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Sidestreets Off-Site since January  2014!

Throughout 2014 Sidestreets will organize all of its programs outside its own headquarters, in different venues, spaces, cities and countries.
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TREASURE ISLAND
26 September - 8 November 2014, NiMAC

 Opening: Friday, 26 September 2014, 20:00 

The event is co-organized by 
the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre - Associated with the Pierides Foundation [NiMAC] &
the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, Cultural Services, 

in collaboration with 
AHDR (Association for Historical Dialogue and Research) 

SIDESTREETS Educational and Cultural Initiative.
 

The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre - Associated with the Pierides Foundation [NiMAC] and the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, Cultural Services, in collaboration with AHDR (Association for Historical Dialogue and Research) and SIDESTREETS Initiative, announce the opening of a new exhibition project entitled Treasure Island on Friday, 26 September 2014. The project features visual works, performances, public discussions, interventions and other events selected through an Open Call, next to a number of preselected works.

Treasure Island seeks to expand discourses of the past in Cyprus. It seeks to shed critical light on dominant modes of historical representations, and address those stories that have been subjugated, manipulated or silenced by hegemonic historical discourses and artistic, literary or theoretical practices.  Moreover, the project aims to underline the broader meaning of the political in art, in the local context: On the one hand, as a drive for critical (re)negotiation of the modern history of trauma, conflict and violence, as well as of any totalizing ideological strategies of approaching, thinking and narrating the past, particularly in relation to national or cultural identification. On the other hand, as an attempt to deal with a broad spectrum of crucial issues that affect Cypriot society, beyond the Cyprus Problem. Ultimately, the project aims to bring forth the culturally inconspicuous, and the latent patterns of Cypriot historical experience, both in the colonial and postcolonial contexts.

The project has welcomed a variety of presentational formats such as visual works, performances, theoretical discussions, film screenings, talks, literature/poetry readings, public interventions and educational programmes. It features a diverse group of Cypriot and international participants, including Emin Cizenel, Lia Haraki, Eleni Kamma, Nurtane Karagil, Gabriel Lester, Literary Agency Cyprus/Whirling Words, Mesarch Lab, Panayiotis Michael, Savvas Papasavva, Christodoulos Panayiotou, pick nick, Alexandros Pissourios, Saramarasamsara, Nicolas Tschopp, Stefanos Tsivopoulos and Sholeh Zahraei/Kamil Saldun. The programme also includes presentations and interventions led by Adonis Florides, Antonis Hadjikyriacou, Chrystalleni Loizidou, Meropi Moiseos/Nasa Patapiou/Eleni Papadopoulou, Johann Pillai and Evi Tselika/Marina Hadjilouca spread throughout the duration of the exhibition, as well as a one-day series of theoretical discussions. Treasure Island will also be hosting a public reading library in collaboration with Moufflon Bookshop, comprising bibliography from the areas of social and cultural studies, postcolonial theory, social anthropology, political science, art theory, history, critical literature and poetry, and beyond.

 

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Friday, 26 September, 20:00 @ NiMAC (Opening)
Performance 
The Record Replay React Show (2014, 30’)
Lia Haraki

Saturday, 4 October, 10:30 @ NiMAC
Screening/Discussion [in English]
Life Chances: Four Families in a Greek Cypriot Village by Peter Loizos (1974, 43’)
Antonis Hadjikyriacou in conversation with Olga Demetriou, Zelia Gregoriou and Adonis Florides

 Wednesday, 8 October, 19:30 @ Rüstem Bookstore (24-26 Girne caddesi, Sarayönü, Nicosia)
Screening/Discussion [in English]
Cyprus is an Island by Ralph Keene (1946, 34’)
Adonis Florides in conversation with Costas Constantinides and Yiannis Papadakis

Friday, 10 October, 19:00 @ NiMAC
Presentation [in English]
"Cyprus Pussy": Culture jamming/On Cypriot commemoration in the 21st century & its interventions
Chrystalleni Loizidou

Performance 
The Record Replay React Show, (2014, 30’)
Lia Haraki

Saturday, 18 October, 10:30 @ NiMAC
Presentation/Discussion [in Greek]
Here Lie the Books, Rizokarpaso 1931-32 (2014)
Meropi Moiseos, Nasa Patapiou and Eleni Papadopoulou in conversation with Takis Hadjigeorgiou, Niyazi Kızılyürek and Makarios, Bishop of Kenya


