Festival de films SWANA

Lovesick/Homesick : Déclaration de la commissaire Christina Hajjar 

Le festival de films SWANA 2022 présente des œuvres audiovisuelles qui recontextualisent des réalités historiques difficiles via la fiction, le documentaire et le cinéma expérimental. Les films proviennent de la région de l’Asie du Sud-Ouest et de l’Afrique du Nord (SWANA) et de ses diasporas, invoquant la mémoire intergénérationnelle pour tenter de comprendre ce qui fut et ce qui sera : le territoire, les anniversaires, le marc de café, les conversations face à (inter)face.

Dans un essai intitulé « Filming Catastrophe », le cinéaste libanais Bassem Fayad écrit que les catastrophes créent un sentiment de fragmentation, mais que le cinéma tente de réorganiser ce qui a été fragmenté à travers la recherche d’un langage. « Face au vide et à la fragmentation, on ne peut s’accrocher qu’à quelque chose d’étrange et inexplicable qui va au-delà des mots, encore et toujours : l’amour », écrit Fayad (traduction libre). Bien que l’amour permette de développer de la résilience face aux guerres, aux catastrophes et aux traumatismes, nos relations familiales sont durement affectées par ces situations exigeantes. On dit que le mal du pays peut engendrer un chagrin d’amour; de même, lorsque l’endroit où l’on vit est perturbé, cela mène souvent à des tensions familiales.  

Considérant les clichés orientalistes, xénophobes et islamophobes qui sont perpétués en Occident, j’estime que le cinéma SWANA est une forme profondément personnelle de contre-archivage public. À travers les histoires qu’ils racontent, les cinéastes SWANA explorent les affects enracinés dans leur héritage. Des sentiments de curiosité, de loyauté, de dissidence et d’existentialisme sont ancrés dans un certain mal du pays. 

Dans les programmes Inconvenient Truths et Experimental Archives, nous découvrons l’esthétique de l’amour, des variations du quotidien, et des moments transformateurs. À travers ces huit films, nous abordons les méandres du désir. Le poète palestinien Mahmoud Darwish décrit le désir comme « une souffrance qui ne souhaite pas souffrir. C’est un mal alimenté par l’air pur du sommet d’une montagne lointaine; la douleur de l’absence d’un bonheur passé. Mais c’est également une émotion saine, car elle nous rappelle que nous sommes sensibles et porteurs d’espoir » (traduction libre).

- Essai de Christina Hajjar
 

PROGRAMME 1 : INCONVENIENT TRUTHS (60 MINS)

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TALLAHASSEE, DIR. DARINE HOTAIT | 2021 | USA | ENGLISH + ARABIC | 20 MINS

On the day of her release from a psychiatric facility, Mira, an Arab American woman, attends her grandmother’s 90th birthday — only to discover that her sister Lara has lied to the family that she was on a trip to Florida.

​​Darine Hotait is an American Lebanese writer and film director. Her work focuses on the politics of identity, Arab & African diaspora, and science fiction. She has written and directed a dozen award-winning narrative short films that can be seen on Sundance Channel,  The New Yorker, AMC Networks, BBC, Forbes, Outfest, and numerous Oscar-Qualifying Film Festivals. Her work has received the support of The Sundance Institute, Comedy Central, The Independent Film Project, The Jerome Foundation, New York Council on the Arts, and New York Foundation for the Arts. Darine is the founder of Cinephilia Productions— a film incubator championing African and Arab filmmakers.

A HANDFUL OF DATES, DIR. HASHIM HASSAN | 2020 | SUDAN | ARABIC | 12 MINS

In a mythical Sudanese village between the desert and the Nile, a young boy enjoys an idyllic childhood, taking pleasure in the fertile fruits of the land and basking by the river. But the boy's precious world begins to unravel when he learns the disturbing truth behind his family's fortune, and a certain farmer's inevitable demise.

In a mythical Sudanese village between the desert and the Nile, a young boy enjoys an idyllic childhood, taking pleasure in the fertile fruits of the land and basking by the river. But the boy's precious world begins to unravel when he learns the disturbing truth behind his family's fortune, and a certain farmer's inevitable demise.

IN VITRO, DIR. LARISSA SANSOUR & SØREN LIND | 2019 | PALESTINE | ARABIC | 28 MINS

In Vitro is set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. An abandoned nuclear reactor under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the apocalypse, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above. In the hospital wing of the underground compound, the orchard’s ailing founder, 70-year-old Dunia is lying in her deathbed, as 30-year-old Alia comes to visit her. Alia is born underground as part of a comprehensive cloning program and has never seen the town she’s destined to rebuild.

Larissa Sansour is a Palestinian artist/director. Central to her work is the tug and pull between fiction and reality. In her recent works, she uses science fiction to address social and political issues. Working mainly with film, Sansour also produces installations, photos and sculptures. Sansour’s work is shown in film festivals and museums worldwide. 

Soren Lind (b. 1970) is a Danish author, director and scriptwriter. With a background in philosophy, Lind wrote books on mind, language and understanding before turning to film and fiction. He has published novels, shorts story collections and several children’s books.

