Program 15
On love in the nation state
Thursday, January 23, 2014, 7 p.m.
„Die 727 Tage ohne Karamo“
D: Anja Salomonowitz, Ö 2013, 80 min, D
The possibility of love depends on national laws. Die 727 Tage ohne Karamo is a film about these laws that can sanction ways of living, or also destroy them. Director Anja Salomonowitz makes visible the state’s bio-power structures by portraying twenty couples whose private lives have been subjected to intervention by Austrian immigration laws because in each case, one of the partners is not from Europe. The couples move beyond linguistic, territorial, and social restrictions and fight for love without borders.
Step-by-step, the film shows the Kafkaesque relay race that the lovers are forced to withstand—which often enough signifies a performance test for the relationship. A sudden deportation can end the couples’ lives together at any time. Couples, whose relationships have held up against enormous emotional and financial burdens hope that they can live together permanently, or at least see each other again—like Susanne, who has waited 727 days for her husband and the father of her children to be allowed to re-enter the country.
Talk with Catherine Aubert Barry (IG Binational) and Natalie Deewan (protagonist)