2008

After Hiroshima Mon Amour is a 22-minute video/film/projection that looks - partly through the lens of the celebrated 1959 film Hiroshima Mon Amour, directed by Alain Resnais and written by Marguerite Duras - at sites of American incursion and neglect -- Iraq and New Orleans. After Hiroshima Mon Amour recuts Hiroshima mon Amour and layers various visual and aural strategies to analyze past and present instances of violence and trauma, and the interconnections of eroticism, violence, and national vested interests.  The allegorical couple of the 1959 film is re-played in AHMA by ten actors who blur the categories of ethnicity, race, and gender that often rationalize the violence imposed by one country on others. AHMA includes scenes in black and white faithfully recreated from the original film, contemporary material downloaded from the internet, and a remix of the score and sound design of the original film.

After Hiroshima Mon Amour can now be viewed at ortvi.art.

Direction: Silvia Kolbowski

Actors: Nuria Carapetian, Scott Cunningham, Sanjit De Silva, Tiffany Needham, Roslyn Ruff, Grace Savage, Sarah Tadloui, Dominik Tiefenthaler, Anar Vilas, Lana Yoo.
Music/Sound designer/Video editors: Silvia Kolbowski/ Maxim Kolbowski-Frampton
Photographic production/ Lighting: Jeff Barnett-Winsby
Videography: Michael Crane, Erl Kimmich
Sound recording: James N Kienitz Wilkins
Sound engineering: Leslie Lavelanet

Video/16 mm b+w film; 22:14)

At left is a short excerpt of the video.

Please note that pacing is for a large projection.

See related photo project.

A 2020 Zoom screening and discussion about AHMA can be found here:

See installation at La><art

More on this project can be found in Between Artists, Silvia Kolbowski Walid Raad (See Publications)