School of Resistance The New Gospel

Watch the recording of the discussion here

What would Jesus preach in the 21st century? Who would his disciples be? And how would those who wield worldly and spiritual power today react to the return and the provocations of this most influential prophet and social revolutionary in human history? With The New Gospel, director Milo Rau documents and stages a “revolt of dignity“. Led by political activist Yvan Sagnet, the movement fights for the rights of refugees who came to Europe via the Mediterranean, ultimately forced to live in ghettos and enslaved in tomato fields in southern Italy. Together, they return to the origins of the Gospel and stage it as the passion of an entire population. In Matera in southern Italy, on the site of all great films about Jesus from Pasolini‘s to Gibson‘s, a “New Gospel” for the 21st century is created. As much real political action as it is a theatrical and cinematic work, it is most of all a manifesto of solidarity with the poorest, a revolt for a more just and humane world.

Following the screening, actress Maia Morgenstern, writer and activist Yvan Sagnet, photojournalist Erik Marquardt (member of the European Parliament) and Academy member Georg Seeßlen discussed artistic strategies of resistance. How can art respond to states of crisis? To what extent does art create an opportunity to explore other modes of life and of forming relationships? Can emancipatory, utopian agendas engage with and change a present for which no alternative can yet be thought?

>> Programme overview

The film The New Gospel is only available for viewers in Germany and Austria. Please use this link to watch the film. A registration on vimeo is required.