Sandra Kogut

Birkbeck Arts Week, Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 6.00pm, Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

Q&A sessions with award-winning filmmaker Sandra Kogut will follow the screening of Adieu Monde or Pierre and Claire’s Story (1998) and A Hungarian Passport (2001/2003). In Adieu Monde, a sarcastic reflection on the search for ‘authenticity’ in the Pyrenees, we listen to butchers, mechanics, farmers and hikers sharing their versions of the legend of the vanished young shepherd and the shepherdess who follows him into the forest. The film won 11 prizes, among others two at the ‘Oberhausen Filmtagen’ festival and the ‘Golden Dove’ award in Leipzig. In A Hungarian Passport, Kogut brings together Kafkaesque experiences with authorities, interviews with her relatives, and her own travel diary in order to address fundamental questions: What does nationality mean? What does a passport really stand for? What is it we do with our heritage? How do we construe our history and our own identity? Among other important prizes, the film received first prize at the Split Film Festival and the ‘Best Documentary Film’ award in Budapest.

Programme

6.00-6.10pm    Welcome and introduction, Luciana Martins (Birkbeck)

6.10-6.40pm    Screening of Adieu Monde or Pierre and Claire’s Story (Sandra Kogut, France 1998, colour, 27 min, French with English subtitles)

6.40-7.00pm    Q&A with Sandra Kogut

7.00-8.15pm    Screening of A Hungarian Passport (Sandra Kogut, Brazil/France/Belgium/Hungary, 2001, colour, 72 min, Portuguese, French, and Hungarian with English subtitles)

8.15-8.45pm    Q&A with Sandra Kogut

The  Film Director: Sandra Kogut

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1965, Sandra grew up in Brazil, spent more than a decade in France and now lives in the United States. Since 1984 Sandra has performed, written, directed and produced theatre, documentary and musical television, advertisements, videos and films. In 1996 she participated in the creation of Brasil Legal (Globo Network), becoming its director. She created Parabolic People in 1991, which was produced by CICV Pierre Schaeffer (France) and filmed in Paris, New York, Moscow, Tokyo, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro.

Sandra taught at the École supérieure des arts décoratifs de Strasbourg (France), and at the American Universities of Princeton and UCSD (University of California San Diego). Her work was exhibited at the Moma / NY, Guggenheim Museum and Forum des Images / Paris, among others. Retrospectives of her work were held at several art institutions, including the Harvard Film Archives (US), the The Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (France), and the Zo Centro Culture Contemporanee in Catania, Sicily. Sandra is currently a guest of the DAAD’s Artists-in-Berlin programme, writing the screenplay for her new feature film: the story of a family and how they cope with the ever-present violence in Rio de Janeiro. Here, instead of showing spectacular brutality, Sandra is far more interested in capturing what happens after the traumatic event.

This event is supported by the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.