Event Details
July 24, 2020
7:00 PM EDT
Virtual
Join us for a screening of “Talking About Trees” followed by a Panel Discussion titled “Film is Dead, Long Live Film: Reviving the Arts in Sudan” featuring speakers Nehal El-Hadi, Mr. Mohamed Wahbi and Mazin Osman, moderated by Iman Abbaro.
Screening:
Talking About Trees//الحديث عن الأشجار
Country: Sudan, France, Chad, Germany, Qatar
Director: Suhaib Gasmelbari
Length: 94 mins
Synopsis: Four older Sudanese filmmakers with passion for film battle to bring cinema-going back to Sudan, not without resistance. Their ‘Sudanese Film Club’ have decided to revive an old cinema, and again draw attention to Sudanese film history. The film intermittently weaves in clips from their films, many which were lost or banned due to their political leanings.
Panel:
Film is Dead, Long Live Film: Reviving the Arts in Sudan
Watch
After having witnessed the history of cinema in Sudan in TALKING ABOUT TREES, motivated by the unwavering determination of these four filmmakers, this panel looks forward to examine the role of film and arts in the rebuilding of Sudan. Film in particular holds significant power in fostering community while promoting dialogue. TALKING ABOUT TREES makes us intently aware of lost potential and dreams marred and suppressed by politics and religious extremism and ultimately urges us to reconsider the importance of arts in shaping narratives about Sudan.
Moderator: Iman Abbaro
Speakers:
Nehal El-Hadi, Writer, Researcher, Editor
Nehal El-Hadi investigates the relationships between the body (racialised, gendered), place (urban, virtual), and technology (internet, health).
She completed a Ph.D. in Planning at the University of Toronto, where her research examined the relationships between user-generated content and everyday public urban life.
As a scholar, her hybrid digital/material research methods are informed by her training and experience as a science and environmental journalist.
Nehal advocates for the responsible, accountable, and ethical treatment of user-generated content in the fields of journalism, planning, and healthcare.
Her writing has appeared in academic journals, general scholarship publications, literary magazines, and several anthologies and edited collections.
Nehal is the Science+Technology Editor at The Conversation Canada, an academic news site, and Editor-in-Chief of Studio Magazine, a biannual print publication dedicated to contemporary Canadian craft and design. She currently holds a residency at Toronto’s Theatre Centre, where she is developing a live arts event that explores surveillance, privacy, and consent.
Nehal sits on the Board of Directors of FiXT POINT Arts & Media and Provocation Ideas Festival. She is a member of the Digital Communities Advisory Panel at the Centre for Free Expression. She was previously a Visiting Scholar at the City Institute at York University.