Thao Ho’s film that they co-directed celebrates its premiere as part of the program “Wir müssen reden“ / “We need to talk” as part of Deutschland-Fokus Labor der Gegenwart curated by Sarnt Utamachote. The screening is followed by a Q&A where Thao Ho talks about aesthetics of representation, the tensions of intergenerational storytelling, and collective filmmaking. More information here.

“We need to talk” is a phrase, an invitation to a moment of confrontation between two sides. But “we” could also mean a collective that wants to raise its voice. The short films in this program show the diversity of migration stories from the Asian continent to Germany. At the same time, they contradict the clear objective lines of narration that characterize colonial storytelling. Rather, the works are cinematic explorations of the intimacy of gendered storytelling (the tension between mother and father) and of an auto-ethnographic approach: of how the filmmakers position themselves “in” the story they tell.