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Neukölln Unlimited
WED 8 DEC 19.00 IFI
THU 9 DEC 10:30 IFI (SPECIAL SCHOOL SCREENING)
2010 ● 96 mins ● Germany ● Subtitled
● Documentary ● Director: Agostino Imondi, Dietmar Ratsch
Siblings Hassan (18), Lial (19) and Maradona (14) are talented musicians and breakdancers growing up in Berlin’s notorious Neukölln district. Hip-hop and streetdance are their language and their passion. Their family is from Lebanon and lives in constant danger of being deported from Germany. To prevent this from happening, Hassan and Lial plan to use their artistic talents to provide the necessary financial support for their family to secure a residency permit. The resulting pressure sees a rivalry arise over who should be the family’s primary breadwinner. Meanwhile, Maradona gets himself into more and more trouble, and is suspended from school. He is at a crossroads, torn between motivation and resignation, between his siblings’ ambitious lifestyle and the street credibility of his crew. This documentary goes beyond the typical clichés about migrants in ‘problem’ areas to portray the everyday lives of three youths struggling for their family’s right to stay in Germany. Hassan and Lial Akkouch, who star in the film, will attend the screening.
Q&A TO FOLLOW SCREENING
Hassan Akkouch
Hassan Akkouch, born in 1988, originally comes from Lebanon. He has been living in Germany since 1990. When he was 15 he and his family were deported to Lebanon. When they returned to Germany 6 weeks later Hassan decided to become a social worker in order to work with other immigrant youths in a Berlin youth club. He is also a musician and a member of several street dance ensembles. Together with his sister Lial, he is fighting for the right of his family to stay in Germany.
Lial Akkouch
Lial Akkouch, born in 1987, is the oldest child of the Akkouch family. For this reason she feels especially responsible for her family's future. She and her brother Hassan vie for the role of the family provider, since their father left them. Like her brother, she is a talented artist. Between interning and recording her own music she dances with the ensemble "Dorky Park" touring widely.
Agostino Imondi
Agostino Imondi was born in 1975 in Basel, Switzerland. From 2000 to 2003 he worked as director of photography and editor for the Australian TV station ‘Channel 31 Melbourne’. From 2003 to 2004 he took the Director's class at ‘Scuola di Cinema’ in Rome. His first short film Waking up the Nation was screened in official competitions at various international film festivals.
Dietmar Ratsch
Dietmar Ratsch was born in 1970 in Soltau, Germany. From 1993-2000 he worked as a freelance cinematographer for various broadcasters and production companies. In 1998 he was also a steadicam and crane operator for SWR (German TV). He studied Documentary Film Making at Baden-Württemberg Film Academy from 1995-2000, where Eislimonade Für Hong Li was his graduation film. He founded Indi Film GmbH in 2001.
Masterclass
DJ Youth Workshop: Global
Urban Music
WED 8 DEC – 13.30 - 17.30 FOMACS/DIT
Hip-hop, afrobeat, digital cumbia, reggae-dub, electro-dance. Where do all these mixed music styles come from and what do they communicate about contemporary youth identities? Taking our cue from the musical tastes of Maradona and his siblings in Neukölln Unlimited, DJs Double V and iZem (Groovalizacion Radio) take you on a journey through eclectic urban sounds from around the globe, in this introductory DJ workshop.
DJ Double V
Italian-born photographer and DJ Veronica Vierin, aka Double V, moved to Dublin in 2002. She is currently a practice-based PhD candidate in the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice, DIT. Through the years Veronica kept cultivating her lifelong passion for both visual arts and music. In 2003 she joined Babalonia, a collective of international DJs born in Dublin. Babalonia crew have held residencies in different venues around town and so did Double V, who found herself behind the decks of bars, clubs and festivals, such as the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures. Double V is co-founder of Patchanka Styla, a recently born musical project based in Dublin that focuses on music appointments featuring artists/musicians from the South of Europe. She’s also collaborating with Groovalizacion DJs, and currently running a weekly live radio show with D iZem on Groovalizacion WebRadio. Double V plays a whole range of Mediterranean sounds from reggaedub, funk-arab-latin riddims to Balkanic and Italian urban beats.
DJ iZem
Jérémie Moussaid Kerouanton/DJ iZem is a globetrotter musician, sometime journalist and co-founder of the Groovalizacion project. He is a disciple of musical crossbreeding, who is eager to break out from the restrictive confines of musical genres, abolish the language barriers and reassert the value of the musical heritage of urban and rural peripheral areas. Raised in multicultural France during the golden era of the hip-hop culture, he broadened his influences along his many travels, including musical exchanges with his country of origin, Morocco, and his trips to Latin America and the Middle East. After working as a radio producer in Paris in the early 2000s, he lived in Spain between 2005-2008, where he dedicated himself entirely to music, first as a guitarist for the Afro-Brazilian band Kibandalha, then as a DJ alongside DJ Cucurucho with whom he founded the collective Groovalizacion and the radio programme ‘Musicas Migratorias’. Together they made the music documentary The Colours of Tea during a trip to Morocco in the summer of 2007. In 2008 DJ iZem dropped his suitcase for 6 months in Recife, Brazil, to pursue his musical adventures with Deco Nascimento involving two projects, ‘Quinteto Alvorada’ and ‘Zina Tropica’. He then spent 6 months in Buenos Aires collaborating with FM radio la Tribu, performing in many clubs in the capital city. Back in Europe since 2009, he currently resides in Dublin where he launched the ‘Dublin Tropical’ nights. He regularly mixes in various clubs in London and across Spain.
