REEL - UNREEL
Kabul, Afghanistan 2011
In collaboration with Julien Devaux and Ajmal Maiwandi
20:00 min.
Francis Alÿs
* 1959 Antwerp, Belgium. Lives in Mexico City, Mexico.
Produced in Afghanistan for dOCUMENTA (13), Alÿs' film REEL - UNREEL (2011) derives from his interest in children's street games, such as the art of rolling a wheel with a stick, which he witnessed in Bamiyan and Kabul. The title alludes to the real/unreal image of Afghanistan conveyed by the media in the West: how the Afghan way of life, along with ist people, has gradually been dehumanized and after decades of war, turned into a Western fiction. Yet "real" turns into "reel" since the object beeing rolled around the undulating streets of Kabul's old town is a reel of film.
(From the Guidebook of Documenta 13)
REEL - UNREEL
the complete video on the website of Francis Alÿs
On 19 June 2012, the video has been projected onto a screen mounted in the ruins of the avant-garde cinema Behzad in Kabul, hermetically sealed off by armed security forces.