Moma Mapping Subjectivity Experimentation in Arab Cinema
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MoMA AND ArteEast ANNOUNCE THREE-YEAR FILM INITIATIVE EXPLORING AVANT-GARDE FILMMAKING ACROSS ARAB COUNTRIES OVER THE LAST FIVE DECADES Annual Film Exhibitions to Include New Discoveries, Recoveries and Restorations Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema, 1960s-Now PART 1: October 28-November 22, 2010 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters NEW YORK, September 7, 2010— The Museum of Modern Art launches Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema, 1960s-Now, a three-year program of annual screenings of groundbreaking films and videos, celebrated masterworks, and modern cinema from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, Syria and more, beginning this fall. This in-depth initiative aims to map the largely unknown heritage of personal, artistic, and innovative cinema from the Arab world. In the 1960s, galvanized by a broader global vanguard of countercultural experimentation in the arts, filmmakers in these countries began to craft a language and form that broke away from established conventions and commercial considerations, ultimately clearing the ground for boldly subjective cinematic expressions. The Museum will screen each annual exhibition the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters and selections of the program will travel to the Abu Dhabi Film Festival and Tate Modern in London, and subsequently touring throughout the Middle East and internationally. Mapping Subjectivity is a collaboration between The Museum of Modern Art and ArteEast, and is organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, and Rasha Salti, Curator and Artistic Director, ArteEast. ―Much of the daring and formally challenging filmmaking at work today in the Arab world has its roots—both acknowledged and not—in this pioneering drive to experiment with narrative, representation, and the production of images,‖ says Ms. Jensen. ―Together, these films are sure to inspire new ways of thinking about and appreciating modernity in art and cinema from the Arab world.‖ ―Three years of research have gone into making this program possible,‖ says Rasha Salti, who is also a programmer at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. ―It will not only instigate a re-writing of film history, but give contemporary and emerging filmmakers the strength to continue in taking risks, artistically and politically.‖ The first installment of Mapping Subjectivity, October 28 through November 22, 2010, is organized in clusters that reflect thematic and aesthetic kinship rather than considerations of chronology and geography, highlighting intangible connections and conversations among the selected works. The October 28 opening night screening is acclaimed director Elia Suleiman‘s Al Zaman al Baqi (Time that Remains) (Palestine/Great Britain/Italy/Belgium/France, 2009), slated for release later this year by IFC Films. Suleiman will introduce this insightful and at times heartbreaking film, which is set among the Israeli Palestinian community and was inspired by his father‘s diaries, and letters which his mother had sent to family members who had fled the Israeli occupation. Suleiman will also introduce his two earlier films in the trilogy, Sijil Ikhtifa’ (Chronicle of a Disappearance) (Palestine/France/USA/Germany/Israel, 1996) and Yadon ilaheyya (Divine Intervention) (Palestine/France/Morocco, 2002), the following day, marking the first time the trilogy will be seen in its entirety. Highlights include a number of films that had been lost or forgotten, as was the case with Sayf Sab‘een (Summer 70) (Egypt/Italy, 1972), the radically experimental first and only film by Naji Shaker and Paolo Isaja. A meditation on freedom at the turn of the 1960s that uses the full vocabulary of experimental filmmaking, it has gone virtually unseen for the past 20 years, and only now has been rediscovered and restored specifically for this program by averda, a leading environmental services company in the Middle East, as a gift to MoMA‘s collection. Other rarities include Qays al-Zubaidi‘s Al-Yazerli (Iraq/Syria, 1972), a film that explores a young boy‘s inner turmoil at the prospect of a destiny that seems bound to poverty and manual labor and was screened only once in Syria, where it was filmed; El-Chergui, al-Samt al-‘Aneef (The East Wind or The Violent Silence) (Morocco, 1975) considered a classic and recently restored by the Centre Cinématographique Marocain; and Al-Moumia’ (The Mummy/Night of Counting the Years) (Egypt, 1973), the most famous of Egyptian auteur movies, directed by Shadi Abdel Salam and restored by the World Cinema Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna. Two new works, with funding and support provided by the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Maher Abi Samra‘s Sheoeyin Kenna (We Were Communists) (Lebanon, 2009) and Mina’ al-Thakira (Port of Memory) (Palestine/Germany/France/UAE, 2009), written and directed by Kamal Aljafari, follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, pushing the boundaries of filmmaking