Karel De Cock

To Each His Own Mask: Tine Guns

We live in a time of crises and failing economic systems. No wonder that questions of change are recurrent. Protest culture is having a revival. Every revolution has its icons. Nowadays, we see the mask show up. In times of social media and hyper-individualizing, when anonymity seems to be a right we have to reclaim, this is no coincidence.

Masks have become our ultimate weapon of protest, international symbols of actions against power structures. An individual can be defeated or corrupted, but not an idea. Thanks to the mask, the individual can become the idea. Wearing a mask is a carnivalesque strategy. Carnival is a ritual, temporarily dismantling social and political regimes, suspending norms and values. But after this limited period of allowed disorder and change, the order is restored.

So the question arises: does the current wave of protests serve as an illusion of a carnival? Or are all these masks surrounding us a precursor to an actual revolution? To Each His Own Mask is a challenging and visually arresting documentary by filmmaker and visual artist Tine Guns.

Director: Tine Guns
Producers: Animal Tank
Writers: Tine Guns