My Love Awaits Me by the Sea
Saturday 11/08 at St. Anthony Main Theatre 4:00pm | get tickets >>>
Synopsis:
Director Mais Darawzah’s imaginary love is the deceased artist and author Hasan Hourani. In 2003, Hourani drowned off the Jaffa seashore attempting to rescue his brother, defying occupation laws forbidding West Bank Palestinians from reaching the sea. Through Hourani, the film represents another imaginary love—a bygone homeland, which Darawzah has known only from recollections of her elders of pre-occupation Palestine. Such a love appears both unimaginable and imaginary upon her first visit to Palestine, where she experiences loss, rage and frustration. My Love Awaits Me by the Sea demonstrates how melancholic humor and poetry create structures for coping, and resisting.
2013
80 minutes
Documentary feature
Directed by: Mais Darwazah
Language: Arabic
Country: Palestine/Jordan/Qatar/Germany
Website | Trailer
“Those looking for a different kind of Palestinian documentary would do well to check out Mais Darwazah’s “My Love Awaits Me by the Sea.” A poetic meditation on what it means to be denied the chance to participate in a collective memory of normal life, this is a moving, intensely personal essay inspired by the late artist/author Hasan Hourani’s life and work, seen through Darwazah’s experiences as a second-generation Palestinian making her first trip to the homeland.” (link)
Festivals and Awards:
-Dubai International Film Festival: Muhr Arab Documentary competition
-Toronto International Film Festival: official selection
Filmmaker bio (from film website):
Mais Darwazah’s career started with short experimental films. She received the Chevening scholarship from the British Council, completing a master’s in Documentary Directing at Edinburgh College of Art in 2007; her graduation film Take Me Home (2007) screened in over 20 international festivals. In the Arab documentary collective Family Albums she completed “The Dinner” (2012), co-produced with ARTE France and receiving the Special Mention audience award at Cinemed 2012. She works and resides in Jordan.
