To complement the Altered Landscapes exhibition, we will be screening a series of Syrian short films in partnership with Bidayyat for Audiovisual Arts, a non-profit civil company. The company was launched in early 2013 to support and produce documentaries and short and experimental films, and to organise specialised training courses on documentary filmmaking.

Screening date: 21 May. Everyone is welcome and the screenings are free. There is no need to book.

For more information about the exhibition, please click here. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of free workshops and a fascinating symposium charied by Amnesty International and exploring how art can catalyse debate about human rights.

http://bidayyat.org

List of films curated by Juan delGado, Creative Producer, Qisetna:Talking Syria

9 1⁄2
Director: Syrialism. Year: Syria, 2015. Duration: 7’34”
9 1⁄2 ­that’s the age of Maha, a Syrian girl and the only survivor of her family. Left on her own, with a picture of her family all that is left, she embarks on a journey in her world made up of the visual experiences she accumulated and witnessed in the Syrian situation. During this journey, Maha makes unusual friends, with her imagination guiding her with sarcasm through this difficult world.

Being Good So Far (Part 1)
Director: Orwa Al Mokdad. Year: Syria, 2013. Duration: 5’18”
In his first experimental film ” Being good so far”, Orwa films what is being usually absent and ignored in the media, surpassing the images of destruction and violence, to scenes of humane life of the population in the neighborhood of Al­Sha’ar in Aleppo city, that neighborhood where it’s raining shells every day since it was liberated from the Syrian regime forces.

Being Good So Far (Part 2 )
Director: Orwa Al Mokdad. Year: Syria, 2014. Duration: 6’29”
“I was astonished at my last visit to Aleppo that Al Shaar market is still full of life’s colors, despite the barbaric attacks on this city which turned it into semi­ghost’s city.”

Funfairs
Director: Nanda Al Dolani. Year: Lebanon, 2014. Duration: 12’15”
In Beirut, tens of displaced children from Syria daily roam the city’s streets as street vendors, selling flowers or chewing gum almost as if they are begging. These children are trying to help their families to survive in one of the most expensive countries of the Arab world.

Siege
Directors: Abdullah al­Khatib, Yahea Deea, Moayad Zaghmout, Baraa Nmrawi, Jamal Khalife, Mohammad Alsukari, Wassim Mnwar, Abdul Rahman Saleem, Omar Abdullah, Nawar Al­Youssef. Year: Syria, 2015. Duration: 9’15”

Siege expresses the outcome of a workshop via Skype with twelve young people under siege in Yarmouk Camp near Damascus since almost a year and a half. This film expresses four daily realities of this siege. While finalizing their films, the situation in Yarmouk got worse and it became difficult for them to meet together. They persevered and here are their intimate reflections.

A Day and A Button
Director: Azza Hamwi. Year: Syria, 2015. Duration: 6’ 49”
When you can no longer rebel, when your country turns into a big prison, you walk in the same place you used to rebel in, your memory walks you, because the place has changed, or the people were killed, imprisoned, shelled, displaced. A city split in two, regime and liberated, and where is your place?

99٥
Director: Rawad Al­Zakout. Year: Syria, 2014. Duration: 3’53”
Locked in this closed space without hope or future, your screams get louder while the images follow one after the other in your head, your feelings and thoughts revolt, desperately longing for freedom. The soul disconnects itself from the body, thus freeing itself from the pain caused by all fetters and regimes, trying to escape the world of words in search for its humanity. Then, there will be only one thing left… A naked body.

MiG
Director: Thaer Alsahli. Year: Syria, 2013. Duration:11:39

If the “MiG” didn’t show up, it could’ve been just another ordinary day. But it was there, looking for love to shatter, and blow away the features of my exile the “camp”, palestine’s twin. The bedroom, the beautiful nights and the morning coffee were all exposed to the streets and the main square. At that very moment, Dunia my love and my wife, was dead to me.