Media & The Distorted Present
+Shorts Segment
+Tunisia / Palestine / Lebanon / Egypt / Syria
Sunday, 10/2 at St. Anthony Main Theatre
11:30 a.m.
Buy tickets >>>
Waves ‘98 / موج ٩٨
Ely Dagher
animated short / experimental
15 mins / 2015
Lebanon / Qatar
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
DCP
Disillusioned with his life in the suburbs of segregated Beirut, Omar’s discovery leads him into the depths of the city. Immersed into a world that is so close yet so isolated from his reality, he eventually finds himself struggling to keep attachments, and his sense of home.
Website
www.waves98.com
Facebook
facebook.com/waves98film
Review
www.cinemacy.com/sundance-review-waves-98
Festivals and Awards
*Palme d’Or, Cannes Film Festival, France, 2015
*Silver Plaque, Chicago International Film Festival, USA, 2015
Ely Dagher was born and raised in Beirut. He graduated with an MA in New Media and Contemporary Art Studies from Goldsmiths College in London. In 2011, Dagher founded BeaverAndBeaver productions to explore different projects with video and animation. He is now based in Brussels.
And On A Different Note / و على صعيد آخر
Mohammad Shawky Hassan
experimental short / media
24 mins / 2015
Egypt / USA
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
DCP
Language, media, and image move this poetic film about fatigue in the face of constant connectivity. A compilation of interior scenes from Cairo and New York, it is set against the backdrop of a continuous stream of political talk shows and untranslated background noise.
Review
www.madamasr.com/sections/culture/everythings-banal-mohammad-shawky-hassans-new-short-hits-home
Festivals and Awards
*Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, Romania, 2016
*Berlinale Forum Expanded, Germany, 2015
Mohammad Shawky Hassan is a filmmaker and scholar. He studied philosophy, film direction, and cinema studies at The American University in Cairo, The Academy of Cinematic Arts & Sciences, and Columbia University. His films include It Was Related to Me (2011) and On a Day Like Today (2012). He has presented films at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, The New York Public Library and UnionDocs, and is currently running the Network of Arab Arthouse Screens (NAAS).
Diaspora / شتات
Alaeddin Abou Taleb
animated short / fiction
13 mins / 2015
Tunisia
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
DCP
Diaspora tells the story of a head who gets around in a wheelchair. It lives alone in an apartment in downtown Tunis for many years and falls into a routine. The head subsists on media–it listens, sees, and consumes. This changes when it sees an announcement for employment. In the end, the head abandons its isolation and wheelchair.
Facebook
facebook.com/Diaspora-%D8%B4%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%AA-a-film-by-Alaeddin-Abou-Taleb-1607123906197219/
Review (French)
www.cinematunisien.com/index.php?option=com_jmovies&Itemid=42&task=detail&id=449
Festivals and Awards
*Golden Tanit Award, Carthage Film Festival, Tunisia, 2015
*Dubai International Film Festival, UAE, 2015
Alaeddin Abou Taleb is a visual artist and filmmaker. In 2010, he directed a short film called Coma and, in 2011, he participated in the Tunisian Association for Action in Cinema. He runs workshops on the techniques of animation. His artwork and films have been exhibited in a number of international festivals.
Goal to Syria
Amjad Wardeh
animated short / thriller / youth
4 mins / 2015
Syrian Arab Republic / Turkey
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
DCP
A soccer game serves as a metaphor for the ongoing crisis in Syria. Using animation to depict the the simplest acts of heroism, the film envisions a brighter future for the war-torn country.
Website
www.amjadwardeh.com/short-films
Festivals and Awards
*Cannes Film Festival, France, 2016
*Syria Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, 2016
Amjad Wardeh graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University and works in a variety of artistic mediums. He has done animation for Syrian television and worked as Art Director for the daily newspaper Baladna. Wardeh’s art has been on exhibition in Beirut, London, Istanbul, and Nottingham.
In The Future They Ate From The Finest Porcelain
Larissa Sansour + Søren Lind
experimental short / science fiction / archaeology / politics
29 mins / 2015
Palestine / UK / Denmark
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
DCP
Website
www.larissasansour.com/In%20the%20Future.html
A narrative resistance group makes underground deposits of elaborate porcelain. It is suggested that it belongs to an entirely fictional civilization. Their aim is to influence history and support future claims to their vanishing land.
Review
www.platform-online.net/2016/03/review-in-the-future-they-ate-from-the-finest-porcelain-larissa-sensor-nae
Festivals and Awards
*Dubai International Film Festival, UAE, 2015
*Berlinale Forum Expanded, Germany, 2016
Larissa Sansour was born in East Jerusalem, Palestine in 1973, and studied fine arts in London, New York, and Copenhagen. Her work is interdisciplinary; it is immersed in the current political dialogue and utilizes video, photography, installation, the Internet, and the book form. Central to her work is the tension between fiction and reality. Her solo work has recently been presented in Turku, Copenhagen, Paris, Stockholm, Dubai, Madrid, and Istanbul.
Søren Lind is a Danish author. He writes children’s books and literary fiction. With a background in philosophy, Lind wrote books on mind, language, and understanding before turning to fiction In addition to a published novel, two short story collections, and four children’s books, Lind is a visual artist and writes film scripts.