Friday, 24 October, 19:00 @ NiMAC

Presentation [in English]
Nonverbal Communication
Gabriel Lester 

Wednesday, 29 October, 19:00 @ NiMAC
Visual lecture/Presentation [in English]
Monument to Fragmentation
Johann Pillai

Saturday, 1 November, 10:30 @ NiMAC
Screening/Discussion [in Greek]
Cyprus is an Island by Ralph Keene (1946, 34’)
Adonis Florides in conversation with Christodoulos Panayiotou and Yiannis Papadakis

Saturday, 8 November, 10:30 @ NiMAC
Discussions [in English]
The Past as Treasure Hunt

Part I, 10:30-12:00: “Buccaneers and Buried Gold”: Deconstructing memory and fiction with Yiannis Hamilakis, Nicolas Papadimitriou and Stephanos Stephanides

Part II, 12:00-13:30: “The Stockade”: Barriers in Education / Education of Barrierswith Mete Hatay, Aydin Mehmet Ali and Yiannis Papadakis

Saturday, 8 November, 20:00 @ NiMAC
Performance 
The Record Replay React Show, (2014, 30’)
Lia Haraki

Closing

Curatorial team: Yiannis Toumazis, Louli Michaelidou, Anber Onar, Despo Pasia, Kyriakos Pachoulides, Elena Stylianou.

NiMAC: Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre-Associated with the Pierides Foundation
19, Palias Ilektrikis, 1016 Nicosia, T: 22797400, 
info@nimac.org.cywww.nimac.org.cy

Office hours:  Monday – Friday, 8:00-15:00
Exhibition hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00-21:00, Sunday – Monday Closed

!f ² 2014: Istanbul Live Films

Miele / Honey
21 February, Friday at 19:00, Onar Village

Italy, France – 2013 – 96’ – Colour  – DCP – Italian

I wanted the tension and the weight of this event (death) to be felt, sacred and grave, but without a trace.”
Among the endless stories that can get two people together, Honey offers a soft, yet shocking one. Irene has a touching job: she helps the terminally ill to die in a quick and peaceful way. She looks like an uneasy angel by the deathbeds, but she is also assured that she is doing an honorable thing, mediating a respected end. Things take a turn as she meets Carlo, an elderly, grouchy and charismatic architect who also yearns to end his suffering.

After he takes the medicine from Irene, we learn that he is not ill but extremely unhappy and tired of living. Irene, this time, comes close to helping someone commit suicide, and as she runs after Carlo to change his mind, the line between life and death gets blurred. Honey does not take the easy way out, and manages to tell this tough story in a distant and positive manner. The film creates solid ground out of fragile distances between people. 

Festivals: 2013 Cannes, Brussels, EFA,Zurich

About the Director: Award winning actress Valeria Golino, who received the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival with her film Storia d’amore (1986), makes her directorial debut with Honey. Honey (2013) premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

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Alleine Tanzen / Dancing Alone
22 February, Saturday at 13:00, Onar Village

Germany – 2012 – 98’ – Colour – DCP – Turkish, German

“Mother, he’s not hitting you, he loves you... he loves you beatingly. Mother, the bruises are love marks!”

“Can I ever find happiness if my parents and their parents have not already found it?”

Through a little girl’s diary entries, and some old VHS recordings, we begin to get to know a family. The director is Biene Pilavcı who, at 12 years of age, decided that the bursts of violence at home were too much to handle and had herself moved into a children’s home. Now at 33, she is aware that the pain, which remains from all that was lived yet never talked about, is too much to handle, and goes back to her family, this time  with her camera. Though Dancing Alone was screened formerly at the 5th Which Human Rights? Film Festival, we chose to screen it again – a first at !f. This is because Dancing Alone is an incredibly special piece of filmmaking; a powerful lesson in the healing powers of the courage to look pain in the eyes.

Also, this is no doubt a film that should be seen everywhere in Turkey, so it will be shown in 36 different locations, through !f2.

