Page - 131 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

130 | Dietmar Adler and Charles Martig www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 127–131 POLITICAL DIMENSIONS The films in the competition approached the political dimension in quite differ- ent ways. While the Singapore-based story of A Land Imagined portrays the frag- ile status of migrant workers from China and Bangladesh and exposes the abyss of a desolate existence, other films are more ideologically specific. In Sibel, the authorities call the outcast Ali a “terrorist”, a designation that appears to have become customary in Turkey. He should be expelled from the territory or locked away, but Sibel enters into a relationship with him and discovers a compelling attraction. This film opens up a larger reflection on the topic of terrorism. But Sibel was not the only film in the festival program to tackle this subject. Real terrorists are the topic of the German competition entry Wintermär- chen (A Winter’s Tale, Jan Bonny, DE 2018). A trio strongly reminiscent of the right-wing terrorist group National Socialist Underground loses itself in aggres- sion against each other, sex in different constellations, and murdering sprees against migrants. But the film does not even attempt a political analysis of these phenomena and it does not offer anything that would make the characters and their actions understandable beyond a reference to the 25-year-old song “Schrei nach Liebe” by the band Die Ärzte, which is quoted at the end of the film in an acoustic version: “Your violence is just a silent cry for love.” The film was therefore the most ambivalent contribution to the competition. M – CHILD ABUSE IN THE STRICTLY ORTHODOX MILIEU OF JUDAISM Director Yolande Zauberman has found a fascinating character in Menachem Lang. In her documentary M, she accompanies the young man on his way to rec- onciliation with his parents and his Jewish community, a small group of Yiddish- speaking Haredim in Israel. Menachem has had a very difficult life. As a child, he was raped several times, and when he made these events public, he was expelled from the Haredi community in Bnei Berak near Tel Aviv. Since then he has been desperately searching for his identity and his parents’ home. The film manages to penetrate this forbidden world. Thanks to Menachem’s willingness to enter into dialogue, strictly Orthodox men open up for conver- sations in long night scenes. The further the film progresses, the deeper the abyss becomes. Several Orthodox Jews report that they were raped and are now themselves abusing children. The spiral of violence in a closed society be- comes visible. The film examines the mechanisms of abuse and violence and generates new perspectives. Menachem meets his parents and in front of the camera speaks with them for the first time in years. The careful and empathetic work of the director allows this to become a sign of reconciliation.