PROBLEMA

Who are we in the 21st Century?

A cinematic interpretation of the world’s largest round table gathering, PROBLEMA is a visually imaginative, thought-provoking invitation to a world of global dilemmas. Spanning seventeen questions confronting who we are and where we’re going, the film follows the insights, perceptions, reflections and views of over 100 people from more than 50 nations sat together in one circle.

A human dialogue around the world’s largest table.

An unprecedented philosophical art cinema experience, PROBLEMA is a film that looks at you as you watch it, that speaks to you in a multilingual mantra made of the voices of over 100 people from all around the world. Distilled from over 1,000 hours of footage and embedded with imagery from our collective cultural memory, the film is a not-for-profit production to be shared freely with audiences worldwide. Concerning seventeen questions for homo sapiens (the ‘wise human’), PROBLEMA asks you to ask yourself…

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Questions 

What is today’s most important unreported story?

— Anonymous, USA

Question 

Should we have the right to choose where we live?

— Judy Twedt, 24, Denver, USA

Question 

What are the basic dignities that each human being deserves and why do we let so many people go without them?

— Claire Mackintosh, 25, Brisbane, Australia

Question 

What if all Chinese people want a car?

— Andrew, 22, Frankfurt, Germany

Question 

How does consumer culture actually influence the personalities, the ways people live, the way they think within a given culture? How does it become part of us and what does it mean to be able to resist that visual and verbal culture that seems to me is always reducing and simplifying reality into something that can be easily bought and sold?

— Siri Hustvedt, New York, USA

Question 

Does our wealth depend on the Third World being poor?

— Tom Henze, 30, Berlin, Germany

Question 

Is there a modern version of colonialism?

— Adrienn Meszaros, 30, Budapest, Hungary

Question 

Why do we still believe more in nationality than in humanity?

— Katharina, 24, Germany

Question 

How do we stop our governments from going to war?

— Glen, Capetown, South Africa

Question 

Why is there no peace in the Middle East yet?

— Moise Marabout, 23, Agades, Niger

Question 

Why is an Iranian nuclear bomb supposed to be more dangerous than an American, Israeli or French?

— Wolfgang Jost, 23, Berlin, Germany

Question 

Between non-violent resistance and armed struggle where do we go? What is effective? What is the right thing to do? Do we need a biodiversity of resistance?

— Arundhati Roy, New Delhi, India

Question 

What does courage mean now?

— Sara Francis, 35, Dublin, Ireland

Question 

What can I do, and tell others to do, to stop global warming?

— Nancy Clemons, 57, Cameron, Missouri, USA

Question 

Can a person be perceptive enough to see our planet in a way that tells them that they too are part of nature?

— Anonymous, USA

Question 

What is God’s religion?

— Miraj Khaled, 30, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Question

What are the myths that we need to create to change the world for the better?

— Kieth Dierkx, 48, Piedmont, California, USA*

A not-for-profit production, PROBLEMA is freely available to watch and to download via this website. If you’d like to support the film, we encourage you to host a screening, to sign our guestbook or to consider making a micro-donation to help further its human connection.

‘problema’ from Latin problema (genitive problematis) ‘problem’, ‘puzzle’, ‘enigma’, ‘question proposed for solution’, from Ancient Greek πρόβλημα (problema, ‘obstacle’), from προβάλλω (proballo, ‘to throw or lay something in front of someone’, ‘to put forward’), from prefix προ- (pro-, ‘in front of’) + βάλλω (ballo, ‘to throw’, ‘to cast’, ‘to hurl’).

RIFERIMENTO IN RETE:

http://www.problema-thefilm.org/#content-top

TITLE: ‘PROBLEMA’
DURATION: 95 minutes
LOCATION: Bebelplatz, Berlin, Germany
LANGUAGES: English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Danish, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Bantu.
EUROPEAN PREMIERE: Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (September 2, 2010)
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE: 46th International Chicago Film Festival (October 16, 2010)
SOUTH AMERICAN PREMIERE: Mostra — São Paolo International Film Festival (October 24, 2010)
WORLD RELEASE: December 6, 2010 @www.problema-thefilm.org

For all publicity inquiries, please contact:
BUREAU N Silke Neumann, Moritz Estermann
+49/30-3087-4085
silke.neumann@bureau-n.de | moritz.estermann@bureau-n.de