Samir Hamdard « We Want Justice ! »
Afghans sans-papiers spokesperson Samir Hamdard (Ahmad Samir Hamdard) demanding justice…regularization of the belgian afghan refugees with no papers… the ‘sans-papier’…20 nov 2013 on the arrival of the silent solidarity march for afghan refugees in front of the Belgian Federal Public Service for Justice (FPS Justice) building at the Boulevard de Waterloo in the City of Brussels, Belgium.
Film (20191115) ~ Samir Hamdard « We Want Justice ! » by Michel van der Burg – michelvanderburg.com | miracles.media
Host Country Belgium – PaulusRundbrief Nº495
When you drive from the Flemish countryside to the city of Brussels, you are greeted at the city limits by posters that welcome you in four languages – that inspired the title for this Paulus Newsletter’s theme: La Belgique – Pays d’Accueil ! … Belgium has always been a destination for the politically persecuted …
Refuge Atelier Marcel Hastir
In this newsletter ‘Zufluchtsort Atelier’ (Refuge Atelier) by Susanne Fexer on the atelier of Marcel Hastir in Brussels, Belgium, where he helped save the lives of countless people during the Nazi terror.
Credits | Links
Text based on quotes (translated) from the Editorial by Annick Dohet-Gremminger in the bimonthly Paulus newsletter (PaulusRundbrief N°495) of the Katholische Gemeinde Deutscher Sprache Brüssel Sankt Paulus – the Catholic Community German Language Brussels St. Paulus.
PaulusRundbrief N°495 is available digital from the archive at the Sankt Paulus site – http://www.sankt-paulus.eu
Film : Refuge Atelier Marcel Hastir – Paulus Newsletter (20191004) Michel van der Burg | miracles.media
Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild – JR: Chronicles in Brooklyn Museum
Excited to announce the screening of our short documentary film ‘Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild’ starting the night of October 3rd, 2019 in the Brooklyn Museum in New York at the special exhibition JR: Chronicles – a major show that surveys the complete body of work of the artist JR for the first time in North America.
Best of INSIDE OUT – Justice For Afghan Refugees In Belgium
One of JR’s major projects is the global participatory art project INSIDE OUT, and the film ‘Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild’ documents one of the Inside Out projects ‘Justice For Afghan Refugees In Belgium’ – that was chosen as one of the favorite Inside Out Group Actions.
Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition
Visiting the Brooklyn Museum in New York, it was exciting to see the JR: Chronicles and our film at the museum’s impressive video wall. However, we noticed the original Vimeo film version (20160620) was screening at the museum’s video wall, not the museum edition* we had prepared (with title and endscreen updates). A minor mistake but also an opportunity we got for another update in a new edition, called the : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition (20200205).
This new edition is archived in JR’s project INSIDE OUT, and is being forwarded to the Brooklyn Museum to hopefully soon allow replacing the current version – running for another three months…untill May 3, 2020 .
Beguinage Project
In March 2014 Kristen Cattell (USA) and Michel van der Burg (Holland) traveled to Brussels to meet a group of Afghans living inside an old Catholic church – the church of Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage (Beguinage Church). At the time, nearly one hundred Afghan refugees had set up camp within the walls of the seventeenth century compound. We made a reportage over several days and interviewed several people including Samir Hamdard – the spokesperson for these afghan refugees – who died recently following a house fire.
In between these interviews, Michel visited the artist Olivier Bonny in the nearby artist village Ateliers Mommen in Saint-Josse (Brussels) and filmed the InsideOut installation outside on the facade of the Mommen building – portraits of Afghans living in the Beguinage church.
Sans frontières ! Borderless ! Zonder Grenzen !
That InsideOut project was inaugurated a few days earlier at the Borderless ! festival in the Ateliers Mommen – a festival of 4 days of solidarity with Afghan asylum seekers , March 2014 in Salon Mommen, Saint-Josse, Brussels, Belgium.
CREDITS
JR’s project INSIDE OUT
JR: Chronicles | Brooklyn Museum | October 4, 2019 – May 3, 2020
Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild
Afghan refugees living in the Brussels Béguinage church with posters by Chiara Ravano for the Inside Out project
“Justice for Afghan refugees in Belgium” – Olivier Bonny, Salon Mommen, Brussels, Belgium, March 2014.