Festivals: 2013 Golden Orange / 2013 Duhok

About the Director: Biene Pilavcı was born in 1977 in Stuttgart. She founded a cultural center in Spain with her friends, and in 2005 she started studying at the  Deutsche Filmund Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB). Dancing Alone (2012) is her graduation film.

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Everyday Rebellion
22 February, Saturday at 15:30, Onar Village

Austria, Switzerland, Germany – 2013  – 118’ – Colour  – DCP  – Spanish, Farsi, Arabic, Russian, English

“I’m dedicating myself to the resistance because my father didn’t do enough.”

Everyday Rebellion is not just a contemporary document, but also a call for utopia.

A cross-media documentary about creative forms of non-violent protest and civil disobedience worldwide, Everyday Rebellion comes as a breath of fresh air in these pregnant times. Moving around the world with the Occupy movement in New York, The Indignados in Spain, the Arab Spring

in Egypt, the non-violent uprisings in Syria, and briefly through Taksim, this poetry of a documentary is a reminder that today’s struggles are all connected – they should be considered as one. Through interviews with the Yes Men, Femen, Srdja Popovic, John Jackson, and other passionate activists, Everyday Rebellion is a celebration of peaceful protest and the possibilities that it opens up. As a documentary, it gives voice to all those who decide not to use violence to try to change a violent system, and as a project (www.everydayrebellion.com), it is a growing network that ties many of the ideas, methods and passionate people mentioned in the film together.

Festivals: 2013 CPH:DOX, IDFA

About the Director: The Riahi Brothers were born in Iran. They immigrated to Austria with their parents as political refugees in 1983. They have written,directed and edited several award-winning documentaries and shorts. Everyday Rebellion (2013) is their first feature-length documentary together.

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Pelo Malo / Bad Hair
23 February, Sunday at 13:00, Onar Village

Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Germany – 2013 – 93’ – Colour  – DCP – Spanish

 – “Grandma, can you straighten my hair?”

– “Even better, I can turn you into a singer.”

 A kid and a mom, who are waiting for their lives to change.

9-year-old Junior lives in public housing apartments with his single mom and little sister. Junior and his mom’s lives are on a straight line that never leads anywhere. Junior’s long lasting dream is to straighten his curly hair, wear his dancing costume and become that figure in his head. His mother’s dream is to find the life she thinks she deserves, via employment bureaus. As soon as Junior’s so-called weird requests come up, his mother panics and tries to intervene in the boy’s dreams. A dramatic cold war eventually rises between the mom, who is trying to raise her boy in a way boys should be raised for them to become “proper men”, and a boy who is trying to create his own persona. Shot in minimalistic style, the film asks questions about the first awareness of being different, through the relationship between a mom and a son. Bad Hair uses the story of the little boy’s hair to depict how the dreams of Junior’s mom fail while Junior’s dream just starts to grow.

Festivals: 2013 San Sebastián Golden Seashell / 2013 Toronto, London, Torino, Thessaloniki

About the Director: Born in Venezuela, Mariana Rondón studied animation and video art in Paris, and cinema in Cuba. Her feature films include A la medianoche y media (1999), which she co-directed with Marité Ugás, Postcards From Leningrad (2007), and Bad Hair (2013)

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Gabrielle
23 February, Sunday at 15:30, Onar Village
Canada – 2013 – 104’ – Colour – DCP – French

 “At the beginning she is a child and at the end she is a woman… I wanted something very sensual, like pure love, like the first time, but a beautiful first time.”

 Most likely the sweetest, most sensual and most innocent love story of the year.

Gabrielle is a glowing 25-year-old woman with Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder marked by cognitive underdevelopment as well as gregariousness and advanced musical skills. She lives in a group home with her friends, among whom is her love, Martin. When Gabrielle and Martin want to explore their feelings for one another physically, they are faced with the restrictions of the institution they’re living in. For Martin’s mother too, physical manifestations of their love are not acceptable. As Gabrielle awakens to her intimate cravings, her journey to independence will also begin. Gabrielle moves with the sweetest of rhythms, dancing between themes of innocence, independence and sexual freedom. This dance will most likely make it the unforgettable love story of this year.

