Cause of Death

crush, beat, drown, hang, burn. Femicide. "Starting point for Cause of Death: Looking at the way in which images of women were marginalised historically in the archive or how they were depicted.” (Jyoti Mistry, shortsblog.berlinale.de). The file card of an anonymous autopsy report documents violent attacks as the "cause of death". Jyoti Mistry constructs five miniature vignettes to the rhythm of evocative spoken word poetry by Napo Masheane, accompanied by an extremely incompatible collection of archival bits and pieces from the EYE-Filmmuseum –­ ethnographic film footage, chorus-line films, and physical culture films. Femicide, witch hunts, stonings. Disciplined and undisciplined bodies, cheerful and exuberant and careful and anonymous. Visual spectacles and impertinences intertwine in an uninterrupted stream of loops and accelerations, circular and collective dance movements, girl group ornaments. Sketchy markings and check marks on the images evoke characteristic and discriminatory power. Flashes or embedded x-rays of skeletal structures that appear among treated and mistreated bodies, accompanied by blows, breaking sounds, clattering stones. Intense gazes into the camera convey pride and broken pride, expectations and the presence of profound experience. Deep scars... Anonymus was once a girl... when nameless unknown anonymous dies...

"The woman with a curious and peering-look on her face at the end of the film is one I find haunting. She is an every-woman in a way and yet she is distinctive and her stare straight into the camera is arresting because she demands to be seen." (J.M.)
(Madeleine Bernstorff)
Translation: Eve Heller

Women’s bodies are always at risk. An autopsy report describes the physical impact on the body that results in death but hides the structural and recurrent violence on women’s bodies that leads to femicide. Through archival film footage, animation and spoken word poetry an experience of structural violence against women is exposed. (Berlinale catalogue 2020)

Jyoti Mistry is professor of film at the Gothenburg University and has made critically acclaimed films in multiple genres. She has published on film practices and artistic research and works extensively with archives as a decolonial strategy. Her interest is the connection between the politics of aesthetics and ethics. Her recent project is a trilogy on race, gender and sexuality: When I grow up I want to be a black man (2017), Cause of death (2020) and Loving in between (forthcoming).