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Hedy Honigmann

kino21’s fall series, How We Fight, presents international works that explore soldiering and depict the experience of war from the point of view of those on the ground. From Argentina, Russia, Iraq, Germany, France, Holland and the U.S., several of these films are US premieres. On Thursday, September 25 we begin with Iraqi Short Films, a brand new compilation of videos shot in battle by soldiers and militia members in Iraq. Subsequent programs include video diaries of the battlefield and pre- or post-combat rumination, extended observational portraits and interview-based works. There are depictions of Russian conscripts in Chechnya, PKK rebels in the mountains of Iraq, American veterans returned from Vietnam, and mercenaries and peacekeepers stationed across the globe, from Bosnia to Rwanda, from the Middle East to the USA.

As the fourth program of our series we shift to the peacekeeping soldier, screening Dutch filmmaker Hedy Honigmann’s Crazy. Known for her documentaries on Paris street musicians (Underground Orchestra), Peruvian taxi drivers (Metal and Melancholy) and Brazilian fans of the erotic poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade (O Amor Natural), Honigmann is a master of the interview. Here she turns her attention to soldiers who are “peacekeepers,” Dutch veterans of UN peacekeeping and humanitarian forces who were stationed in Korea, Lebanon, Vietnam, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia.

Structured primarily around conversations with nine former soldiers, Honigmann’s film incorporates home videos, photo scrapbooks, news footage, letters, and journals. It is not easy to speak about the experience of war; about the trauma of witnessing brutality, massacres, and starvation; about the after-effects of PTSD, depression, or attempted suicide. In spite of this difficulty, it is Honigmann’s solicitation of the soldiers’ words and feelings that give the film its force. In particular, her request that they share the piece of music most vividly encapsulating their wartime experiences leads them to let down their verbal guard. As they, and in turn we, listen to this music – which ranges from Seal’s “Crazy” to Puccini’s “Turandot” and Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” — something is let loose. What words fail to express or what the soldiers’ denial of their vulnerability suppresses, the force of the music eloquently conveys through sound and body language as they listen. A powerful testament to what it means to endure or witness the excruciating suffering of warfare, Honigmann’s film about the futility of the peacekeepers is one of war’s most compelling indictments.

How We Fight: Conscripts, Mercenaries, Terrorists and Peacekeepers is presented with the generous support of the Potrero Nuevo Fund of the Tides Foundation, the LEF Foundation, and Goethe Institut San Francisco.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is internationally recognized as a premiere showcase for creative, inspiring and influential films of all types: avant-garde and experimental, story-based narratives, documentaries and animation. As the longest-running film festival of its kind in North America, the AAFF is steeped in a rich tradition of groundbreaking cinema. In addition to presenting hundreds of films each year during its five-day run, AAFF each year curates a touring program presenting highlights of the festival around the world. San Francisco Cinematheque, in partnership with AAFF’s long-term South Bay host, Foothill College’s KFJC, is proud to present this touring program for the first time in ten years.

Program One

Doxology by Michael Langan; My Olympic Summer by Daniel Robin; Yours Truly  by Osbert Parker; The Green Grass of Twilight by Richie Sherman; Frog Jesus by Ben Peters; Bullet Proof Vest by May Lin Au Yung; Safari by Catherine Chalmers; America In Pictures by Georg Koszulinski; Crank Balls by Devin Bell; Number One by Leighton Pierce; Nijuman No Borei (200,000 Phantoms) by Jean Gabriel Periot; I Met the Walrus by Josh Raskin; Li: The Patterns of Nature by John Campbell; Office Suite by Robert Todd.

Notes of a Kurdish Rebel by Stefano Savona

November by Hito Steyerl

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kino21’s fall series, How We Fight, presents international works that explore soldiering and depict the experience of war from the point of view of those on the ground.  From Argentina, Russia, Iraq, Germany, France, Holland and the U.S., several of these films are US premieres. On Thursday, September 25 we begin with Iraqi Short Films, a brand new compilation of videos shot in battle by soldiers and militia members in Iraq. Subsequent programs include video diaries of the battlefield and pre- or post-combat rumination, extended observational portraits and interview-based works.  There are depictions of Russian conscripts in Chechnya, PKK rebels in the mountains of Iraq, American veterans returned from Vietnam, and mercenaries and peacekeepers stationed across the globe, from Bosnia to Rwanda, from the Middle East to the USA.

This third program in the How We Fight series consists of two works that portray those fighters who operate outside the sanctions of society’s structures for armed conflict. Stefano Savona’s Notes of a Kurdish Rebel follows a group of young, idealistic fighters in the mountains of Northern Iraq as they prepare to cross into Turkey, while Hito Steyerl’s November is a thought-provoking essay on the role of the revolutionary gesture as embodied by her friend Andrea Wolf. Both films are complex depictions of the desire to take arms, and both suggest the central role of women in the Kurdish struggle.

Steyerl’s essay is part portrait of Andrea Wolf (aka Sehît Ronahî), who became a Kurdish/German icon after her death during a military operation, and part interrogation of the nature of the pose, the role of traveling images, and the imbrication of cinematic fiction and reality in revolutionary iconography. It is also a reflection on the place of revolution today. As she says in her voice-over, we’re no longer part of the period described by Eisenstein’s October. “November is the time after October, a time when revolution seems to be over and peripheral struggles have become particular, localist and almost impossible to communicate. In November a new reactionary form of terror has taken over …”

Savona’s film provides an intimate and illuminating look at the world of foot soldiers in the fight for Kurdish recognition from the Turkish state. Focusing primarily on a small group of five fighters, two of whom grew up in Germany, Notes’ gentle eye and calm pace reveals the rebels’ passionate commitment (typically the result of family history) and occasional disillusionment. Alternating the diary entries of the translator/fighter Akif with conversations and observational sequences, the film also presents a fascinating look at Sehît Harun, an area ruled by women fighters where men only enter if they “accept to have their masculinity ‘reeducated.’ ”

How We Fight: Conscripts, Mercenaries, Terrorists and Peacekeepers is presented with the generous support of the Potrero Nuevo Fund of the Tides Foundation, the LEF Foundation, and Goethe Institut San Francisco.