Kismet

We watch yet another dream
– at first sight more appealing but underneath no less essential and
bloody – in the short film Kismet (2003) by a young artist Shelbatra
Jashari. Kismet captivates and lulls into pleasure with its dreamy visual
image (expressive black and white images, filmed on a 8mm reel, running
and overlaying; in the rustle of often indefinite forms, there are
distinctive motifs of female body and face) that reads like a successful
compliment to the legendary Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren
(1943). But there, in the world of intoxicating and irrational sequence
of beautiful images where Maya Deren sixty years ago paranoically
searched for (only) her own identity, Shelbatra Jashari today looks for
the identity of an entire generation. The generation of young girls from the East who dream of revolution. Namely, if watching
the film attentively, one in the darker and more abstract
pictures soon recognises the images of (predominantly)
religious violence and war which irrevocably gives the
dreams – the same as it was the case with Mania Akbari
– the status of a nightmare. A nightmare that is ‘dreamt’
with our eyes open.

Organisation: City of Women
In collaboration with: Kinodvor