29.04
15.00-17.30
Screenings: A State in a State & ONSET
A screening of two films followed by a Q&A by Sasha Shestakova
A State in a State by Tekla Aslanishvili
ONSET by Mark Cinkevich, Anna Engelhardt
Moviemiento Kino
Kottbusser Damm 22,
10967 Berlin
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No need to reserve tickets. Please come 10-15 minutes in advance to secure a seat.

​​​​​​​The event is part of the side program of Өмә exhibition and is organized with the financial support of the ÖPR program of the German foreign office.
Moviemiento Kino: Kottbusser Damm 22, 10967 Berlin
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A State in a State
“A State in a State” is an experimental documentary film that follows the construction, disruption, and fragmentation of railroads in the South Caucasus and Caspian region. It looks at the ongoing wars and conflicts through the lens of transport infrastructures, observing how railways came to materialize the fragile political borders that have reemerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Revolving around the scenes of delay and waiting that constitute cargo mobility, the film reads the optimistic narratives about the New Silk Road against the grain. It observes how the iron foundation of connectivity can be used as a weapon of exclusion and geopolitical sabotage. Dotting the same lines, other forms of sabotage are deployed by workers to disrupt the political violence. Looking at historic and current practices of resistance A State in a State explores the potential of railroads for building a different, infrastructural consciousness and the lasting, transnational, kinship among the people who live and work around them.

The film is developed in artistic-scientific collaboration with Dr. Evelina Gambino, Margaret Tyler Research Fellow in Geography at Girton College, University of Cambridge.

Research & Script: Tekla Aslanishvili / Evelina Gambino
Music: Ani Zakareishvili / Nika Pasuri
Cinematography: Nikoloz Tabukashvili / Tekla Aslanishvili
Typography: Dato Simonia
Editing: Tekla Aslanishvili
Field recordings: Viktor Bone
Sound mastering: Irakli Shonia
Colour: Sally Shamas
by Tekla Aslanishvili
ONSET
A demon roams through an ominous synthetic environment, reconstructed from satellite images of Russian air bases: Khmeimim in Syria, Baranovichi in Belarus, and Belbek in Ukraine. This parasitic force pervades the air bases, passing through their deserted corridors, interrogation rooms, and electricity substations. Devastation follows in its wake. In this single-channel video installation, Engelhardt and Cinkevich use an unholy alliance of medieval demonology, open-source intelligence, and CGI animation to uncover the hidden life of these military outposts. Over the course of the film, the true horror of Russian colonialism becomes manifest in the process of possession – the imposition of external control that gradually destroys an organism from within.

ONSET is co-funded by transmediale x Pro Helvetia, and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. It is currently exhibited in the latter as an installation as part of "New Visions. The Henie Onstad Triennial", on display from April 14 to September 17, 2023.
by Mark Cinkevich, Anna Engelhardt
Participants of the event:
Tekla Aslanishvili is an artist, filmmaker and essayist based between Berlin and Tbilisi. Her works emerge at the intersection of infrastructural design, history and geopolitics. Aslanishvili’s films have been screened and exhibited internationally at Transmediale, Berlin; Tbilisi International Film Festival; Loop Barcelona – Antoni Tàpies museum; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; Neue Berliner Kunstverein; Baltic Triennial; Tbilisi Architecture Biennial; Videonale 18; Short Film Festival Oberhausen; Kunsthalle Münster, EMAF – European Media Art Festival.

Anna Engelhardt is the alias of a media artist, researcher and writer. Her practice examines post-Soviet cyberspace through a decolonial lens, with an overarching aim of dismantling Russian imperialism. These investigations take on multiple forms of media, including video, software and hardware interfaces. Engelhardt also pursues lecturing and publishing to situate digital conflicts within a broader colonial matrix. Her works and activities have been featured at the transmediale festival, Venice Architecture Biennial, Ars Electronica and the Kyiv Biennial, as well as in Digital War and The Funambulist.

Sasha Shestakova is a decolonial researcher from russia. Their work deals with russian settler colonial histories and presents, combining visual culture and critical infrastructure studies.

Mark Cinkevich (1994, Lahoysk) is a Belarus-born interdisciplinary researcher and artist based in Warsaw. Having received his master’s degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Helsinki, he now pursues a PhD at the Department of Anthropology, University of Warsaw. In his practice, he is interested in critical, speculative and experimental aspects of art that operate at the intersection of fact and fiction. His work focuses on the post-Soviet infrastructural and social landscape, through which he explores in particular the concepts of nuclear colonialism, infrastructural colonialism, extractivism and monstrosity.
Accessibility:
The space is not accessible for wheelchair users. There are stairs, the cinema is on 1 EG.