8 + 9 May 2020 : Zoltan Kunckel & Lorent Saleh

White Torture – Underground Poetry
Performance’s Documentary, 36’33”
Spanish and English with English Subtitles
Authors: Zoltan Kunckel & Lorent Saleh
Europe 2019

SCREENING DATE: Friday 8 + Saturday 9 May 2020 – 48 hours available on Vimeo HIER&JETZT: Connection

SYNOPSIS

In 2014, Lorent Saleh was arrested after being illegally extradited from Colombia. He spent four years, two months and seven days in prison, from which he spent more than two years in isolation in “La Tumba” (The Tomb), the Venezuelan secret service prison, five floors underground in Caracas. In his white cell, exposed to a white light 24/7, in loneliness and a complete silence, he would lose awareness of time and space. White torture is a sinister type of psychological abuse, leaving no traces of blood, but destroying the minds and souls of the prisoners. 

White Torture – Underground Poetry: takes us into the intimate soliloquy of a political prisoner in isolation who faces his invisible torturers. Through videos, sounds and Lorent ́s poetry that he wrote during his confinement, it lets us experience the suffering of political prisoners all around the world. 

AUTHORS

Zoltan Kunckel is a visual artist from Venezuela. Studied photography and sculpture at the Moholy-Nagy University, Budapest, and Art in Context at the UdK Berlin. His works consist of sculptures, video, installation, photography and performance; they reflect on national and cultural identity, dealing with migration and the emergence of violent structures of power. He currently lives and works in Berlin. 

Lorent Saleh is a Human Rights activist from Venezuela who received the Sakharov Prize in 2017 as part of the Democratic opposition in Venezuela. He started his activism from a young age as a student leader protesting against the human rights violations committed by the Venezuelan regime and campaigning for the release of political prisoners. He currently lives in exile in Spain and serves as the vice-president of the Human Rights Institute for Peace and Freedom in Madrid.