Despite constant movement, networking, exchange and an abundance of information, we rarely come into contact with the completely unknown, the unexpected – the other. Personalised newsfeeds reinforce our perceptions of ourselves in the world, nourish our feelings and experiences, confirm our position among our peers. In the context of an increasingly globalized society, ever more emphasis is placed on the uniqueness of a person’s identity. At the same time, the call for social and national boundaries and exclusion is becoming louder. To avoiding losing the ground beneath our feet we remain in familiar territory, eluding contact with situations that we cannot categorise, that throw us off balance, demand we step into the unknown or potentially force us to confront ourselves (our insecurities or ineptitudes). We lose sight of the Other in our universal connectedness. The current global pandemic, however, reveals how physically interdependent we all are.

Against this background, the FF #10 strives to give space to works that facilitate encounters with the Other and to revive the function that in this sense can be attributed to the documentary media of photography and film. The ambivalence of these media, suggesting closeness while generating alienation, is probed as are its limitations. Manners of viewing the Other are explored that contrast with the “gaze” of media, social and governmental systems.

The invited photographers and filmmakers present their visions, observations or studies of a specific place, everyday practices or life. They question their own motivation and make the collision, the boundary, the approximation and permeability between “I” and the Other visible or palpable. With eight group exhibitions the festival examines the wide range of perspectives between proximity and distance, establishing contact and overstepping boundaries, self-confirmation and confrontation with the Other.

Curators: Stephanie Kiwitt, Tereza Rudolf, Anna Voswinckel