De Facto recommends

On October 8, De Facto will seek to create space between the lines that are drawn between Palestine and Israel. Jareach Gilula plays Arabic and Israeli music on her harp, seeking to emphasize what these groups share — even though this is becoming increasingly challenging. Furthermore, we will zoom in on the conflict between India and Pakistan, which recently flared up again. We will talk about this with Aletta André, former India correspondent. And: the story of Nutopia. Join us in MIMIK (Deventer).

The dominant narrative insists that borders keep us safe. But from what, and from whom? What if borders are systems of power designed to divide, to dominate, to decide who gets to move, who gets to stay, and who is left behind? Film, talks, music and poetry on 20 June in Amsterdam.

What if we could dream beyond borders, beyond displacement, beyond extraction? A powerful one-day experience of collective imagination, embodied storytelling, and radical futurism led by displaced communities. Part of Refugee Welcome Week in Amsterdam.

The Anarchist Citizenship: People Made of Stories exhibition, from 27 October 2024 to 26 January 2025 at Framer Framed, examines how storytelling, visual culture, architecture and social life (re)shape citizenship in Somaliland, the Somali region and its diaspora.

Overwhelmed by the vast offerings at The International Film Festival Amsterdam? Let yourself be guided by the IDFA Pathways. De Facto especially recommends ‘Palestine’, ‘The Law of the Land’ and ‘Life in Europe’. See you there?

Yasha, who used to be a devoted Soviet worker, is struggling to adapt to reality after the Soviet Union’s collapse - he prefers to continue his life in a state that no longer exists. Edgar Baghdasaryan’s tragicomedy Yasha & Leonid Brezhnev will be Armenia’s submission for the upcoming Oscars’ Best International Feature Film.

The exhibition ‘Mir is Mirë’ (‘mir’ meaning peace in Serbian; ‘mirë’ meaning good in Albanian) opened in Serbia and Kosovo last week. Young artists from Serbia and Kosovo showcase their work on the themes of conflict and peace, wartime trauma, national identity and cultural resilience. The event encourages visitors to look beyond nationalist biases and political division. It takes place in the wake of the Serbian-Kosovar ‘Mirëdita, Dobar Dan!’ cultural festival, which was abruptly cancelled by the Serbian authorities last June.

It has been more than 30 years since fighting broke out between Georgia and Abkhazia. Some of those whom the conflict displaced found refuge in a former Georgian sanatorium: the Hotel Metalurg. Now, they’re under pressure to leave again. Watch the documentary here.

raising flags is an ongoing project by museum in progress that has been realized at various locations since 2023, including virtual exhibition spaces online and media spaces in newspapers and magazines. Numerous artists participated and made flags, commenting on questions of social coexistence in challenging times.

Over the past decade, our increasing and often conflicting claims on space have made disputes more intense and more urgent, widening the gap between the haves and de have-nots. This weekend, the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (NL) highlights the theme of Contested Space.

Since 2012 German artist Valeska Peschke has been developing the long-term project ‘Amikejo’ (place of friendship in Esperanto). Under this name, Neutral Moresnet was proclaimed as an Esperanto republic in 1907. Valeska Peschke took up this fleeting utopia as a vision for Europe.

At the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST) the international group show Statecraft is still on show till October 30. The exhibition explores the underlying mechanisms at work in the engineering of the nation-state and the challenges it faces in today’s globalized, networked world. Curated by Katerina Gregos.