BALi-Kinos is located in Kassel’s former central train station. In 1995 it became part of the complex developed as the KulturBahnhof, and since 1997 it has been the home of the documenta film program. For documenta 14, BALi-Kinos transforms into an exhibition venue. During the one hundred days of the exhibition in Kassel, Grosses and Kleines BALi present a daily screening program, complemented by a display of photographic works and drawings installed in the cinema foyer. The program focuses on the work of three pioneering filmers and filmmakers whose lives and art have been determined by migration. Their work shares the embodied state of bilocation, of being in multiple places at once, split between two or more “heres.” The highly personal filmic diaries, texts, and photography of Jonas Mekas, for example, depict his time in a displaced-persons camp near Kassel between 1944 and 1949, as well as his later journeys made between the United States and his native Lithuania. A comprehensive monographic presentation of the work of David Perlov centers on his extensive chronicles that track his movement from Brazil to Israel. Manthia Diawara’s new film An Opera of the World (2017) follows the migration routes from North Africa to Europe, commenting on the disastrous migration policy of the European Union. His opus also documents a state of return and records the rehearsals of an opera staged in Bamako, Mali, the filmmaker’s birthplace.
Kleines BALi, daily
Jonas Mekas
10 am: Reminiszenzen aus Deutschland (1971/1993, edited in 2012), Germany, 25 min. German and English [German and English subtitles]
10:30 am: Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), Austria/Germany/Lithuania/ USA/Russia, 82 min. English [German and English subtitles]
1:30 pm: Lost, Lost, Lost (1976), USA, 178 min. English [German and English subtitles]
Manthia Diawara
12 pm, 4:30 pm, 6 pm: An Opera of the World (2017), Portugal/USA/Mali, 70 min. English [German subtitles]
Grosses BALi, daily
David Perlov
10 am: Old Aunt China (1957), France, 12 min. English [German subtitles]
10:15 am: Memories of the Eichmann Trial (1979), Israel, 60 min. Hebrew [English subtitles]
11:15 am: In Search of Ladino (1981), Israel, 60 min. Hebrew/Ladino [English subtitles]
12:30 pm: Yavne Street (1994), Israel, 25 min. Hebrew [English subtitles]
1 pm: Diary, part 1 (1973–77), Israel, 55 min. English [German subtitles]
2 pm: Diary, part 2 (1978–80), Israel, 55 min. English [German subtitles]
3 pm: Diary, part 3 (1981–82), Israel, 55 min. English [German subtitles]
4 pm: Diary, part 4 (1982–83), Israel, 55 min. English [German subtitles]
5 pm: Diary, part 5 (1983), Israel, 55 min. English [German subtitles]
6 pm: Diary, part 6 (1983), Israel, 55 min. English [German subtitles]
7 pm: My Stills, 1952/2002 (2003), Israel, 58 min. Hebrew and English [English subtitles]
For special screening dates and times, please check the calendar.
