Press reviews for „Terra Mater – Mother Land“ by Kantarama Gahigiri.
„Die vitalsten Werke konstatieren das Elend nicht nur, sie schlagen daraus Funken. So in „Terra Mater“ aus Ruanda, mit dem der Verwüstung Afrikas durch unseren Schrott der Triumph einer zornigen Göttin entgegenstellt wird.“
review by Claus Löser for Berliner Zeitung
„The hulking form of a great landfill dominates the screen for much of Kantarama Gahigiri’s new film Terra Mater – Mother Land, which received its world premiere as part of the Berlinale Shorts competition. It’s a ten-minute marvel that combines sobering documentary, hypnotic beats, Afrofuturist aesthetics, ornamental tableaux, and a pointed message to a world that has ignored the ecological bearing on the African continent scoured for its resources. Gahigiri’s film may not hang its message on a recognisable linear narrative, but, if anything, its experimental edge lends the story it is telling greater sophistication and undeniable power. In its earliest moments, Terra Mater appears to take the form of a landscape film – static shots capture the undulating shapes of hills, valleys, and paths, but they are those of a colossal junkyard. Gahigiri toys with the way that the grandeur of African landscapes is so familiar to audiences but replaces its very structures with the heaped detritus of the technology industry indifferent to the damage it causes. The vista is populated by scavengers who in some moments chant, whisper, and sing the names of precious minerals that they search for in the wreckage, while at other points they stand in stylishly composed arrangements alongside the marabou storks that have famously colonised such vast African dumps.“
review by Ben Nicholson for The Film Verdict
„This short film is an appeal for the world to take responsibility for the capitalism and colonialism that has caused much environmental destruction in Africa. In the trailer, birds and people can be seen standing amongst piles of rubbish and plastic, highlighting the extent of the problem.“
review by Emily Nicholas for Luxiders Magazine
„Elsewhere Rwandan/Swiss production Terra Mater (Kantarama Gahigiri, 2023) is raw, angry and impassioned, featuring excellent music and a cyberpunk Afrofuturist style, recalling a sharper and more succinct version of Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s sci-fi African feature-length musical Neptune Frost (2021). „
review by Fedor Tot for journeyintocinema.com
„Terra Mater – Mother Land by Kantarama Gahigiri (Rwanda/Switzerland) is a surrealistic and angry riposte against colonisation and appropriation.“
review by Laurence Boyce for cineuropa.org
„Aus bedrückend authentischen Aufnahmen ökologischer Verwüstung und menschlicher Ausbeutung erstellt Kantarama Gahigiri eine apokalyptische Allegorie der katastrophalen Konsequenzen der Plünderung von Bodenschätzen, die das Konzept einer postkolonialen Welt als Märchen enthüllt. Der Zivilisationsmüll, der sich in Form bizarrer Berge aus Abfall und Schutt türmt, wird zum sinnbildlichen Fundament der auf Rassismus, Kolonialismus und Kapitalismus basierten Strukturen historischer Ausbeutung, die bis heute unverändert fortbestehen. Es sind filmische Stimmen wie diese, die dem Festival zu lange fehlten.“
review by Lida Bach for moviebreak.de
„Einprägender sind die Bilder von TERRA MATER – MOTHER LAND, die zwar ebenso lose strukturiert, aber deutlich kraftstrotzender in Szene gesetzt sind. Aufnahmen von einer Landschaft aus Müll, von Bergzyklen aus Schrott und Menschen, die in Überresten aus Metall, Plastik und Stoff gekleidet sind, gestalten die Bildebene Kantarama Gahigiris aktuellsten Kurzfilms. Zudem stößt ein emotional aufgeladenes und mit Forderungen besticktes Voice-Over. In zehn Minuten liegen Appell und künstlerische Installation eng beieinander, während der Earth Spirit Transhumanismus, Ausbeutung und Neo-Kolonialismus anprangert.“
review by Paul Seidel for Riecks Filmkritiken
„An amplification of reality by artistic means also occurs in Terra Mater – Mother Land by Kantarama Gahigiri. This fierce poem places its afro-futuristic heroines on the endless piles of rubbish that are dumped in Africa and allows them to raise their voices, loud and proud, to denounce a global population that must finally take responsibility for the effects of colonialism, waste of resources, and environmental destruction.“
interview with Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck for the Berlinale website
Berlinale Shorts 