‘Have You Ever Killed a Bear? or Becoming Jamila’ Screening at Metropolis

Attend a screening of “Have You Ever Killed a Bear? or Becoming Jamila” by Marwa Arsanios at Metropolis as part of Video Works 2014.

Have You Ever Killed a Bear? or Becoming Jamila (2014)
– 29 minutes
– Arabic with English subtitles

Synopsis:
This film was developed from a lecture performance realized in 2013, and is part of a larger research around Al Hilal magazine (Cairo) that also includes a book and an installation. It takes the history of the magazine (‘50s and ‘60s collection) as the starting point for an inquiry into Jamila Bouhired, the Algerian freedom fighter. From the different representations of Jamila in cinema to her assimilation and promotion through the magazine, the film attempts to look at the history of socialist projects (Egypt), anti-colonial wars (Algeria), and the way they have promoted and marginalized feminist projects. The clear gender division used to marginalize women from the public sphere was overcome for a short moment during the Algerian war of independence (Jamila becoming its icon). Different voices and material are used to explore this history. What does it mean to play the role of the freedom fighter? What does it mean to become an icon? And how does the constitution of the subject serve certain political purposes?

Free entrance.