both artistically and in terms of subject matter. Each director will introduce his film. Mapping Subjectivity features a number of pioneering women directors and artists, including Hala Alabdalla (with Ammar el-Beik), whose film Ana Alati Tahmol Azouhour Ila Qabriha (I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave) (Syria/France, 2006) follows three Syrian women, and ultimately creates a moving and formally inventive monument to humankind‘s resilience in the face of loss, exile, and death. Domestic Tourism II (Egypt, 2009), by rising director and artist Maha Maamoun, who will introduce her film, explores the ways in which iconic, historical monuments in Egypt are re-appropriated from the timelessness of the tourist postcard; and Joana Hadjithomas, an artist and director whose film Yawmon Akhar (A Perfect Day) (Lebanon/France, 2005), co-written and directed with Khalil Joreige, looks at a mother and son coming to terms with the disappearance of their husband and father. Mapping Subjectivity will include two Modern Mondays, weekly programming by MoMA which brings contemporary, innovative film and moving-image works to the public and provides a forum for viewers to engage in dialogue and debate with contemporary filmmakers and artists. The November 1 Modern Monday will feature Hala Alabdalla and Omar Amiralay; November 15 will feature Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. This exhibition has been co-organized by The Museum of Modern Art and ArteEast. It is curated by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film, MoMA, and Rasha Salti, Curator and Artistic Director, ArteEast. It is made possible through the generous support of averda. The program is organized in association with the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. Additional support has been provided by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States. ArteEast receives additional funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and New York City‘s Department of Cultural Affairs. Press Contacts: MoMA D‘Arcy Drollinger, (212) 708-9747, [email protected] MoMA Margaret Doyle, (212) 408-6400, [email protected] ArteEast Mahdis Keshavarz, (425) 591-8781, [email protected] Abu Dhabi Film Festival Steve Grenyo, (917) 545-0487, [email protected] For downloadable images, please visit http://press.moma.org Hours: Films are screened Wednesday-Monday. For screening schedules, please visit www.moma.org or www.arteeast.org Film Admission: $10 adults; $8 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D. $6 full-time students with current I.D. (For admittance to film programs only.) The price of a film ticket may be applied toward the price of a Museum admission ticket when a film ticket stub is presented at the Lobby Information Desk within 30 days of the date on the stub (does not apply during Target Free Friday Nights, 4:00–8:00 p.m.). Admission is free for Museum members and for Museum ticketholders. The public may call (212) 708-9400 for detailed Museum information. Visit us at www.moma.org Screening Schedule Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema, 1960s-Now October 28-November 22, 2010 Thursday, October 28 7:00 Irtebak (Awkward). 2007. Palestine/France. Directed by Elia Suleiman. With Leonid Alexeenko. This is an extended cut of Suleiman‘s segment from the omnibus film Chacun son cinéma (To Each His Own Cinema), which was commissioned by the Cannes International Film Festival to explore different directors‘ feelings about cinema. In Arabic; English subtitles. 7 min. Al Zaman al Baqi (The Time That Remains). 2009. Palestine/Great Britain/Italy/Belgium/France. Written and directed by Elia Suleiman. With Saleh Bakri, Tarek Qubti, Suleiman. Subtitled ―Chronicle of a Present Absentee,‖ this humorous, heartbreaking film (the final installment in a trilogy) is set among the Israeli Arab community and shot largely in homes and places in which Suleiman‘s family once lived. Inspired by his father‘s diaries, letters his mother sent to family members who had fled the Israeli occupation, and the director‘s own recollections, the film spans from 1948 until the present, recounting the saga of Suleiman‘s family in elegantly stylized episodes. Inserting himself as a silent observer reminiscent of Buster Keaton, Suleiman trains a keen eye on the absurdities of life in Nazareth. Print courtesy IFC Films. In Arabic, Hebrew; English subtitles. 109 min. Introduced by Suleiman. Friday, October 29 4:30 Sijil Ikhtifa’ (Chronicle of a Disappearance). 1996. Palestine/France/USA/Germany/Israel. Written and directed by Elia Suleiman. With Suleiman, Ola Tabari, Jamal Daher. Suleiman‘s acclaimed directorial debut is a meditative search for what it means to be Palestinian. Constructed as a series of witty vignettes, some contemplative, others laced with satirical humor, the film expresses Suleiman‘s emotions and state of mind as he observes daily life in Nazareth, Jerusalem, and outlying areas. The director leads us on an evocative journey from an apartment in West Jerusalem to a Holy Land souvenir shop to a group of old women gossiping about their relatives. Print courtesy International Film Circuit.