Nii Kwate Owoo: You Hide Me / Petna Ndaliko Katolondo: Matata | Spätschicht x Ligia Lewis

In the organizer's words:

The two short films by Petna Ndaliko Katolondo and Nii Kwate Owoo deal with colonial violence and its effects in the present.

The November edition of Spätschicht is co-curated by artist and choreographer Ligia Lewis. In her films and performances, she addresses narratives about race, gender and violence that are inscribed in bodies across generations.

In this context, Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art presents two short films from her archive: For You Hide Me (1970), filmmaker Nii Kwate Owoo gained access to the underground vaults of London's British Museum, where he filmed the valuable African artifacts stored there. Almost 40 years later, Congolese filmmaker Petna Ndaliko shot Katondolo Matata (2019). A photo shoot in which a model recreates a photograph taken during the brutal reign of King Leopold II in the Congo takes an unexpected turn. Told through dance, rhythm, color and movement lead the film away from stereotypical depictions of Africa and towards a new future.

The exhibition Ligia Lewis: I'M NOT HERE FORRRRRR... can be seen at the Gropius Bau until January 18, 2026.

Films

• Nii Kwate Owoo: You Hide Me, Ghana 1970 (English OF, 17 min.)
• Petna Ndaliko Katondolo: Matata, Democratic Republic of Congo, USA, Netherlands 2019 (without dialog, 37 min.)

The Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art is a research and education center, archive, distributor, festival and cinema all in one. With its move from Potsdamer Platz to the silent green Kulturquartier, Arsenal will not have its own movie theater until the new cinema is completed in early 2026. As part of Arsenal on Location, film programs are created in collaboration with numerous cultural institutions in Berlin, throughout Germany and internationally.

Petna Ndaliko Katondolo, born 1974 in Goma, Congo, is a filmmaker, activist and lecturer. His cross-genre works are known for their decolonial Afrofuturist style, combining historical content with contemporary socio-political and cultural issues. He is the founder of the Congo International Film Festival and Yole!Africa, a center for art, education and social innovation in eastern Congo. He is also currently a visiting scholar at the Stone Center for Black History and Culture at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA.

Nii Kwate Owoo was born and raised in Ghana. He has been producing and directing films since the early 1970s. After graduating from the London Film School, he founded the first independent African film production company (Ifriqiyah Films) in the UK. He was editor-in-chief of the magazine Écrans d'Afrique and is committed to pan-African cinema. He was co-producer and director of the documentary Ouaga - African Cinema Now (1988) and the feature film Ama: An African Voyage of Discovery (1991). He is currently working on the docu-drama series The Asante Kingdom of Gold.

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