Unpacking the ArteArchive: What Existed Yesterday Might Disappear Tomorrow
I’ve curated a short film program titled “What Existed Yesterday Might Disappear Tomorrow”, co-presented by ArteEast and Tribe (where I am currently the Moving Image Editor). The screening is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
There will be one in-person screening in Dubai on Wednesday, October 12 at Alliance Francaise. I will be there to present the films and have a post screening discussion with Nezar Andary.
The films will be available to watch online worldwide between October 13 and October 18 on ArteEast’s Unpacking the ArteArchive platform.
Below is a description of the film program with the relevant streaming link, and you can find detailed synopsis, artists/filmmakers bio and more details on ArteEarchive. If in or near Dubai, please join me on October 12 at Alliance Francaise, and hope the rest of you will watch the films online.
WHAT EXISTED YESTERDAY MIGHT DISAPPEAR TOMORROW
Curated by Hind Mezaina
The past haunts the present in this film program about photography and cinema. Featuring four short films by Hisham Bizri, Akram Zaatari, Meyar Al Roumi, and Joanna Hadjithomas/Khalil Joriege - they delve into a distant or recent past, their consequences today, on what was and what could have been.
October 12: In-person screening at Alliance Française in Oud Metha, Dubai at 7.30PM GST, followed by a discussion between Hind Mezaina and Nezar Andary.
Ticket AED 35 (free for members). Book your ticket here. Location map.
About Nezar Andary: Filmmaker, professor of cinema and literature, curates film and book festivals, co-editor of a book series on Arab Cinema, and Artistic Director of Al Sidr Environmental Film Festival.
October 13-18: Online screening on arteachive.org, available worldwide.
Free / $5 Suggested Donation.
ASMAHAN
Hisham Bizri, 2006, Lebanon, 21 min, No dialogue
"Reediting a 1944 Egyptian film (Gharam wa Intiqam / Love and Revenge) starring this liberated-for-her-era Syrian actress-singer to center his 21-minute film poem around her, Bizri replaces the original narrative with sequences that show her gestures, or suggest the actress's life. Sometimes she seems passively acted upon, but more often she appears to stage-manage the action, the universe seeming to revolve around her.” - Fred Camper, Chicago, June 13, 2006
Available to stream here between Oct 13-18.
HER + HIM VAN LEO
Akram Zaatari, 2001, Lebanon, 32 min, Arabic, English, French with English subtitles
A portrait of a studio photographer, Her + Him VAN LEO also examines the photography of the 1940s and 50s from a critical perspective rather than a nostalgic one.
This documentary utilizes traditional portrait photography and video in a dialogue between two media: crafted black and white print, and the electronically colored and manipulated screen.
The dialog comments on the transformations in art practices and terminologies, and evokes some of the social/urban/political transformations that took place in Egypt over 50 years of its recent history.
A SILENT CINEMA / SINEMA SAMITA
Meyar Al Roumi, 2001, Syria/France, 29 min, Arabic, French with English subtitles
Meyar Al Roumi returns to his native Damascus, eager to start making films, but he is censored.
He draws inspiration from it to paint a portrait of the Syrian filmmakers most affected by censorship.
THE LOST FILM / EL FILM EL MAFKOUD
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, 2003, Lebanon/France, 43 min, Arabic with English subtitles
“It all began with an e-mail: On May 22, 2000 a print of our first feature film, Around the Pink House, disappeared in Yemen under strange circumstances. It was a historic day, the tenth anniversary of the country’s reunification of South and North.
We make films in an area of the world that is barely interested in cinema and rarely encourages any images apart from the official ones, and so we were somewhat surprised by what had happened: who in Yemen was interested enough in our first feature film to steal a copy weighing 35 kilograms?
A year later, on the 11th anniversary of the reunification, we took a plane to Sana’a to trace the missing print. We visited the cinemas of Sana’a and Aden where the film was shown; we went to the Film Archives where the reels had been stored for the night; we drove along the same road taken by the bus carrying our film on May 22, the day it disappeared… We stuck as closely as possible to the trail of the missing print." - Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige