In 2013, the German Centre of the International Theatre Institute hosts the second series of film screenings. Once a month, a film by Michael Roes is presented at the media library of mime centrum berlin:

31 January 2013, 6 p.m. TIMIMOUN

14 February 2013, 6 p.m. ELEVATION

7 March 2013, 6 p.m. BREAKDANCE IN CHINA

Each screening is followed by a discussion with Michael Roes. Moderated by Christel Weiler.

Free admission.

Location An initative of the International Research Center “Interweaving Performance Cultures” Cinematic Works Kunstquartier Bethanien in cooperation with the Mediathek mime centrum berlin International Theater Institute Mariannenplatz 2 and mime centrum berlin. 10997 Berlin-Kreuzberg by Michael Roes Contact: Claudia Daseking Phone: (030) 838 50 448 - second series - eMail: [email protected] www.theaterkulturen.de TIMIMOUN. rift, this path from purely superficial BREAKDANCE IN CHINA An Algerian Oresteia emancipation back into the web of inescapable family and clan ties, are at Filmed and produced by Michael Roes, Laid and Nadir, two young Algerian men, the heart of the film. Breakdance in China is a rare document are on their way to Timimoun, an Oasis in about the life of youngsters in the the middle of the Sahara. Laid receives a Chinese city of Nanjing. It tells of letter from his sister Assia in which she With Laid Berkati, Nadir Yousfi, Nacer their dreams and desires, shows their asks him to come home and free her from Chennouf and others. Digital video, 102 enthusiasm for various forms of street the tyranny of her stepfather. minutes, colour. 2005. culture, for breakdance, graffiti and heavy metal, but also for traditional Laid works as a photographer in the Kunju (Kun opera). In a perceptive coastal city of Bejaia. Here, at the and sensitive manner, the film conveys Mediterranean Sea, is where his journey ELEVATION an impression of both the strength of into the hostile desert begins: he and subversive practices and the mechanisms his friend Nadir, a car mechanic, leave This film is a poem. A visual and acoustic of familial and social repression. the ‘European’ north of the country poem. Two fugitives, maybe Ned and Dan, to travel deeper and deeper into the maybe Estragon and Vladimir, are drifting traditional tribal areas. through the New World, more concretely: Digital Video, 90 minutes, colour, through . They are looking 16:9, stereo. Chinese, English, Their adventurous journey is not only a for the promised land. They want to German with English subtitles. trip back into Laid’s traumatic past; belong. To have a part in freedom. To be China 2007 und 2012/13. it is also a journey into the brutal recognised, socially and sexually. conflicts of present-day . In the film, the different stages of their trip The film tells no story. The viewer are interrupted by flashbacks, which remains at a distance. The inner and shed light on Laid’s tough childhood in outer drama is not his. Roes constructs Timimoun. his filmic poem in harsh black-and-white images, building up the rhythm of aimless The Greek myth of Orestes, son of violence, malevolence, and the song of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, serves as the the quest for dignity and respect. background of this modern Odyssey: after ten years of war against Troy, Agamemnon Encounters with what is foreign are returns home to his kingdom Mykene. In a constant in Michael Roes’ work, in his absence, his wife had entered into a his novels, stage plays, radio dramas, relationship with his cousin, Aegisthos. and films. His is an ethnological gaze. Upon his return, Clytemnestra kills Whether in the novel Rub’ al-Khali – Agamemnon because he had sacrificed their Leeres Viertel (1996) or in his movie daughter Iphigenia. Orestes, brother of Timimoun (2005), Roes addresses the Iphigenia and Electra, is forced to flee chasm between what is our own and what into exile, but returns several years is foreign, as well as the yearning to later to avenge his father’s death. bridge it.

Laid (Orestes) starts on this journey rather reluctantly. He is bound by family With Nadir Yousfi and Laid Berkati. honour, although he has long been living 115 minutes, English with English the life of a young urbanite, freed from subtitles. /Germany 2006. traditional values, in Béjaïa. This inner