Films as explored maps in free screening
The roster comprises films situated in the war trenches and demilitarized zones, post-socialist Berlin and the hinterlands of northeastern Brazil.
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The roster comprises films situated in the war trenches and demilitarized zones, post-socialist Berlin and the hinterlands of northeastern Brazil.
Joint Security Area’ (United States, 2000).
Cartographic Cinema, a collection of motion pictures that probe films as a lens through space, identity, and emotion, will be screened for free at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB).
Part of the MCADxMoving Image program, it views culture, society, and politics through the media of the moving image — from filmed performances and narrative experiments to hybrid documentaries, video essays, and archival audiovisions.
Curated by professor and geographer Joseph Palis, the selection investigates films and maps as “powerful ideological tools that work in consort with one another,” as Tom Conley, American scholar of literature, cartography, and film, stated in his book Cartographic Cinema (2007).
“Whether maps are actually shown in films, or when films function as maps that situate the spectator to a landscape or space, films can be seen as an atlas that contains stories which clue the audience to the place, identity, and emotion,” Palis shared.
The line-up includes Central Station (1998), a road odyssey by Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles; Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), a comedy-drama by German film director and screenwriter Wolfgang Becker; and Joint Security Area (2000), a thriller-mystery by Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. The roster comprises films situated in the war trenches and demilitarized zones, post-socialist Berlin and the hinterlands of northeastern Brazil.
“Each story contains the myriad lives that survive within these borders, as it interrogates how real or humanly constructed these borders are and shows how a place can have meaning even in landscapes of despair or desolation,” Palis added.
Palis teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of the Philippines Diliman Department of Geography. In addition to his research interests, which include countercartographies, geonarratives, island and archipelagic geographies, and cultural geography, he has likewise taught courses such as cinematic geography and cartographic cinema. He currently serves as a co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Pivot Series devoted to media geographies.
Cartographic Cinema is free and open to the public. It will be held at The Loop, 12th floor of the Benilde Design + Arts Campus, 950 Pablo Ocampo Street, Malate, Manila. The event will run from 26 to 28 August at 12 noon each day. Interested participants may register through tinyurl.com/MCADCartographicCinema.
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