Join us for a double bill, part of our series of free screenings to accompany the exhibition Things Fall Apart.

First screening

Octobre, Sissako’s second film, made while he was a student at VGIK, the Moscow film school, is about the relationship between Ira, a young Russian woman working in a hospital, and Idrissa, an African student in Moscow. The film follows both characters in their daily lives as they experience casual racism of neighbours, the vibrant musical culture of African buskers on the metro, and arbitrary encounters of everyday life.

Filmed in a semi-vérité style, the film reflects the rather despondent mood of its characters: Idrissa’s impending departure for Africa looms, and Ira decides to conceal her pregnancy from him.

Second screening

Kara Lynch’s Moscow Journal, 26min digital video, 1994/2014

Doubling over, redaction, and speculation are applied to a video meditation on race and Russia.

Produced hastily as a sample for a grant proposal, documents: a moment in time – November 1994, a place – Moscow, and an art process – capturing, wandering, searching, wandering, and being terribly lost and sometimes found. Unseen and untouched these 20 years, we follow this journey.

**Sissako’s Octobre and Kara Lynch’s Moscow Journal  are part of a series of curated film screenings that accompany Things Fall Apart, expanding on some of the themes explored in the exhibition. Read more about the film programme here.