Catalogue > At random

The film Passing the Rainbow, shot in Kabul by Sandra Schäfer and Elfe Brandenburger in 2007, serves as the starting point for the installation stagings. The film presents female Afghan filmmakers and their strategies for subverting the gender norms of Afghan society. The practice of filmmaking in Afghanistan and the activities of everyday life are the film?s central concerns. At issue are changing roles and the enabling of freedom of action. Passing the Rainbow dramatizes scenes from its protagonists? daily lives, making visible the interactions and contradictions between constructed images and real living conditions. The installation stagings is devided in two parts: In the two-channel video installation to act in history, Sandra Schäfer uses images from the photo archives of Nancy Hatch Duprée and the Williams Afghan Media Project. Schäfer has combined this rarely seen material with footage of her own, shot during multiple research trips between 2002 and 2008. The installation reflects the creative process behind Passing the Rainbow as well as its reception in Kabul and Berlin, and it uses historical images to trace the representation of women in Afghanistan. A mobile cinema installation will show Passing the Rainbow as well as two films made in 2007 by Afghan women: 25 Darsad (25 Percent), by Diana Saqeb, and Nejat (The Rescue) by Saba Sahar. With the short film Saya (Shadow) by Nacir Alqas an historical arc is drawn to the short and changeful history of Afghan cinema.

The artist, writer and curator of film programs is located in Berlin. In her artistic work, Sandra Schäfer has previously dealt with themes of representation of gender, urbanity and (post-) colonialism. Schäfer has made repeated visits to Kabul and Tehran since 2002. She has been involved in different collaborative projects with filmmakers, activists and theoreticians. Together with the Berlin based filmmaker Elfe Brandenburger and in cooperation with actresses, filmmakers and activists from Kabul she made the film Passing the Rainbow. She is co-curator of the film festival Kabul/Teheran 1979ff: Filmlandschaften, Städte unter Stress und Migration that took place 2003 at the Volksbühne Berlin. She is co-editor of a book with the same title, published in 2006 by b_books, Berlin. 2007/08 she co-curated the film festival SPLICE IN and a lecture program on gender and society in Afghanistan, its neighboring countries and Europe. In 2009 her book stagings. Kabul, Film & Production of Representation got published in the series metroZones/media at b_books, Berlin. www.mazefilm.de