Dar El-Nimer, in collaboration with the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum — MACAM, is pleased to invite you to screenings of short films, followed by a discussion with Philip Joa, one of the directors of “Epicly Palestine’d: The Birth of Skateboarding in the West Bank”.

Screening Program:

Next Sunday | Marta Bogdanska | Poland
10 Minutes | Arabic/English 

A creative documentary that revolves around the Oscar Niemeyer project named Rachid Karame International Fair, locally called Maarad (exhibition). This treasure of architecture remained unfinished, closed to the public, and forgotten by the world. There was a group of boys entering the site every Sunday. The film shows the encounter and dynamics between the space and the boys using this place, half-legally, jumping over the fence, to ride their bikes, and spend good time together. Their usage of the site opens new readings of the space. The concrete ruin, beautiful and haunted, becomes alive and full of unique energy. These young boys found their refuge in the lost Maarad where they can follow their dreams.

Rebirth | Gokce Oraloglu and Zehra Gokcimen | Turkey
4 Minutes

The movie presents a dance ritual. With every move, the umbilical cord is cut and with every turn, a new shell is created around ourselves.

You, a Film by Her | Yasmin Hage-Meany | Guatemala/Lebanon
11 Minutes

The video was shot from a car driving along the unfinished International fairgrounds in Tripoli. Four different sound tracks are undermining the images. The first sound track is a Guatemalan radio air-space that was orchestrated by the CIA as an experimental sound intervention to overthrow the national government. The second sound space is based on a love letter that Frida Kahlo sent to her husband Diego Rivera. The third sound space is a collection of soundtracks from film interacting with the sounds on the fairgrounds. The forth is a sound intervention by the soundtrack of ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’, where next to the two main characters, He and She, a second She is added.

The Night Between Ali And I | Nadia and Laila Hotait | Lebanon/Spain
10 Minutes | Arabic/Spanish

The video is a fictional re-enactment of one of the key events that happened in Lebanese and Levantine contemporary history: the highjack of thirty-nine hostages at the Bank of America in Beirut, in October 1973. Four armed young fellows from the Lebanese Socialist Revolutionary Movement entered the bank in downtown Beirut, demanding ten million dollars for the Arab fight against imperialism in the region and the release of some Arab political prisoners. They also requested that their manifesto will be published in the newspaper. The installation is displayed as a triptych with three main voices: Amer Farrough, one of the four men, Mariam, Ali’s sister and our own narration of the event. The images evoke in a particular way what happened during the hijack.

Riverbed Press | Julie Nymann | Denmark
8 Minutes 

An interaction between machine, labor and nature: powered by repeated labor, a printmaking press transforms the natural surroundings.

Mohamed, Le Prénom | Malika Zairi | Morocco/France
15 Minutes | French

The film is a comic fiction in the aim to denounce discrimination because of one’s name. Through a ten-year-old boy named Mohamed, the real message of peace by the Prophet of Islam, who forbade violence and terror, is spread.

Decadence of Nature | Olga Guse | Russia
7 Minutes

The pollution of our planet Earth is increasing in an alarming speed. The natural environment is deteriorating. Fantastic creatures, animal-like people are trying to survive in these new conditions, as they suffer from the intoxication, but, on the other hand, they continue to sail on the waves of the consumer society.

Epicly Palestine’d: The Birth of Skateboarding in the West Bank | Theo Krish and Philip Joa | England/Palestine 
26 Minutes | Arabic/English | Followed by a conversation with Philip Joa

A small group of Palestinian teenagers gain the attention of the skateboarding world when they create a skate scene from scratch in the heart of the West Bank, a place where you cannot even buy a skateboard, whilst facing the challenges of living under military occupation.

Partners: Modern and Contemporary Art Museum - MACAM