Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The Book of Exodus chronicles the Israelites’ flight from slavery in Egypt under the guidance of Moses, and their eventual covenant with the Abrahamic God. While Jews celebrate this founding myth as a triumph, the Jewish US writer, cartoonist and filmmaker Nina Paley wonders whether the events of Exodus might represent a disaster rather than a triumph: the episode marks a pivot away from ‘humankind’s original deity’ Mother Earth, towards ‘agriculture, and its attendant sins of property, hierarchy and slavery’. Her animated feature film Seder-Masochism (2018) recasts the events from Exodus as a struggle between the prehistorical ‘Great Mother’ and the Abrahamic ‘forces of patriarchy’. In this brief excerpt from the film, feminine figurines and statues of goddesses from antiquity tower above a rather small and forlorn Moses. Capturing the triumphant spirit of the traditional Exodus reading, and turning it on its head, they dance and sing – somewhat surreally – to The Pointer Sisters’ 1976 hit You Gotta Believe, its repeated refrain asking: ‘You gotta believe in something, why not believe in me?’
Video by Nina Paley
Website: Seder-Masochism
video
Dance and theatre
How a Noh mask-maker summons a lifelike face from a single block of wood
16 minutes
video
The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
video
Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes
video
Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?
13 minutes
video
Biology
A dazzling slice-by-slice exploration of wood exposes hidden patterns and hues
2 minutes
video
Family life
In Rwanda, Sébastien finds traces of personal history in the wake of national tragedy
21 minutes
video
Dance and theatre
Leaf through Shakespeare’s First Folio for a riveting journey into theatre history
13 minutes
video
Architecture
Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world
8 minutes