 
Jack­man Hall, 317 Dun­das Street West, Toron­to, ON
Free event

More infor­ma­tion at: otherplaces.mano-ramo.ca

Black Moth­er Black Daugh­ter, Sylvia Hamil­ton and Claire Pri­eto, Pro­duc­tion Still, Women’s Day Ser­vice, North Pre­ston, Nova Sco­tia. Left to Right: Co-direc­tor Sylvia D. Hamil­ton, Elders, Dr. Ruth John­son and Dr. Marie Hamil­ton, the filmmaker’s moth­er.

Fea­tur­ing:

Peace for Sebas­t­ian Aceve­do / Paz Para Sebas­t­ian Aceve­do, Lot­ty Rosen­feld, 1985,  3min, Chile

Sari Red, Prat­i­b­ha Par­mar, 1983, 12min, UK

Eyes Skinned, Mona Hatoum, 1988, 4min, UK

Doc­tor, Lawyer, Indi­an Chief, Car­ol Ged­des, 1986, 29min, Canada

Black Moth­er Black Daugh­ter,  Sylvia Hamil­ton and Claire Pri­eto, 1989, 29min, Canada

 

A Micro Screen­ing of His­to­ry by Zain­ub Verjee

 How does one nar­rate an event, In Vis­i­ble Colours— Inter­na­tion­al Women of Colour and Third World Women Film/Video Fes­ti­val and Sym­po­sium, from the past—30-year ago—to the audi­ence of the present day?

The deci­sion to go with a micro pro­gram­ming stemmed out of my inter­ests in Micro-His­to­ry. The excess of the­o­riza­tion as well as the longue durée tend to erase the liv­ing real­i­ty of the indi­vid­u­als, full of insta­bil­i­ties, change and emo­tions. That is a fun­da­men­tal issue because what is the point of look­ing at the past if we are unable to dis­play and reveal the lived reality?

Under the influ­ence of famous his­to­ri­ans such as Car­lo Ginzburg and et al., micro-his­to­ry inscribed itself in the intel­lec­tu­al tra­di­tion of Benedet­to Croce which had a par­tic­u­lar inter­est for the aes­thet­ic of the sin­gu­lar. They focused on the indi­vid­ual scale and tried to under­stand the norm through the intense use of pri­ma­ry sources. What Ginzburg calls “par­a­dig­ma indiziaro” offers a way for­ward in order to make an inter­pre­ta­tion about a past event that we have not access to. I have select­ed the fol­low­ing five films to bring togeth­er the the­mat­ics addressed by In Vis­i­ble Colours as well as reflect on the lived real­i­ty of the times and the women film­mak­ers. It is hoped that these works give an impe­tus to the pos­si­bil­i­ty to open up new lines of inquiries into In Vis­i­ble Colours and its legacy.

Peace for Sebas­t­ian Ave­ce­do / Paz Para Sebas­t­ian Aceve­do, Lot­ty Rosen­feld, 1985, 3min, Chile

A trib­ute to all those who have died protest­ing against the dic­ta­tor­ship in Chile, this video cen­tres around the death of Chilean work­er Sebas­t­ian Aceve­do who immo­lat­ed him­self to protest against the arrest of his two sons by Chilean Secu­ri­ty Forces.

Sari Red, Prat­i­b­ha Par­mar, 1983, 12min, UK

Through depic­tions of Indi­an women in pri­vate and pub­lic set­tings in Britain, Sari Red exam­ines the dual­i­ty of mes­sages they receive and re-enact in their dai­ly lives.

Eyes Skinned, Mona Hatoum, 1988, 4min, UK

Mona Hatoum’s Eyes Skinned is a hard hit­ting piece, sym­bol­i­cal­ly describ­ing the atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted on Pales­tin­ian people.

Doc­tor, Lawyer, Indi­an Chief, Car­ol Ged­des, 1986, 29min, Canada

This cel­e­bra­to­ry work forces on the lives of five suc­cess­ful native women who have forged non-tra­di­tion­al careers. An inter­est­ing, inti­mate and high­ly pos­i­tive account of the vital­i­ty of native culture.

Black Moth­er Black Daugh­ter,  Sylvia Hamil­ton and Claire Pri­eto, 1989, 29min, Canada

An art­ful­ly con­struct­ed doc­u­men­tary that is sen­si­tive to its sub­ject mat­ter. It recov­ers the his­to­ry of black women in Nova Scotia.