Gavagai

Actors Maja and Nourou have an affair while shooting a modern adaptation of Medea in Senegal, but things take a dark turn after the film’s premiere. An unflinchingly complex look at racial tensions, filmmaking and power dynamics.

In Dakar, during the making of a modernist take on the Medea myth, fellow actors Maja and Nourou start an affair to ease the pressures on set and the piercing feelings of loneliness. Once the shoot is over, they meet again only for the premiere in Berlin – which turns into a disaster when the press questions the film projecting a European narrative onto a former colony. 

The word ‘gavagai’ originates from a thought experiment by philosopher and logician W.V. Quine, who suggested that translation is inextricably tied to context – without it, everything can theoretically mean everything. Berlin School outlier Ulrich Köhler (In My Room, IFFR 2019) turns this idea into an essay on our modern society in which appearance is everything and all is ruled by the laws of clickbait. Köhler refuses to give into the laziness, frustration and anger that is so prevalent in today’s media and art discourse. One of the most politically pertinent films of the year.

– Olaf Möller

Trailer

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