January 9-18, 2020: Erased_Ascent of the Invisible by Ghassan Halawani (2018)

Beginning with the recounting from memory of an individual’s kidnapping during the Lebanese civil war, the film traces the present resonance of past events, focusing on the cases of those who disappeared during the conflict.  Weaving archival footage with animated sequences and documentation of the artist’s interventions on the walls of Beirut, the film is a reflection on how the physical non-existence of those disappeared continues to haunt not only the memories of those close to them, but also the physical, political and administrative spaces of the nation.

Ghassan Halwani (b. 1979) Lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon

An artist and illustrator, Halwani has collaborated with filmmakers, playwrights, contemporary artists, publishers, and musicians across the Arab world. He is currently contributing to the creation of a national archive dedicated to enforced disappearances in Lebanon. This is the artist’s first feature film.

January 19-29,2020: Prometheus by Haig Aivazian (2019)

The 1991 Gulf War was the first post-Soviet-era international conflict, and the first to be broadcast on twenty-four-hour news networks such as CNN. A year later, the 1992 Olympic games took place with the USA ‘Dream Team’ winning gold. Prometheus charts this new era of US power through these two moments; reflecting on the changing landscape of both soft and hard power, and the role of the media in producing these.

The title is in reference to the Greek mythical figure of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods on Mount Olympus and gave it to humankind as civilization.

Haig Aivazian (b. 1980) Lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon

Aivazian is an artist, curator and co-director of the Beirut Art Centre. Working across a range of media and modes of address, he delves into the ways in which power embeds, affects and moves people, objects, animals, landscape and architecture.

January 24, February 1, and February 8, 2020: Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues Also Die) (1953) by Alain Resnais, Chris Marker and Ghislain Cloquet & The Apollo of Gaza (2019) by Nicolas Wadimoff

At the time of its making, the essay film Les Statues Meurent Aussi was at once a searing critique of colonialism as well as a critique of the ethnographic museum display. The film looks at the transformation that objects undergo, in this instance historical African artefacts, when taken from their original context into that of the museum, where codes of display and classification empty objects of lived significance.

What happens when a priceless artefact is discovered in Gaza, a territory under siege? The Apollo of Gaza investigates the strange circumstances around discovery of a statue of the Greek god Apollo, which disappeared soon after its finding. The film attempts to unravel the mystery of the statue’s whereabouts, at the same shedding light on the intricate politics surrounding the circulation of artefacts in and out Palestine and under occupation, and the competing claims over the writing and narrating of history.

Alain Resnais (1922-2014)

A filmmaker and screenwriter, and part of the French New Wave scene, Resnais’ career spanned over sixty years. He produced many short and feature films including the influential classics Hiroshima mon Amour (1959), Night and Fog (1956) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961).

Chris Marker (1921-2012)

One of the pioneers of the essay film, Marker was a writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist, producing some of the most experimental film of the time that continue to hold sway today, including La Jetée (1962), A Grin Without a Cat (1977) and Sans Soleil (1983).

Nicolas Wadimoff (b.1964) Lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland

An award winning documentary filmmaker and producer, his recent films include Jean Ziegler, the Optimism of Willpower  (2016), Spartiates (2014), Operation Libertad (2012) and Aisheen, still alive in Gaza (2010).

January 30 – February 8, 2020: 4 Waters- Deep Implicancy by Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva (2019)

An experimental film that asks us to re-think our planetary relationships, 4 Waters- Deep Implicancy ask us to consider our world out of time, to think about a primordial moment of entanglement prior to the separation of matter into the forms we currently know, both human and non-human; a time the filmmakers describe as ‘Deep Implicancy’. Moving across four bodies of water, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, the film follows the movement of people as well as elements and matter, taking a planetary view of the present and inviting us to question the ethics that drive our current moment.

Arjuna Neuman (b.1984) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

An artist, writer and filmmaker, Neuman works experimentally with the essay form. His work explores the economic, social and ideological systems that shape our lived experiences. This is his second film in collaboration with Denise Ferreira da Silva.

Denise Ferreira da Silva. Lives and works in Vancouver, Canada

Ferreira da Silva is philosopher and academic. She is a Professor and Director of The Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia, Canada and Adjunct Professor of Fine Arts, at Monash Universit, Australia. She is the author of Toward a Global Idea of Race and co-editor of Race, Empire, and The Crisis of the Subprime (with Paula Chakravartty)