Moving Worlds: Cinemas of Migration returns with a diverse and contemporary programme of documentary and drama films from Austria, France, Germany, Spain, UK, and the USA. A selection of masterclasses, workshops and special events with filmmakers and digital media practitioners, contributes to a festival whose focus on migration is as timely as it is distinctive.
Through powerful stories revealing the emotional and material effects of contemporary migration within and outside Europe, Moving Worlds addresses the movement of individuals and families across national borders.
Themes at the forefront of the programme include: migrant youth identities and cultures; intergenerational family relationships; local responses to the arrival of refugees in a small town; daily encounters between frontline service providers and asylum seekers; the lived tensions between secular and religious identities; individuals undertaking perilous journeys in pursuit of a better life for themselves and the families left behind.
Access the full Film Festival Catalogue here.
We are honoured to host three Irish premieres at Moving Worlds. Neukölln Unlimited, directed by Agostino Immondi and Dietmar Ratsch, opens the festival telling the story of three young Lebanese siblings living in Berlin and their passion for hip-hop and streetdance.
Welcome to Shelbyville, directed by Kim Snyder, offers a glimpse of America at a crossroads – how a community in the Bible belt grapples with rapidly changing demographics.
Les Arrivants (‘The Arrivals’), directed by Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard, captures the highly charged encounter between social workers in Paris and newly arrived asylum seekers and their families from Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Eritrea – with or without passports or luggage.
Film directors, actors, writers and community activists as guests of Moving Worlds bring with them a passion for creative storytelling, allied to a conviction about the centrality of film and social media in mobilising new audiences and generating inclusive public dialogue about migration and social justice. The programme includes a series of masterclasses and workshops, building on content from the films and introducing parallel learning strands throughout the festival. Acknowledging the importance of young people’s participation in public debates about cultural identities and citizenship, the festival accords special status to two Youth Media workshops, which include: Youth Cultures and Digital Communities: ‘I’m Not Who You Think I Am’, facilitated by the festival’s social media consultant in residence, Howard Pyle (Ogilvy and Mather, New York), and a ‘Global Urban Music’ workshop with DJs Double V and iZem.
Moving Worlds: Cinemas of Migration is a unique collaboration between the Forum on Migration and Communication (FOMACS) and the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC): Alliance Française, British Council, Goethe-Institut Ireland, Instituto Cervantes Dublin and the Austrian Embassy Dublin, in association with the Irish Film Institute (IFI).
We wish to acknowledge all who have generously contributed to Moving Worlds. Specific thanks to the US Embassy Dublin for their patronage and support, and to Atlantic Philanthropies and Dublin Institute of Technology.
Booking information:
Tickets are available from IFI Box Office, 6 Eustace Street Temple Bar, Dublin 2
tel: (01) 679 3477, or at www.ifi.ie
Masterclasses are free of charge.
Please note it is necessary to contact FOMACS in advance to register.
Social Media Workshops
Youth Culture and Digital Communities Workshop:
‘I'm not who you think I am'
THU 9 DEC – 12.30 GOETHE INSTITUT
Online communities and digital communications are a central feature of youth relationships all over the world. Recent generations are the first to be unbound by geographic and language barriers when choosing friends and socialising. From communities based on skill or interest (such as gamers) to those shaped by ethnic, gender, sexual or religious identity, young people have a new world of opportunity to find and define their peer group. This workshop explores a small sample of communities to address emerging cultural identities, social hierarchy, and barriers such as the ‘digital divide’.
Supported by:
Crossing Cultures: Dublin City Dialogues FOMACS/Office for Integration (OFI), Dublin City Council
Social Media & Emerging Platforms: Turning audiences into participants
SAT 11 DEC – 10.00 CINEMA 3, IFI
The need to convince communities to care about a message is of increasing importance to many organizations – whether grassroots activists or Fortune 500 companies. From creating viral concepts to empowering evangelists, this workshop explores the role of social media and emerging digital technology as tools for amplifying messages in the support of social justice. With little more than an Internet account and a Facebook page, we have the ability to engage a global audience – but somehow it's just not that easy! This workshop covers practical planning and tactics for grassroots and policy engagement that filmmakers, advocates and activists can employ.
Howard Pyle, Social Media Consultant in Residence at Moving Worlds
Howard Pyle is a digital strategy expert and creative technologist with 15 years of experience. His work spans both digital and traditional media, with an emphasis on fostering community engagement and creating innovative ways to tie media channels together. In June 2010, Howard joined Ogilvy & Mather as Senior Partner, Global Director of Digital Platforms to work exclusively on their ‘Smarter Planet’ campaign for IBM. Prior to Ogilvy, he was Executive Director of Creative Development at TBWA \ Digital Arts, a global creative and strategy group focused on developing digital experiences and social media programs. Clients include Nissan (Zero Emissions), GSK, Pepsi (Refresh Project) and Visa Mobile. As Co-Founder and Creative Director of the boutique agency Local Theory, he developed integrated campaigns and digital strategies for Nokia, National Geographic, Fremantle Media and others. His work for Nokia included a branded TV show shot on mobile phones, distributed online and aired internationally on MTV. Prior to Local Theory, he was President & COO of Counts Media, developers of the mobile community Yellow Arrow and mobile products for Lonely Planet and Blue Man Group. Howard also serves as Chair of the International Digital Advisory Group for FOMACS. In 2010, Howard became a creative advisor to Roger Waters for digital and social media for the upcoming 30th anniversary tour of Pink Floyd’s, ‘The Wall’. He is also an accomplished photographer represented by Corbis and Getty Images.