Join us for a screening of Short Films followed by a panel on “Place Attachment”.
Screenings:
Fragments
Country: Tunisia
Director: Ghassen Chraifa
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: Life comes as a continuous race against time where everything is programmed in advance. Everything is tied up in a defined chronological order and we are just running to catch up. What would happen if we decide to take a break, if we feel how the present moment goes by?
Tawargit
Country: Morocco
Director: Karim Barka
Length: 3 mins
Synopsis: A video take of a shadow of young fisherman from the Atlantic coast as a creature from another world. In seeing his shadow in the water, he imagines himself as a fish traveling through water to be wherever he wants.
Un Passage entre Deux Points
Country: Tunisia
Director: Lamis Souliman
Length: 10 mins
Synopsis: In a confrontation structure between emotional and spatial alienation, out of a party full with tipsy attendees, an alienated girl fleeing through a path hidden between two stopped points in ‘Time’. She takes her journey moving on the very fine line between the outer reality and a parallel universe. Through the mental sounds and expressive movements of a girl who travels in a circular path between the real world and the self-realm, the film embodies images of optional and compulsory isolation within the life of an expatriate person, in deconstructing for the meanings of fulfilled existence and residential affiliation
All Come From Dust//من طين
Country: Tunisia
Director: Younes Ben Slimane
Length: 9 mins
Synopsis: A loop of edgeless bend. You were its doom, he was its bloom. You were its tomb, he was its womb. For Heaven and Hell, were words made of fum.
April 21//٢١ نيسان
Country: Syria
Director: Houssam Jlelati
Length: 3 mins
Synopsis: During the ongoing war in Syria, and the outbreak of coronavirus disease which resulted in a global quarantine, there are some ideas to get rid of all this noise.
Summer 2006
Country: Czech Republic
Director: Farah Abou Kharroub
Length: 7 mins
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Farah filmed a bomb as it hit Beirut’s airport. Her father filmed the years of fighting in Lebanon every day as a war reporter. Images of the city at war are mixed with images of household peace from Farah’s childhood. This collage, created from footage shot by father and daughter, reveals the unbearable length of a conflict that affected two generations.
Panel:
Place Attachment
Fatma Hendawy
Fatma Hendawy Yehia is an Egyptian-Canadian curator, based in Toronto since 2017. Yehia graduated in 2020 from the Master of Visual Studies Curatorial program at university of Toronto. Since 2008, Yehia held different positions at the New Library of Alexandria including Head of Permanent Exhibitions (2010-12). She was the Assistant Curator at the AGYU, Toronto (2021-22). She was Guest Curator at Images Festival 2022, and currently she works as Assistant Archivist at the Art Museum, University of Toronto. Yehia participated in curatorial workshops (including Tate Intensive 2017), residencies (ProHelvetia and ZKU/Berlin) and curated several projects in Egypt, UK, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Canada. Her curatorial practice focuses on investigating censored archives, questioning inaccessible histories, and navigating militarised spaces.
Lamis Haggag
Lamis Haggag is an Egyptian multimedia artist, living and working between Cairo and Toronto. She received her MFA from The University of Calgary in 2013 and her BFA from Helwan University, Cairo in 2008. She participated in exhibitions and residencies in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, St. Thomas Ontario, Cairo, Beijing, Dakar, Lagos, Berlin, Incheon and Aswan.
In addition to her art practice, Haggag is an art instructor, installer and proposal writer. She received various grants and scholarships in Canada from CCA, TAC, OAC, AFA, Interaccess Artist-run Center and the University of Calgary. Haggag is also the recipient of awards and grants from the Goethe Institute in Lagos, the Goethe Institute in Cairo, Incheon Foundation for Arts and Culture (IFAC) in Incheon, Al Mawred Al Thaqafy for the Arab region, Kamel Lazaar Foundation in Tunisia and various awards from the Ministry of culture in Egypt.
May Telmissany, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa
May Telmissany is Associate professor of Cinema and Arabic Studies in the Department of Communication, University of Ottawa. She is the former Director of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and founder of the Arab Canadian Studies Research Group (ACANS). She is an established novelist and columnist as well as the author of numerous academic books including La Hara dans le Cinéma Egyptien. Popular neighborhood and national identity, and Counterpoints. Edward Said’s Legacy. Her scholarly articles are published in English, French and Arabic in France, the UK, the USA, Canada, and Egypt.
Telmissany’s research spans a variety of topics in media and film theories including the representation of the popular neighborhood in cinema, the emergence of minor cinemas and women transnational filmmaking, the political contributions of the diasporic women intellectuals during and after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, and the impact of SVOD platforms on Arab countries and the Francophonie.
As a novelist, she published four novels and four short stories collections many of which were translated into several languages.
Telmissany won two literary awards, in Egypt and in France, and was recently awarded the prestigious medal of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic, in recognition of her literary and academic achievements.
Chantal Partamian, Filmmaker
Chantal Partamian is a filmmaker and archivist primarily focused on working with super 8mm and found footage. Partamian’s films have been screened and awarded at numerous festivals and are distributed by Vidéographe, Groupe intervention Vidéo (GIV), and the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center.
In her capacity as an archivist, she dedicates herself to preserving and restoring reels from the Mediterranean region while conducting research on archival practices in conflict areas. Her written works are predominantly featured in the revue Hors-Champs.
Younes Ben Slimane, Filmmaker
Younes Ben Slimane is a tunisian artist and filmmaker.
His architectural background has a major influence on his approach as an artist. Working through film, video, photography, drawing and installation, he establishes a permanent dialogue between architecture and visual arts, where different mediums coexist and reflect each other potentialities and limitations.
Younes completed post-graduates studies at Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains (FR) . His work has been exhibited at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Institut du monde arabe in Paris (FR), at the Mucem in Marseille (FR), at the Selma Feriani Gallery in Sidi Bou Saïd (TN), and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje (MK).
His films have been selected in international festivals such as Locarno Film Festival (CH) and CPH:DOX (DK). He has received the Tanit d’or at the Carthage Film Festival (TN) and the Studio Collector Prize (FR).
