Europe Endless: Event Two Infinite Histories
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
Europe Endless — a trilogy.
Three films. Three days. Eight years in the making. Three generations of the left. A project about friendship, cinema, travel, television, books, and the concept of culture as political mobilisation. About what Europe was, what it lost, and what it will/could/might still become.
Christopher Roth, 2025
Produced by Colin MacCabe and Adam Bartos
The Derek Jarman Lab
EVENT TWO
Europe Endless (EE02): Infinite Histories, 90 minutes
Synopsis
Four people who were there when the Wall came down: a Romanian architect, an Albanian philosopher, a 92-year-old Croatian science fiction theorist, and the composer of the Three Colours trilogy. A film about 1989–91 — the end of the communist Eastern bloc, 'the end of history'.
Director's Statement
The second film starts with footage of Eurocommunist Enrico Berlinguer's funeral in Rome, 1984. Over a million people attended. Marcello Mastroianni was there. Antonioni, Fellini, Rosi. And Mikhail Gorbachev — who a few years later would change the world.
This film is about 1989–91. Romania, Albania, Poland, Yugoslavia, divided Germany, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Four people who were there: Oana Bogdan, a Romanian architect living in Brussels, former Secretary of State in Bucharest and advisor to the EU. Oana was 12 when Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed live on TV. The same goes for Lea Ypi — she was 12 when Enver Hoxha died in Albania and civil war broke out. Lea is today a philosopher in London; her memoir Freedom was a bestseller. Darko Suvin, was born in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and already in the communist party in 1948. Darko lives in Italy. And Zbigniew Preisner, composer of the Three Colours trilogy (Blue is about "a Song for the Unity of Europe"), who stayed in Poland. Liberty, equality, fraternity.
Talk
Bartek Dziadosz is the cinematographer of the London and Kraków parts of Europe Endless and director of the Derek Jarman Lab. A filmmaker from Poland based in London, he interviewed Zbigniew Preisner. Lee Grievson is a film historian and Professor at University College London, specialising in cinema and politics.
Oana Bogdan will join by video call. Zbigniew Preisner confirmed. Lea Ypi's participation is to be confirmed.
Lee Grievson moderates. Bartek Dziadosz is present in person.
Contact name: Matthew Barrington
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