Tuesday, October 28th
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission (at Third St)
San Francisco
Nights and Days by Lamia Joreige, 2007,
17
min.
A cinematic counterpart to the modernist paintings of exiled
Iraqi artist, Mahmoud Sabri, who lives and works in Prague.
(Posthumous) by Ghassan Salhab,
2007, 28 min.
After the immediacy of the moment explored in so many films made
during July 2006, (Posthumous) asks what happens when the bombs
stop
falling: how can one represent death's aftermath? This film-essay
reflects on the conditions of its own possibility as it tries to
survey the newly bombed remains of Beirut's suburbs.
Merely a Smell by Maher Abi
Samra, 2008, 11
min.
In its haunting sequence of just a few shots, Merely a Smell
stunningly evokes the assault on the senses brought by the war, as relief
workers move the bodies of the dead.
Roundabout Shatila by Maher Abi Samra,
2005, 50 min.
Shot within the confines of the Shatila refugee camp in
Beirut, Maher Abi Samra's long takes linger on the decrepit lwals and
over-built spaces of the camp as the film follows its residents' movements
and, occasionally, their stories. With stunning use of sound and image,
the film relates the texture of life in permanent exile.
Against the Light by Koutaiba al Janabi
UK/Czech Republic, 2007, 15 min.
A cinematic counterpart to the
modernist paintings of exiled Iraqi artist, Mahmoud Sabri, who lives
and works in Prague.
Waiting for the Day by Meyar
Al-Roumi, Syria/France, 2003, 50 min.
Al Roumi captures a
cross-section of the contemporary arts scene in Damascus as he
interviews visual artists and musicians whose work tries to find an
authentic voice of creativity and dissent. The film chronicles Syrian
artists' drive for independent cultural expression in an
environment tightly regulated and controlled by the state.
Refugees for Life by Hady Zaccak,
UAE/Lebanon, 2008, 48 min.
As much an exploration of place as
people, the film reveals the continued destitution of Palestinian
life inside the UNRWA refugee camps of South Lebanon. Traveling from
Tyre to Germany and back, the film reveals, in striking black and
white cinematography punctuated with archival footage and dramatized
sequences, the distorted dreams and hopes of several generations of
refugees.