ARMY OF LOVE
dirs. Ingo Niermann and Alexa Karolinski, 2016
40 mins. Germany.
In German with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 17 – 5:30 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 21 – 7:30 PM

OCEANO DE AMOR
dirs. Ingo Niermann and Alexa Karolinski, 2020
90 mins. Germany.
In German with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 6 – 8:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 8 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 17 – 6:30 PM

Originally created for the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, ARMY OF LOVE is a short film created by Ingo Niermann and Alexa Karolinski that premiered at The KW Institute (Germany) in 2016. Ingo Niermann is a German author and artist, and Alexa Karolinski is a German filmmaker, known for her work on the television series Unorthodox. OCEANO DE AMOR is a follow-up set on the beaches of Cuba. Both films explore the impact of alienation and how to solve it. We, the audience, are asked: what do we need beyond the redistribution of money? According to Niermann and Karolinski, it is the redistribution of love, which the films present as a remedy for loneliness. An all-encompassing, deep, and profound sense of love – that does not exist in a marketplace.

You might ask, who gets this “love?” Those who need it the most; those who society deems unlovable, due to their appearances, health status, or age. Ultimately, the directors seek to highlight the struggle between the mind and the body (i.e., how we want love but the way our body looks prevents it in society) and how such dynamics play out in contemporary economic systems and in our interpersonal relationships.