Benjamin Cantu - “Artists are Important Because They Have a Specific Way of Sensing Social Injustice”

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Jan 29, 2018
by Rachitaa Gupta and Nicole Bogart
Benjamin Cantu - “Artists are Important Because They Have a Specific Way of Sensing Social Injustice”

Filmmaker on how oppression translates to the art

Berlin-based filmmaker, Benjamin Cantu presented an exclusive preview of his documentary film Weil ich bin, wer ich bin / Je suis qui je suis (in English, Because of who I am) in 2015 during the session, Strengthening Communities: LGBT Rights and Social Cohesion.

During the conception of the film he worked closely with Forum Chair Klaus Mueller, who connected him with artists in Cambodia, Namibia and Morocco and shared global perspectives that artists at the Forum had raised. The film, profiling artists from regions with little visibility for LGBT individuals, found early support from members of the Forum, some of whom have since shown the film in their local communities. Here, Cantu recounts his journey following eight LGBT artists from all corners of the globe, shedding light on the important role the arts play in human rights activism.

What inspired you to profile other LGBT filmmakers, writers and artists?
I was asked to do a film connected with an exhibition that... would talk about the history of homosexual emancipation subculture and art. My film is not the historical, but the contemporary idea of what LGBT art looks like. I made the documentary film Because of who I am as a commission for a French/German broadcaster, but it soon became a very personal idea of making a film not only about a very broad subject as LGBT artists, but also about my personal relationship to my ex-boyfriend and our endeavor as filmmakers to travel to these artists.

How does art intersect with advancing LGBT human rights?
I think artists, and filmmakers, journalists, writers, are very important in the LGBT movement because they have a very specific way of sensing social, or gender injustice and injustice against LGBT [people]... There is one artist in our film who is a theatre playwright, actor, activist and director, and she really advocates for the oppressed LGBT communities, but [also] for oppressed Palestinians, oppressed women, for historically oppressed characters that she brings back to life and not have us forget them. I really think it’s important to have artists involved in activism and human rights defending because they carve out the world that we live in in a very special way so that we can understand people. And people who are not affected can understand what the world is really about, what we have to focus on.

Who are the artists portrayed in the film?
Ideally we wanted to be very broadly global about which artists we were going to film, but it soon was clear to me that the stories that need to be told are all over the world, but the artists we found happened to be from countries that also face difficult situations – not providing LGBT artists, or LGBT people any space to express themselves. So the friction between these artists from Russia, Morocco, Lebanon, South Africa and Nigeria, was more fruitful for a documentary approach, so we could not only speak about the happy life as an artist, but also how their environment creates this need, urge, political necessity to deal with the reality within their art.

What do you hope for the full release of the film?
I hope either this, or the longer version, will have a long life and we will hopefully show it at LGBT film festivals or LGBT community screenings. I really hope to get in touch with local communities. This is great to have Salzburg as a network of people who now know about this film and to hopefully become partners to show the film in small screenings abroad. I hope they fall in love with the artists we portray, as I did. I really admire these people and I really learned a lot. I hope the spark these artists have given us is transmitted in the film. I hope the names of these artists live on in the minds of the people who see it, and are eager to research and find out more about the work.