Exile

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The philosopher Walter Benjamin and his friend the playwright Bertolt Brecht spent time together in exile from Nazi Germany in the1930's. This film imagines that they are still in exile in New York 2017. In the intervening years they have changed because in the contemporary world, refugees and victims of racism look different. Brecht is Iranian. Benjamin is African American. Picture them as a down at heel comic duo, vagabonds in the tradition of Laurel and Hardy or Vladimir and Estragon. They are still doing what they always did, showing us show us how society works with whatever they have to hand; words, images, and suggestions on how to tell the truth in a world full of lies. Unfixed, oscillating between their time and ours, Brecht and Benjamin reveal what has been buried in our own history, making connections between fascism in New York in the1930's and its manifestation in the Trump era. Read more.