J-N-N

Forum Expanded Exhibition 2025

The essayistic three-channel video installation ج-ن-ن is based on the artist’s family conversations during a trip to Iraq and intensive research into the jinn – elusive entities that are deeply woven into Iraqi culture. Mentioned in both the Qur’an and per-Islamic texts, jinn appear in various shapes and forms. Known for their ability to bestow special powers, they are believed to be able to heal, as well as cause a person to lose their mind.
J-N-N is a visual journey through the Iraqi desert, from Ur via Babylon to the secluded living rooms of Baghdad. It fragmentarily questions a culture and society that has been torn apart in recent decades by ongoing wars, civil wars, repression, and terrorism. Cosmovision is linked with historical events and personal experiences. While the work carries out an experimental arrangement from the outside and attempts to comprehend these experiences, it simultaneously circles around the void of the unspeakable, the in-between, on a personally affected level – bouncing off its vehemence.

Trailer/Film Excerpt

To view this content, you must enable third-party cookies. >

by Ginan Seidl (Director, Screenplay) Germany 2025 English, Arabic 20' Colour World premiere

Crew

Director	Ginan Seidl
Screenplay	Ginan Seidl
Cinematography	Ginan Seidl
Editing	Ginan Seidl
Sound Design	Binha Haase
Animation	Aldo Cañedo
Producer	Ginan Seidl
Co-Producers	Jonas Matauschek, Kathrin Lemcke

Produced by

Ginan Seidl

Berlin, Germany

Co-produced by

PARA FILM GbR

Leipzig, Germany

Photos

Riar Rizaldi

Riar Rizaldi is an artist and filmmaker working across cinema and exhibition contexts. His practice explores the relationships between science, technology, labour and nature, alongside competing worldviews, genre cinema and the possibilities of theoretical fiction. Rizaldi’s work has been shown at various film festivals, museums and art spaces internationally, including the Berlinale, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Taipei Biennale, the National Gallery of Indonesia and Gasworks. After Mirage: Eigenstate (2024), this is his second participation in Forum Expanded.

Filmography (Filmography (selection))

2019 Kasiterit 2020 Tellurian Drama · Ghost Like Us 2021 Becquerel 2022 Notes from Gog Magog 2023 Fossilis · Monisme 2024 Mirage: Eigenstate; Forum Expanded 2025 2025 Fanfictie: Volcanology; Forum Expanded 2026

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026