screenings at the Cinematheque Ontario

[JSalloum at aol.com]

in/tangible cartographies: new arab video
November 21-28, 2002

untitled: recent works by Jayce Salloum
November 26, 2002


Cinematheque Ontario presents "in/tangible cartographies: new arab video", a 
series of 15 recent videos made by artists working in Lebanon, Egypt, 
Algeria, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Palestine. The series has been 
guest curated by Vancouver-based media artist  Jayce Salloum, who will be 
present on November 28 for the final programme. Video artists represented in 
the series include: Elia Suleiman, Mohamed Soueid, Akram Zaatari, Walid 
Ra'ad, and Danielle Arbid.

Cinematheque Ontario also hosts Jayce Salloum in person with an evening of 
his own videotapes on Wednesday, November 27, 6:30pm as part of our free 
series, The Independents.

All screenings are held at the Art Gallery of Ontario's Jackman Hall, 317 
Dundas Street West (please use McCaul Street Entrance) and are restricted to 
individuals 18 years of age or older, unless otherwise noted. Prices are 
$5.75 for Cinematheque Ontario and AGO Members, $5.25 for Student Members & 
Seniors and $9.60 for Non-members. 

For program details see the notes below or:
www.bell.ca/cinematheque
ph: 416-968-FILM 
ccummings at torfilmfest.ca


---

Program details:


Programme 1: stretching the sky after the rain falls 


RED CHEWING GUM (AL-LLKA AL HAMRA) 

Director: Akram Zaatari Lebanon 2000 10 minutes video

Cast: Ziad Antar, Nabil Kojok


Within the changing urban environment of Beirut, two souls find themselves in 
a cycle of loss, departure, rupture, and celebration. An impressive video 
letter inspired by a story of separation between men.


NIGHTFALL

Director: Mohamed Soueid  Lebanon 2000 70 minutes video


Drawing from his diaries, Soueid recounts his time spent in "The Student 
Squad" of the Palestinian resistance movement Fateh during the Lebanese Civil 
War. Stories of old friends fallen during the war and of others still alive 
unravel amongst copious amounts of drinking and carousing. A lyrical artist, 
Soueid defies oral conventions by blending narrative with prose, essay with 
poem, and conversation with speculation. 


Thursday, November 21  6:30 p.m.


--


Programme 2: traversing times/breaching distinctions


MEDITERRANEAN MODERN (BOUTROS AL ARMENIAN)

Director: Jamelie Hassan Lebanon/Canada 1997 8 minutes video


An itinerant Armenian painter, a refugee fleeing the 1915 genocide in his 
country, makes a circuitous voyage to a mountain village in Lebanon where he 
is commissioned to paint the interior of Hassan's family home. Hassan deftly 
maps the uneasiness of reinventing identity, adaptability, and cultural 
preservation. "Home is not a fixed place but a constantly negotiated space 
between self and location."


HER + HIM, VAN LEO 

Director: Akram Zaatari Egypt/Lebanon 2001 32 minutes video


A portrait of a portrait photographer, about photography before video, the 
defects of the negative, perfection of the body image, and a relationship 
between youth and the immortal. 


A WOMAN TAXI DRIVER IN SIDI BEL-ABBÈS 

(UNE FEMME TAXI À SIDI BEL-ABBÈS) 

Director: Belkacem Hadjad Algeria/Belgium 2000 52 minutes video


After the death of her husband, Soumicha must make money to support herself 
and her children. As most jobs are reserved for men, she takes a chance and 
becomes the only woman taxi driver in Sidi Bel-Abbès, Algeria, where 
tradition still reigns and extremist political violence takes place. Winner 
of the best documentary film, Arab Screen Independent Film Festival, Qatar.


Friday, November 22  8:15 p.m. (note early start time)

--



Programme 3: days of our lives, transfer/transform/transgress, auto seen 
voyeurs, maps and demarcations


BLUE 

Director: Azza Al Zarouni United Arab Emirates 2000 3 minutes video


Private space as discomforting comfort zone at home in Abu Dhabi. Ubiquitous 
cell phone ringing punctuates this stream of dissatisfaction with pop culture 
salvation.


COSMETIC SURGERY (GERAHAT AL TAGMIL)

Director: Hassan Khan  Egypt 2000 14 minutes video


A wry look at the rising class in Cairo and how they deal with self-image. 
With a backdrop of malls and clinics, questions of politics, religion, 
gender, economy, and marginality are couched in terms of beauty and the body.


SHAMELESS TRANSMISSION OF DESIRED TRANSFORMATIONS PER DAY 

(BATHTH WAQUIH LI KAMMIYYAT AL TAHAWOULAT AL MUSHTAHAT YAWMIYAN)

Director: Mahmoud Hojeij Lebanon 2000 25 minutes video


Just as fruit and vegetables are picked for their external appearance, three 
women at Beirut checkpoints are asked to reveal their intimate acts 
supposedly done in the dark.


