Messina

Messina is both a contemplative cinematographic voyage in, and critique of, one of Europe’s most significant sites. The sea between Scylla and Charybdis has presented many challenges - in reality, dreams, myths and policy-making - from ancient times to the present. As director, Benjamin Geissler observed the current living conditions in Messina from divergent perspectives: with 60 shooting days and insert materials collected between 2013 and 2015, he draws an ambivalent picture of this urban landscape on human, historical and symbolic dimensions. The quotations from the novel Horcynus Orca, conversations with the translator and impressions from Sicilian readers are interwoven with statements of the local administrators and voices of citizens from different social backgrounds. Thus the images of the seas between Scylla and Charybdis become a literary and political metaphor of the "trans-position": from one culture to another, from connections between history, politics, and territory, to the upheavals of the current social situation between traditions and the challenges of tomorrow.