Films focus on power through relationships
Berlin-based Palestinian artist Jumana Manna works primarily with film and sculpture. Her work explores how power is articulated through relationships, often focusing on the body and materiality in relation to narratives of nationalism and histories of place.
Three of her films created between 2010 and 2013 will now be screened at The Island Club in Limassol until February 22, all lasting between 12 and 20 minutes.
The first of her films is entitled Blessed Blessed Oblivion and is the portrait of male ‘thug’ culture in East Jerusalem as manifested in gyms, body shops and hair parlours. Inspired by Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963), the video uses visual collage and the musical soundtrack as ironic commentary. Simultaneously psychologising and allowing herself to be seduced by the characters, Manna finds herself in a double bind similar to the conflicted desire that animates her protagonist as he drifts from abject rants to declamations of heroic poetry or unashamed self-praise.
The Umpire Whispers is Manna’s second film to be screened and explores the intimacy that can arise between a coach and his athletes, investigating the boundaries that govern such relationships.
The final film was co-scripted with Norman M Klein and goes by the title A Sketch of Manners. Alfred Roch, member of the Palestinian National League, is a politician with a bohemian panache. In 1942, at the height of WWII, he throws what will turn out to be the last masquerade in Palestine. Inspired by an archival photograph, A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch’s Last Masquerade) recreates an unconventional bon vivant aspect of Palestinian urban life before 1948.
Three Films
By Jumana Manna. Until February 22. The Island Club, Limassol. Thursday-Saturday: 12pm-6pm, or by appointment
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