FUCK THIS FILM (KOS OM EL FILM DAH)

Director: Hassan Khan  Egypt 1998  4 minutes video


Surrounded by a multitude of reasons to tape and seeing none, the videomaker 
runs at life haunted by forces inside with a soul lost to despondency.


LOOKING AWRY 

Director: Sobhi al-Zobaidi Palestine 2001 32 minutes video


American producers commission Zobaidi to make a videotape about ancient 
Jerusalem. They want only the calmer side of the old city, but as soon as the 
taping starts an Intifada breaks out after Israeli attacks at Al Aksa Mosque.


DIARY OF A MALE WHORE (YAWMEYAT A'HER) 

Director: Tawfik Abu-Wael Palestine 2001 14 minutes video


A videotape about memory, positioning itself in relation to the "other," so 
that it can be seen as a metaphorical account of the so-called 
Israeli-Palestinian "peace process." Based loosely on the novel For Bread 
Alone by Moroccan writer Mohamed Choukri.


Tuesday, November 26  6:30 p.m.


--


Programme 4: history: making/ tracing/leaving marks, a logic of the senses


THEY WERE HERE (ENAHOUM KANOO HONNA)

Director: Ammar Al Beik Syria 2000 8 minutes video


Coming to terms with the end of the industrial era, Al Beik's elegant and 
eloquently composed study reverberates with lives lived, fading images, and 
relics of retrospection.

CYBER PALESTINE 

Director: Elia Suleiman Palestine 2000 16 minutes video


Displaying sardonic wit and attention to detail, Suleiman creates a terse but 
forceful transposition of the biblical story of Mary and Joseph as a 
framework to illustrate the repressive controls of movement and the abuses of 
daily Palestinian life suffered under Israeli military occupation.


THE DEAD WEIGHT OF A QUARREL HANGS 

Director: Walid Ra'ad Lebanon/USA 1996-99 17 minutes video


A videotape in three parts exploring the possibilities and limits of writing 
and imaging a history of the Lebanese civil wars (1975-1991). 


ALONE WITH WAR (SEULE AVEC LA GUERRE) 

Director: Danielle Arbid Lebanon/France 2000 59 minutes video


Searching through remembrances of the war for answers that of course are not 
to be told and not to be found, where there are only people trying to get on 
with their lives. Arbid tries to construct a history by seeking a truth and 
finds one at each corner, under each bed, and behind the pockmarks of each 
stray bullet left from the civil war we all are trying to forget. Winner of 
the best documentary award at the 2000 Locarno film festival.


Guest curator Jayce Salloum will be present at screening. 


Thursday, November 28  8:15 p.m. (note early start time)


--


CINEMATHEQUE ONTARIO 

presents 

THE INDEPENDENTS


untitled: recent works by Jayce Salloum
(Jayce Salloum in person)
Wednesday, November 27  6:30 p.m.


"Jayce Salloum, curator of the New Arab Video: in/tangible cartographies 
series, will present two of his own works, part of his ongoing untitled 
project, a series of videos addressing social and political realities. In 
part 1: everything and nothing, Salloum, off-camera, asks questions of Soha 
Bechara, the ex-Lebanese National Resistance fighter who was detained for ten 
years in the notorious El-Khiam torture and interrogation center in South 
Lebanon. In a riveting and intimate conversation, Salloum inquires about 
home, ordinary days, being interviewed, and the distance between Paris, where 
Bechara now lives, and Khiam. In part 2: beauty and the east Salloum turns to 
the former Yugoslavia. In a kaleidoscope of interviews, refugees, migrants, 
asylum seekers, and residents address topics ranging from identity and 
fascism to optimism and monsters. In both anecdotal and theoretical 
recountings, they lay out the issues currently at stake in this region of 
displacement and redefinition; their words are located within Salloum's 
images of cities and landscapes." (Pacific Film Archive) In part 3: (as if) 
beauty never ends*, a montage of orchids blooming and footage from the sites 
of the 1982 massacres at Lebanon's Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps provides 
an elegiac response to the Palestinian dispossession.


part 1: everything and nothing 

Director: Jayce Salloum Canada 1999-2001 40 minutes video

          

part 2: beauty and the east 

Director: Jayce Salloum Canada 1999-2002 work-in-progress, excerpt c. 20 
minutes video

         

part 3: (as if) beauty never ends* 

Director: Jayce Salloum Canada  2002 11 minutes video   



 

The Independents is a free series that screens the work of a wide range of 
independent film and video artists, and features many personal appearances. 
Programming suggestions and submissions are welcome. Please note: All 
presentations in this series are FREE, non-ticketed events, and are held in 
Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario. Seating is on a first-come, first 
served basis. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.. Screening is restricted to individuals 
18 years of age and older.