“Full of nuance, horror and joy and far from the black and white fair that one has become accustomed to […] More than just a passion project, but clearly full of love and passion…” – Dove Sussman
“Saragosa draws circles in history, recognizes the past in the present.” – Marit Östberg
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Learning to Milk a Cow, 64 minutes, 2016, Juli Saragosa
When the filmmaker’s grandmother was 19, she was taken from Soviet Ukraine to Germany to work on a Bavarian farm under National Socialism. She had the luck and perseverance to survive hardships of the forced famine in her homeland and forced labour in the new one. The stories of her everyday life – learning how to milk a cow, falling in love – are interspersed with three generations of reflections on politics, longing, feelings of displacement and loss.
Hand-processed black & white film, colour film, photographs and official documents create a montage of different perspectives. The hand-touch aesthetic combines with the acousmatic effect of disembodied voices, in this deeply intimate portrait obscured by memory loss, mis-translation, fear and trauma.
Bio of filmmaker:
Growing up in an immigrant family, encouraged to try everything and the economic necessity to use what’s at hand (like a home photography darkroom) Juli became an artistic experimenter. Juli’s short films have shown at festivals worldwide. In 2005 Amoré won Best Canadian Film at Toronto’s 1-minute Film Festival and in 2011 the Jury Prize for Experimental Film at the Toronto Urban Film Festival. Juli enjoys working collectively and with dedication to community through collective projects like the entzaubert queer DIY film festival.
Screenings:
08.12.2019 Grandmother Film Festival, Berlin, Germany
13.09.2019 Filmclub Moderne Zeiten, Hamburg, Germany
03.07.2019 Bildungswerk der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
25.11.2018 Grandmother Film Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands
25.02.2018 Ausland, Berlin, Germany
28.11.2017 Altes Finanzamt, Berlin, Germany
07.10.2017 Baikal International Documentary Film Festival, Irkutsk, Russia
09.09.2017 Chouftouhonna, Tunis International Feminist Art Festival, Tunisia
22.03.2017 Cineding, presented by Gedenkstätte für Zwangsarbeit, Leipzig, Germany
30.11.2016 xart splitta Filmreihe, Berlin, Germany
Distribution:
Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Video Out Distribution
Collections:
Topographie des Terrors / NS Zwangsarbeit Dokumentationszentrum Berlin
IMDB Page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6605462
Interview by Anli Serfontein on Medium.com
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
List of images used in the film from the public domain.