Jyoti Mistry: race, memory, imagination

Devastatingly powerful and sensitively intimate, the films of Jyoti Mistry cross boundaries of genre, form and subjectivity in exploration of the complexity of identity, race and gender. Through inventive interplay between linear cinematic traditions and installation art, her critically acclaimed films often allow for alternative narrative structures to emerge.

Screened:
FRI 29/10, 19:00 FYRIS
KORTFILMFESTIVALEN PLAY

WE REMEMBER DIFFERENTLY

An exploration of memory, testimony and cross cultural perspectives through close examination of the relationship between mother and daughter. A white South African middle-class mother and daughter are brought together by the mother’s illness. The two begin to exhume personal memory – discovering how they recall the past differently and how these nuances of shared experiences shape their perceptions of the present. This contested past is evoked by archival Super-8 footage that is as absorbing as the spinal narrative. 

2004 / 25:00 / Director: Jyoti Mistry

ITCHY CITY

Itchy City is the centrepiece of the longer work I Mike What I Like, a riveting tour de force of visual poetry, offering a visceral connection with language and a fluid, narrative, cinematic experience that is a kaleidoscopic visual interpretation of Kgafela oa Magogodi’s powerful words. The film is a roving conversation of words, images, text, music, graphics and performance set to jazz improvisation and action painting.

2006 / 4:00 / Director: Jyoti Mistry

09:21:25

In April 2002, South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth launched aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission for a 9-day, 21-hour, and 25 minute trip into outer space. In gentle, disembodied voiceover, he recounts his experiences of coming to understand Earth afresh by venturing away from it and viewing it from an entirely new perspective.

2011 / 9:00 / Director: Jyoti Mistry

WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A BLACK MAN

A black man runs through a field. A black man runs on the beach. A black man runs through a city. The black man is always running, he is always chased, he is always running… Running to save his life. A black man runs towards freedom.

2017 / 10:00 / Director: Jyoti Mistry

CAUSE OF DEATH

Women’s bodies are always at risk. An autopsy report describes the physical impact on the body that results in death but hides the structural and recurrent violence on women’s bodies that leads to femicide. Through archival film footage, animation and spoken word poetry, an experience of structural violence against women is exposed. 

2020 / 20:00 / Director: Jyoti Mistry