Félix Snyers on the Béguinage church pipe organ. A Beguinage Project report by Kristen Cattell & Michel van der Burg.
Film : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition (20200205) Michel van der Burg | miracles.media
Links
*) Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild – 2019 Brooklyn Museum edition (20190911). Posted online October 3, 2019. From Feb. 5, 2020 status has been changed to ‘private; at Vimeo and Youtube.
Replaced Feb. 5, 2020 by film : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR_ Chronicles Edition (20200205) . Online at YouTube
Oct 4, 2019 – Added News section with JR’s opening tweet
Oct 6, 2019 – Added Beguinage Project section and updated credits section
Feb 5, 2020 – Post edited , with news on our museum visit, and the new film edition shared : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR_ Chronicles Edition (20200205)
Tea is served in one of the tents of the Afghan refugees camp inside the Béguinage church in Brussels – April 2014 More about the Beguinage Project here http://bit.ly/1HZguvY
20190827 ~ Tea in Afghan Refugees Camp Tent in Brussels Church ~ Michel van der Burg – michelvanderburg.com | miracles.media
Cinema propaganda newsreel (Polygoon) September 1940 on a rush for portrait photos needed for the ‘Persoonsbewijs’ , the ID card.
After the German invasion in 1940 the Dutch aged 15 and older were required to carry identity cards (called ‘persoonsbewijs’). This later led to the death of many people.
Polygoons Hollands Nieuws newsreel courtesy of Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Open Images).
① memo 20190825 ~ Nobody No Longer Nobody – ID Card Propaganda 1940
Sjabbos | Friday Night (1932) avant garde film documentary made by dutch filmmaker Jan Teunissen (G.J. Teunissen) on the Amsterdam Jewish Quarter when sabbath starts.
It’s the first film presented by the dutch jewish film producer Loet C. Barnstijn – and as and artistic documentary , different from his later films. Sound by Polygoon Haarlem and Tobis-Klangfilm, Studios Éclair Paris-Èpinay-sur-Seine.
Pre-war Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter at the start of the shabbat: street life with shops and market, the Zuidertoren tower strikes 4 o’clock and the sabbath starts. The shops are closing, businesses are being shut down, employees are rushing home.
While the women at home put the finishing touches to the meal, carefully set the table and light the candles, the men hurry to the synagogue. Chazan Blanes enters the Snoge (Portuguese Synagogue) through the side gate, cantor Maroko greets the shabbat in the Grote Synagoge (Great Synagogue).
Jan Teunissen joined the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands in 1940, benefactor member of the dutch SS in 1941 and head of the Filmgilde – the film section of the dutch ‘Kultuurkamer’ – the NS propaganda organisation in Holland during WW2.
Fragments of this film where used in 1941 in the dutch version of the Nazi antisemitic propaganda film “The eternal Jew”.
After the war Jan Teunissen was detained 3 years and subsequently prohibited from working in the Dutch film industry for ten years.
① memo 20190815 ~ Mokum Market ~ Amsterdam Jewish Quarter 1931 ~ New version of yesterday’s (20190814) film – slowed to 75%*. Sunday outdoor market in the ‘Nieuwe Uylenburgerstraat’ street in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam (Mokum). Dutch Polygoon cinema newsreel 25 January 1931. The market on the Uilenburgerstraat specialized in second-hand goods fish, and other food products, including the ever-popular ‘Jewish pickles’. The Depression in the 1930s led to unemployment in many trades, including the diamond industry, where many Jews had worked. As a consequence, the number of market vendors and peddlers increased in the 1930s. In September 1941 the Nazis prohibited Jews from trading at public markets. Special markets where only Jews were allowed to trade opened nearby. Very few Jewish market and street vendors survived the war. The Uilenburgerstraat market never reopened (info source https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/671/jewish-market-and-street-vendors-in-amsterdam ). Footage thanks to Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Open Images).
* Note – Yesterday’s film (Mokum Market version 20190814) seems sped up – probably because of a wrong play speed when scanned for digitalisation). Thus , I post this new version today, sloweddown to 75% speed at play back – based subjectively on how motion of people looks , and based on other writings that silent films are often distributed with instructions for the projectionist to be run at 18fps , rather then the modern 24 frames per second – thus requiring a 18/24 = 75% fps.
