“What’s the role of those silent objects?” It’s a recurring phrase in Eli Cortiñas’ fascinating film made from found cinematic material. Here she looks at the offices, architecture and interior spaces of dictators, pulling about how power and its abuse are reflecting onto spaces and things. It’s a fitting subject for an artist based in Berlin for over a decade – a city still seeped in its own ambivalent psychogeography. This work on “the ethnic cleansing of history” is not just a documentary. Cortiñas creates conversational artworks on memory and cultural meaning. She has used the same visual approach in works about the representation of women in cinema such as ‘Confessions with an open curtain’ and ‘Dial M for Mother’ than uses film like a collage artist with a knife. You may never look at old movies in the same way again. - Francesca Gavin