feminist elsewheres: Finding Norma: film and video works by Norma Bahia Pontes

Following the start of this year's Feminist Elsewheres film and workshop series in May, it continues with a program about filmmaker, video artist, critic and essayist Norma Bahia Pontes (1941-2010) whose unique career spanned Brazil, France and the United States. As part of the Brazilian “Cinema Novo” movement, which saw cinema as a means of social and political conscientization, Pontes shot anti-colonial films in Paris at the end of the 1960s, where she studied with Jean Rouch. During her exile in New York in the 1970s, at the time of the Brazilian military dictatorship, she expanded this politically engaged practice into feminist video activism, working with her former partner Rita Moreira. Pontes moved across languages, technologies and political contexts and left behind a transnational work whose scattered traces enrich the history of Brazilian, feminist and queer moving images to this day. With her video film LESBIAN MOTHERS (1972), Claudia von Alemann and Helke Sander invited her to the First International Women's Film Seminar in Berlin in 1973, but was unable to travel due to visa problems. Media scholar, curator, filmmaker and artist Lívia Perez introduces the short film program on 10.10. This is followed by a conversation with Perez about her artistic research on the life and fragmentary archive of Pontes. Her three-channel video installation FINDING NORMA (Lívia Perez, USA 2023) will be shown in the Arsenal foyer until the end of October. On 11/10, Perez will lead a workshop in the feminist ELSEWHERE project room (12—4 p.m.), which gives an insight into her practice, which explores the archive as a place for encounters across images and generations.LES ANTILLAIS (F 1967) is created in Paris and follows five Antillean migrants. The focus is on their understanding of colonialism and questions about the development of anti-colonial and national consciousness. CHANTS BRÉSILIENS (F 1967) is a portrait of musician Edu Lobo and Brazil's politically engaged song movement. The film combines his music with the political and social realities of the country under military dictatorship. With BAHIA CAMARÁ (BR 1968), the exploration of forms of resistance continues. Shot in Bahia, the film explores Afro-Brazilian practices such as Capoeira, Maculelê, and Candomblé, tracing stories of persecution, survival, and change. SHE HAS A BEARD (Norma Bahia Pontes, Rita Moreira, USA 1975), from the video series Living in New York City, follows bearded artist Forest Hope, who interviews women on the street about female facial hair, thus questioning standards and politics of beauty and femininity. More information about the program and the free workshop can be found here: www.feminist-elsewheres.de. The program is supported by the Capital Cultural Fund.

Movies:Les Antillais Norma Bahia Pontes F 1967 16 mm English dubbing 16 min.Bahia Camará Norma Bahia Pontes Brazil 1968 DCP OmeU 16 min.Chants Brésiliens Norma Bahia Pontes F 1967 DCP OmeU 20 min.She has a beard Norma Bahia Pontes, Rita Moreira USA 1975 digital file engl. of 26 min.