Festivals: 2013 Locarno Audience Award / 2013 Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton

About the Director: Louise Archambault studied film at Concordia University. Her first feature was Familia (2005), which premiered at Toronto Film Festival and won the Best Canadian First Feature Film award. Gabrielle (2013) is her latest film.

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Sidestreets’ first 2014 program is !f ² – the Istanbul Independent Film Festival – and the screenings will all take place from 21st to 23 February in Kyrenia at the Onar Village! (www.onarvillage.com)

The festival’s pioneering film distribution project has been connecting communities in 31 cities for 5 years.


!f ² is a ground-breaking alternative film distribution and sharing project. Organized in partnership with the quality cinema website MUBI, !f İstanbul will reach audiences in 31 cities around Turkey and in neighbouring countries. 

!f ² has partners from around Turkey as well as in Nicosia*, Gyumri, Yerevan, Jerusalem and Ramallah, who will screen five festival films simultaneously with Istanbul in their respective cities on the last three days of the festival. The system is simple: Universities, unions, women’s groups or other NGOs in these cities volunteer to be a supporting branch of !f ² and organize a screening venue. 

The online cinema website MUBI works in collaboration with !f ² to allow all partners access to five festival films with high resolution and quality. Q&A sessions with directors following the screenings are also broadcast live. Audiences in different cities thus have the opportunity to engage directly with the guest director or producer, who is in Istanbul. The vision is to connect diverse cities and communities, building bridges through the shared medium of cinema.

 

*Nicosia-based Sidestreets will be screening all the films at Onar Village, in Kyrenia.

 

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Cinema Culture series
Thursday, November 14th and 21st
Sidestreets, in collaboration with the Embassy of Sweden in Cyprus, is pleased to present, as part of its Cinema Culture series, screenings of two award-winning Swedish films. Both films are in Swedish with English subtitles.

PROGRAM:
Thursday, November 14th
The Wedding Photographer (Brollopsfotografen)
Director: Ulf Malmros 
Stars: Björn Starrin, Kjell Bergqvist, Tuva Novotny 
LANGUAGE: Swedish; SUBTITLES: English
19:30, Sidestreets Audio Visual Room

Robin is from a remote town in Sweden, Värmland. He’s a country bumpkin with a passion for leather trousers, chains and photography. Following a chance encounter with an over-the hill television personality and the closure of the local factory, Robin moves from his beloved home town to Stockholm. Having arrived in Stockholm, he is desperate to make it as a professional photographer and despite some initial setbacks and his rural background, he is commissioned to photograph an upper class wedding in Djursholm, the ritchest district in Stockholm. He promptly falls in love with the bride’s sister and is willing to change everything about himself, from his outlook on life to his hairstyle, in order to win her heart. What follows is a comical clash of cultures and class as the down-at-home Robin tries to woo the girl of his dreams.

Thursday, November 21st
Simon and the Oaks (Simon och ekarna) 
Director: Lisa Ohlin 
Stars: Bill Skarsgård, Helen Sjöholm, Jan Josef Liefers 
LANGUAGE: Swedish, German, Hebrew; SUBTITLES: English
19:30, Sidestreets Audio Visual Room

An epic drama spanning the years 1939 to 1952, this is the gripping story of Simon (Bill Skarsgaard), who grows up in a loving working class family on the outskirts of Gothenburg but always feels out of place. He finally convinces his father to send him to an upper-class grammar school, where he meets Isak, the son of a wealthy Jewish bookseller who has fled Nazi persecution in Germany. Simon is dazzled by the books, art and music he encounters in the home of Isak’s father Ruben (Jan Josef Leifers), which makes Simon long to know more about his own family background. Isak, on the other hand, draws comfort from learning to do something with his hands, helping Simon’s dad (Stefan Godicke) make boats. When Isak faces trouble at home, he is taken in by Simon’s family and the two households slowly merge, connecting in unexpected ways as war rages all over Europe.

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2013, October
Creative Art Workshops with Aslı Bolayır

Aslı Bolayır is a Turkish Cypriot artist residing both in Spain and Cyprus.

Currently the creative art workshops she is offering at Sidestreets are conducted in Turkish, but upon demand English workshops can also be arranged at other times.

 

If interested, please contact us at +(90) 392 2293070.