Film screening, special menu by Gosia Lehmann and the directors of the film in conversation with சிந்துஜன் வரதராஜா (Sinthujan Varatharajah)

17 SEPTEMBER 2025 / starting 19:00

ZK/U BerlinSiemensstr. 27, 10551, Berlin, Germany

About Happy Hippos and Sad Peacocks is a decolonial fable of the 21st century, in which two animals are juxtaposed, sharing a similar fate but couldn't be more different.

Places and times merge, identities are excluded; a non-anthropocentric perspective reflects upon the force-migrated lives of the protagonists and the recurring patterns of colonialism. The story begins with "a great exploration journey," which poetically illustrates how the resulting, mostly one-sided trade relations continue to shape all our lives till today. History continues to manifest itself and is embodied in this film through living animals. The peacocks from the peacock island next to Berlin and hippos living in between Bogotá and Medellín, both mascots of former rulers, represent our complex (and at times absurd) relationship with the past and present and our inability to come to terms with it.

About Happy Hippos and Sad Peacocks explores the connections between humans, nature, and history. It is a cinematic journey of discovery, in search of a new narrative.

The film screening is followed by a conversation of the filmmakers Johannes Förster and Elkin Calderón Guevara with சிந்துஜன் வரதராஜா. சிந்துஜன் வரதராஜா (Sinthujan Varatharajah) is a writer and political geographer. Their writing focuses on issues of statelessness, displacement and colonial modernity, viewed from the angle of infrastructure, logistics and built cultures. After years of political working in the field of protection of asylum seekers as well as the criminal prosecution of génocidaires, வரதராஜா first book an alle orte, die hinter uns liegen (to all the places we have left behind) was published in German by Hanser Verlag in 2022. Their second volume of conversations with the artist Moshtari Hilal, "Hierarchies of Solidarity", was published by Wirklichkeit Books in November 2024.