Speaking, Remembering, Dreaming

In Jalal Toufic's Phantom Beirut: A Tribute to Ghassan Salhab (Lebanon, 2002, 15 mins, In Arabic with English subtitles, Color), writer and filmmaker Salhab meditates on his insomnia, “bonus” time that allows him to see the world in a different way-as an artist. Senab Sedira's minimal yet exquisite Don't do to her what you did to me enacts a personal ritual involving photographs and ink (Algeria/Great Britain, 1998/2001, 8 mins, B&W), while in Saving Face (Jalal Toufic, Lebanon, 2003, 8 mins, Color) surrealistic juxtapositions are found as layers of election posters are scraped off walls. Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (English Version) (U.S./Lebanon, 2001, 17 mins, Color) continues Walid Ra'ad's exploration of the Lebanese Civil War, here focusing on the abduction and detention of Western hostages through the testimony of Souheil Bachar. In the intimate and riveting untitled part 1: everything and nothing (France/Canada, 1999–2001, 41 mins, In Arabic and French with English subtitles, Color) Jayce Salloum conducts off-camera interviews with Soha Bechara, an ex-Lebanese National Resistance fighter, after her release from captivity in the notorious El-Khiam torture and interrogation center in South Lebanon. In untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends (Lebanon/Canada, 2002, 11 mins, In Arabic with English subtitles, Color) Salloum creates a montage of flowers blooming and footage shot after the 1982 massacres at Lebanon's Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, with a voiceover by Abdel Majid Fadl Ali Hassan, a 1948 refugee who reminisces about his home.

This page may by only partially complete.