AFTER THE IMAGE IS THE PRESENT
Program of experimental short films
curated by Pebbles Underground and Les Boîtes Explosives
Presented by Visualcontainer[.BOX]
September 26, doors at 18h00, program duration: 1hr
Via Passerini 18, 20162 Milan, Italy
AFTER THE IMAGE IS THE PRESENT
The stories reflected [here] do not belong safely to the past. The division of Cyprus in 1974, the crimes against humanity committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh, and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza are all unfinished political histories. Their consequences, like ripple effects, change how, by whom they are remembered, denied, documented, or erased.
These histories do not belong to a concluded sequence of regional catastrophes either. They belong to a political geography in which earlier wars, occupations, and acts of destruction continue to shape what can be seen, said, and believed now. The current war of the US against Iran, although not represented in any of the films directly, is an “elephant in the room”, the tragic continuation of the program in real life.
Who records the evidence? Whose story is believed? Who gets to disappear twice: first physically, and then through the erasure of their history and culture? What happens when the present produces huge numbers of images, but they don’t necessarily lead to accountability?
The multiplication of evidence does not resolve the struggle over reality. Side-by-side the struggle for preserving political memory, the films almost embody the need to rebuild, to resist through ritual anchored in one’s own body. A fight against the Present that became an incessant producer of its own archive in real time, pouring out military statements, satellite images, phone footage, testimonies, casualty figures, intercepted communications, destroyed targets…
The open-ended finalé of the program is not a conclusion, but a refusal to conclude it. For the curators, for the artists, for the viewer.
– Text by Pebbles Underground and Les Boîtes Explosives –
PROGRAM
GET READY AGAIN by Andreas Savva | Cyprus | 2011 (02m20s)
Silent, Color
The video performance is shot at the abandoned Nicosia Airport, which terminated its function soon after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. After that it was mainly used as the headquarters of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus. We view the artist in the symbolic act of cleaning the chairs of the abandoned airport as if it gets prepared to restore its function.
THE SIGHT IS A WOUND / دیدن، زخم است by Parham Ghalamdar | Iran, UK | 2025 (06m48s)
Sound, Color
A six-minute experimental video-poem confronting the ethical crisis of image-making in the digital age, particularly in response to the unfolding genocide in Gaza. In an act of aesthetic refusal, artist Parham Ghalamdar burns over 50 of his own paintings—works previously exhibited in renowned institutions worldwide—as a personal and political gesture against the overwhelming flood of atrocities visualized through screens.
THE NAKBA ACROSS GENERATIONS / النكبة عبر الأجيال by Nour | Palestine, Germany | 2024 (11m)
Sound, Color
Experimental documentary recounting the multifaceted stories of the Nakba through the lens of a family. By weaving personal narratives with historical events, it attempts to reflect the broader, collective trauma experienced by Palestinians and also draws an important parallel to the “second” (if it ever really stopped since 1948…) Nakba happening to the people of Gaza as we speak.
FIBERS / ԹԵՒԱՎՈՐ ԼԱՐԵՐ by Anna Grigorian | Armenia, Canada | 2025 (15m30s)
Sound, Color
Experimental essay documentary blending voiceover testimony, performative studio imagery, and tactile close-ups of the narrator’s hands making zhengyalov bread to reflect on memory, resilience under siege, and daily life during the war in Shushi (Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh).
TESTIMONIES FROM MOUNT SINJAR / دیدەڤان ژ چیایێ شنگارێ by Huner Emin | South Kurdistan (North Iraq), USA (04m55s)
Silent, Monochrome
“Testimonies from Mount Sinjar” is a multidisciplinary project focused on crimes against humanity committed by ISIS members in Iraq. Featuring a series of written film scripts of crucial, desperate, and traumatizing moments that survivors suffered under ISIS’s captivity.
AN ELEGY IN A DREAM by Nima Nikakhlagh, Iman Tash, Amir Sharif | Iran, USA | 2022 (18h36s)
Sound, Monochrome
As a non-narrative audio-visual experience, the film itself is not fully realized until it is individually and subjectively interpreted by each viewer.
The main idea of the film is not to tell a story nor to simply entertain. We feel it is important that the audience not have been given any specific directions before viewing. When each audience member adds their own stories to the film, based on their own experiences, it is the moment when the making process of this film is realized. It is not until the viewer takes the film into their own consciousness that it becomes – in this way, cinema is a collaboration between the filmmakers and the audience.