Auguste Orts
Newsletter #17, an Evening with Auguste Orts #9: THE PEOPLE'S CINEMA PRESENTS THE CELL
Thursday February 04, 20.30, Beursschouwburg, Brussels (BE)
Talk & screening. Admission free
Katerina Gregos (GR) is a Brussels-based independent curator and writer, and founder/director of The People's Cinema.
During 2006 and 2007, she was the artistic director of Argos, the Centre for Art and Media in Brussels. From 1997 to 2003, she was the director
of the Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art in Athens. She regularly publishes on art and artists in magazines, books and exhibition
catalogues. Recently, she curated Contour 2009. Her recent initiative The People's Cinema (est. 2009) is a flexible, mobile presentation
platform devoted to work by contemporary artists working with the moving image, including all kinds of film, video and screen-based practices.
The People's Cinema will focus on recent work, new productions or work that has not previously been seen in Belgium or other countries where
it operates, functioning as a barometer for all that is cutting edge in artists' film and video and highlighting new developments in the moving image.
At the invitation of
Auguste Orts, The People's Cinema presents Angela Melitopoulos' film 'The Cell' (2008, 120') which consists of three interviews with the political
philosopher Toni Negri (author of the international bestseller 'Empire'; co-authored with Michael Hardt, 2000) over a period of time, each of which
are interconnected with one another.The first two interviews where held in the last days of Negri's Parisian exile (1997) and in the prison of
Rebibbia (1998) after his voluntary return to Italy facing a long-term sentence on controversial charges of 'association and insurrection against the
state'. The third interview takes place in Rome (2003) where the philosopher reflects his experience after being released. Melitopoulos' film offers
a non-chronological documentation revealing Negri's acute political thought, memories of incarceration, and his rich philosophical and world views.
His report on his life as a prisoner describes new forms of control in the penal system, the psyche and mentality of prisoners, and forms of resistance
with which he was able to retain 'the freedom of his spirit'
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