Great Balls of Fire - Video by Leon Grodski (USA 2002, 7 min.)

Great Balls of Fire is a documentary shot during and just after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. From the roof of his apartment building, Grodski films the collapse of the second WTC tower. On the street, he films a homeless man who proclaims his views on the events to the world with undisguised sarcasm. “Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!”

A Heart Lies Beneath - Video by Erin Cosgrove (USA 2003, 8 min.)

An animation based on Cosgrove’s romantic novel The Baader-Meinhof Affair. Its central question: What holds more power—violent love or a love of violence? An ironic reflection on terrorism as a hip and trendy fashion item and on the myth-making surrounding the Red Army Faction.

November – Video by Hito Steyerl (Germany 2004, 25 min.)

At seventeen, Hito Steyerl made a feminist fiction film about female combativeness together with a group of friends. One of them, Andrea, later joined the women’s army of the PKK, the Kurdish Workers’ Party. She took on a new identity, adopted the name Rohani, and trained and lived mainly in camps in northern Iraq. In October 1998 she died under unclear circumstances. To Steyerl’s own surprise, her disappeared friend later reappeared as a martyr on pamphlets carried at PKK demonstrations. From this personal starting point, Steyerl created a film that transcends the individual and deals with terrorism itself. It examines the gestures and postures associated with it, and how these resemble characters from popular culture, especially cinema. Using film excerpts ranging from Russ Meyer to Sergei Eisenstein and Constantin Costa-Gavras, Steyerl shows in a fascinating way how art and terrorism use, misuse, and inspire each other. Terrorists imitate the tactics of feature films, while directors consult guerrilla fighters to make their films realistic and authentic. Steyerl also explicitly addresses the personal dilemmas that political engagement can create for an artist.

Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y – Video by Johan Grimonprez (Belgium 1997, 68 min.)

A documentary inspired by Don DeLillo’s novels White Noise and Mao II, exploring the history of airplane hijackings and the way television reports on them. The film presents the most sensational hijackings—from the early passenger flights of the 1960s to the present—accompanied by original music by American composer David Shea. Anyone expecting a dull reportage is mistaken. Alongside his own footage, Grimonprez includes—often very humorous—clips from news broadcasts and reports. As the clips become more recent, they focus increasingly on the sensational aspects of hijackings. Camera attention shifts from balanced reporting to predominantly showing panicked victims, shouted warnings from crew members, and post-rescue emotions. Grimonprez aims to show that terrorist acts only achieve their purpose when they receive media attention, and that they exist solely by virtue of that media exposure.
Grimonprez on the film: “It begins with nostalgic images from the ’50s and ’60s … But as the film progresses, a very different media climate emerges … culminating in the cynical spectacle-terrorism we see on CNN. Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y is not only a history of airplane hijacking, but also of how hijackings have been represented in the media … and even of the technology of the media, from the film camera to the camcorder.”

The Seduction of Terror – Lecture by Jeroen Boomgaard

Once, terrorism seemed to offer artists an escape from the prison of autonomous art; once, the terrorist appeared to be a radical avant-gardist. But in contemporary terror, things are very different. The artist has shifted from sympathizer to target, and in this shift the mass media play a perfidious role. This lecture examines this shift in perspective more closely.

Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst – Film by Robert Stone (USA 2004, 89 min.)

Patty Hearst was kidnapped on 4 February 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). She is the granddaughter of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, one of the wealthiest and most influential men of the early twentieth century. The SLA turned to violent political action out of frustration over the lack of change after years of mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War and the American establishment. They aimed to spark a political uprising through attacks. In exchange for Patty Hearst’s release, they forced the Hearst family to distribute millions of dollars’ worth of food to the poor, resulting in chaos. Patty Hearst, however, converted to the ideals of her captors. She changed her name to Tania and joined her kidnappers in robbing a bank.
Robert Stone presents a new perspective on this bizarre and surreal affair, using new material and interviews with former SLA members.