On Translation: Miedo/Jauf

2007, 53:54 min, color, sound

On Translation: Miedo/Jauf is part of Muntadas' ongoing series On Translation, which was begun in 1995 and now includes over 40 projects that explore the idea of translation in the context of economic, cultural and political realities. In On Translation: Miedo/Jauf, produced in collaboration with Centro Jose Guerrero in Madrid, Spain, Muntadas brings together interviews, archival images, and film excerpts to explore notions of fear, borders, and difference, as refracted through the lens of European and African perceptions.

Writes Muntadas, ?On Translation: Miedo/Jauf is not a work on African/European emigration/immigration. Nor is it a work on religion or on terrorism. Two different realities separated not by the sea but by border fences and boundaries on both sides. The search for the north, with its man-made paradises that for many remain lost; fear as an emotion/sensation inserted in the decision of crossing. The construction of the south as a fiction/reality linked to phenomena of the unknown, exoticism and difference. The attraction between two different realities in which information circulates from person to person via the media and through stereotypes. An attempt to perceive and understand hope in a continent ?forgotten? by the Western world; Africa as a hope for the future. Teamwork and a choral interpretation.?