Animal, Mineral, Vegetable – Natur und Nichtmenschliches im Film - Night Colonies / Kummatty

In the organizer's words:

Introduction: James Lattimer (in German)

KUMMATTY (Govindan Aravindan, India 1979)
One day, a strange man appears in a small Indian village. Little Chindan and his friends
are afraid of him at first and call him Kummatty ("bogeyman"). However, when they realize that Kummatty
Kummatty does anything other than sit under the huge tree near the temple and sing, they develop affection
for the eccentric. Finally, the seemingly harmless eccentric sets off again - and only then do his true powers
only then do his true powers reveal themselves: as he dances through the fields singing with the children,
he transforms each of them into a different animal. Chindan turns into a dog and runs away in panic, thereby
the end of the song and the moment when his friends are transformed back into their human form.
are transformed back into their human form. How does Chindan cope with his life as a dog? And does he have to
remain a dog forever? Govindan Aravindan's enchanting children's film classic, recently restored by Martin
Scorsese's Film Foundation, is bursting with vibrant colors and breathtaking nature shots
- a fairy tale that alternates between hilarity and melancholy on its way to a happy ending.
melancholy on its way to a happy ending.
NIGHT COLONIES (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, USA/Thailand 2021)
In Apichatpong Weerasethakul's work, the non-human is often emphasized, and NIGHT COLONIES
is no exception. The hypnotic short film takes place during a storm in an enigmatically
hut in the jungle: on a bed bathed in neon light, a community of lizards gathers and hums.
lizards and buzzing insects gather on a bed bathed in neon light; human concerns recede further and further into the
the background.