Militant, vital, energetic. The inspiration behind Nina Wiesnagrotzki’s 6-minute pamphlet film is Santiago Alvárez’s film “Now” (1965) – also 6 minutes long. With “Now” cinema seemed to have found a brand new idiom overnight. The music, the only sound in Alvárez’s film, was by Lena Horne, illustrated by images of the fight against racial discrimination in the US, photos of Lyndon B. Johnson, newsreel features on police violence, comic strip pictures and footage of Black Panther demonstrations. “Comparing Now and Then” is not meant to worship the ashes of Alvárez’s film but to spread its fire further: images of present-day sites of protest and political strife yield amazingly obvious correspondences with the older film. And the sound? A forceful reinterpretation of Lena Horne’s song by Tintin Patrone, Michael Steinhauser, Mieke Motör and friends. – We are not separated from yesterday by a chasm, only by a changed situation. (Alexander Kluge).

Ralph Eue

A country is given a face, or better, a variety of faces: Peru. Director Heddy Honigmann has looked for encounters with a number of people whom one would normally call 'average people', but who, seen through her camera, grow into fantastic and likeable personalities.

Ralph Eue