A film/video-installation by José Carlos Teixeira | 2017-18, HD video, color, 70 min | 30 min (short version) | Director of Photography: J. C. Teixeira / Nicholas Wynia
Production and Support: SPACES, MAAT, UW-Madison, USCRI (United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants)
Jurors Award + Best Documentary Award, The Artists Forum Festival of Moving Image, New York, NY; Silver Award (JAVA International Humanitarian Awards).
Exhibited at: SPACES, Cleveland (USA), MAAT Museum, Lisbon (Portugal), MMOCA Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (USA), The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH (USA), AANM Arab-American National Museum, Detroit, Hawthorn Contemporary, Milwaukee.
Screened at: UnionDocs, Brooklyn, NY, New Filmmakers Series, Anthology Film Archives, New York, Arthouse Asia 2018 (Film Festival – official selection/documentary competition), Kolkata (India), AIFVF Athens International Film and Video Festival 2018 (official selection) (USA), Respect Human Rights Film Festival (official selection), Belfast, Northern Ireland (UK), FUSO, anual de video arte internacional de Lisboa – MNAC Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa, FUSO, anual de video arte internacional de Lisboa – VideoBrasil, São Paulo (Brasil), FUSO, anual de video arte – part of INTERSECCIÓN, Fundación Luís Seoane, Coruña (Spain), FFP 7, Family Film Project 2018 (official selection) – Porto (Portugal), Visions du Réel 2018, Documentary Film Festival (media library), Nyon (Switzerland), HotDocs Canadian International Documentary Festival 2018 (The Doc Shop), Toronto (Canada)
Nominations: Oslo Independent Film Festival (Norway), Blow-Up Arthouse International Film Fest, Chicago (USA)
“Every refugee, regardless of nationality, race or creed, points to the refugee within ourselves”
(K. C. Cirtautas, The Refugee, 1957)
At the intersection of art, cinema and anthropology, On Exile, elsewhere within here is a film project that reflects on the refugee experience, expanding on issues of migration, displacement, and otherness, while using interview as artistic form and cinematic territory. As a quiet meditation, it follows the moving testimonies of Muslim refugees from Middle Eastern and African Muslim communities (Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia) resettled in the United States.
Concerned with the ethics of ethnographic encounter and representation, the artist asks: how to represent without patronizing or speaking on behalf of others? As such, this experimental documentary develops intimate psychological portraits, by listening and restoring the voices of refugees, as opposed to a dominant discourse that denies them personal and political agency.
On Exile reframes assumptions of home and belonging, delves into the challenges of language and translation, and reflects on the complex adjustment to another culture by those who, forcibly displaced, seek safety and a new beginning.
And, in the words of MMOCA curator, Leah Kolb:
“ON EXILE, elsewhere within here is a video-essay that presents the first-hand stories of fourteen refugees who, having fled Syria, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan, currently live in the Midwest. The film unfolds in fragments, shifting from one interviewee to the next and back again as they recount the painful events that drove them from their countries of origin. Embracing a nonlinear narrative, Teixeira unconventional cinematic techniques are further evidenced in his use of duration, and of silence and extended pauses. He reframes the question of time, thereby challenges us to slow down long enough to experience the time of others, to recognize the universal need to be heard. As with any documentary approach to art, the dilemma inherent to this film is how to responsibly represent another person’s experience without patronizing or speaking on his or her behalf. In his commitment to carving out a space for other voices, Teixeira purposely silences his own. He leaves us with a pivotal opportunity to not turn away, but to take time to listen. It invites us to renew the gaze, transform our perception of the real, and our understanding of the Other (and, subsequently, of ourselves).”
ON EXILE, elsewhere within here has premiered in a solo exhibition at SPACES gallery in Cleveland, then traveled to MAAT, and recently to MMOCA, and has been officially selected for several festivals, including Arthouse Asia 2018 (India), AIFVF Athens International Film and Video Festival (USA), The Artists Forum Festival of the Moving Image, in NYC (where it received Best Documentary Award and Jury Prize), Respect Human Rights Festival (Belfast), Family Film Project 7 (Porto), and is part of the media libraries of the prestigious documentary festivals Visions du Réel (Switzerland) and HotDocs (Canada).