PROGRAM 2: EXPERIMENTAL ARCHIVES (59 MINS)

> 00:14 | The Perfect Picture, dir. ​​Hala El Kouch, 2020, Lebanon, 31 mins
> 31:46 | Sira, dir. Rolla Tahir, 2018, Canada/Egypt, 6 mins 
> 37:28 | Your Father Was Born 100 years Old, and So Was the Nakba, dir. Razan AlSalah, 2017, Palestine/Canada, 7 mins
> 44:33 | Clench My Fists, dir. Sarah Trad, 2020, USA, 6 mins
> 50:30 | Bitter with a Shy Taste of Sweetness, dir. Saif Alsaegh, 2019, USA, 9 mins
 

THE PERFECT PICTURE, DIR. ​​HALA EL KOUCH | 2020 | LEBANON | ARABIC | 31 MINS

Can a single traumatic event be the fatal blow that disrupts the notion of an ideal family? Lebanese filmmaker Hala El Kouch creates a therapy session setting to confront her parents about a traumatic event, and interrogates them over the course of five days. But the moment that “changed everything” for her seems to have made far less impact on her parents. The conversation takes an unexpected turn.

Hala El Kouch is an award winning Lebanese film director and photographer. But as multipotentialite, she is also a film teacher, writer, editor, colorist and voice over artist. She grew up in Nigeria, then moved to Beirut for her studies in 2008. With a bachelor in Cinema and Radio TV followed by a Masters in film directing from the Lebanese University of Fine Arts, she graduated in both with distinction. Her work is almost always known for the emotional complexity, depth and layering it holds, tackling not only personal but also social issues. Her films leave an unforgettable emotional, mental but also visual mark on the audience. Navigating the world through film and poetry is what the author envisions doing in the years to come. Pictures, words, and sounds are what move us. She wishes to be the witness and interpreter of all that is unseen and unheard — pointing out what everyone chooses to disregard. Allowing people to tap into a well of vulnerability and emotion is her way of releasing her audience from misery and pain. She believes her art speaks a language of its own, one that is universal.
 

SIRA, DIR. ROLLA TAHIR | 2018 | CANADA/EGYPT | ARABIC | 6 MINS 

Sira is an experimental essay that traces the exodus of a Sudanese family from Kuwait as a result of the Iraqi invasion. Excavated footage disrupt constructed memories as a mother recounts the evacuation, marring the bliss of her new family.

Rolla Tahir is a filmmaker and director of photography currently based in Toronto. She’s lensed short, narrative and experimental films, which screened across Canada and internationally, including the UK, the States and Guatemala. Obsessed with the durability, longevity and spontaneity of the analog film medium, Rolla has worked with Super 8, 16mm and 35mm to explore the analog process and its possibilities. Her passion in film and cinematography stems from the need to bring narratives to life, work with visionary creatives and to understand and be understood.
 

YOUR FATHER WAS BORN 100 YEARS OLD, AND SO WAS THE NAKBA, DIR. RAZAN ALSALAH | 2017 | PALESTINE/CANADA | ARABIC | 7 MINS.

Oum Ameen, a Palestinian grandmother, returns to her hometown Haifa through Google Maps Streetview, today, the only way she can see Palestine.

Based in Tio'tia:ke/Montreal, Razan AlSalah is a Palestinian filmmaker whose work is concerned with investigating material aesthetics of dis/appearance of places and people in the context of colonial image worlds. AlSalah currently teaches Intermedia and Moving Images at Concordia University in Tio'tia:ke/Montreal.
 

CLENCH MY FISTS, DIR. SARAH TRAD | 2020 | USA | ARABIC + ENGLISH | 6 MINS. 

Clench My Fists is a found-footage collage video that explores the process of growing up in an Arab family deeply affected by death and grief. Using footage from the Lebanese film In the Battlefields, as well as Candy and The 100, and audio from archival recorded Lebanese funeral laments, the video looks at how men and women express grief and anger under the patriarchy, as well as how trauma and childhood experiences can evolve into mental illness and patterns of behavior as adults. 

Sarah Trad is a Lebanese American video artist and film programmer. Her work focuses on themes of how Arab identity intersects with queerness, mental health, feminism, memory, and future alternate realities. Trad is the recipient of the 2019 Rutland Vermont Art Center 77Art Artist Residency, the 2019 Plyspace Residency and Fellowship awarded by the Muncie Council for Arts and Culture, and 2011 Carol N. Schmuckler Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film. Sarah’s work has been screened at the Arab Film Festival, MENA Film Festival, Antimatter Media Art Festival, Rendezvous With Madness Festival, SuperNova Digital Animation Festival, Everson Museum of Art and Currents New Media.
 

BITTER WITH A SHY TASTE OF SWEETNESS, DIR. SAIF ALSAEGH | 2019 | USA | ENGLISH | 9 MINS

Bitter with a Shy Taste of Sweetness contrasts the fragmented past of the filmmaker growing up in Baghdad with his surreal California present. Through poetic writing and jarring visuals, the film creates a calm and cruel sense of memory and landscape.

Saif Alsaegh is a United States-based filmmaker from Baghdad. His films have screened in festivals including Cinéma du Réel, Kurzfilm Hamburg, and Kasseler Dokfest, and in galleries and museums including the Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and Rochester Contemporary Art Center. In 2021, he was a Flaherty Fellow.