Monday | February 15, 2016 7:00 pm

The Lost Film
(El film el mafkoud)

Directed by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.
Lebanon/France, 2003, digital video, color, 43 min.
Arabic with English subtitles.

The Lost Film (El film el mafkoud)

Directed by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
Lebanon/France 2003, digital video, color, 43 min. Arabic with English subtitles

On May 22, 2000, the tenth anniversary of the unification of North and South Yemen, Hadjithomas and Joreige learn that the only print of their first film, Around the Pink House, has disappeared in Yemen. One year later, they travel to Sana’a to try to learn what they can of what has happened to the print; what follows is part gripping investigation and part essay film. The title ultimately refers not only to Around the Pink House but also to the gaps within the world of Arab cinema as a whole, caught between the often Orientalist expectations of Western audiences and the fact that the productions supported by the region’s elites often serve only to reproduce a dominant ideology.

PRECEDED BY

Rounds (Barmeh)

Directed by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.
With Rabih Mroué.
Lebanon/France, 2001, digital video, color, 8 min.
Arabic with English subtitles.

In this short film, a man drives through Beirut, musing on the modernization taking place as the city is rebuilt in the wake of the civil war. Throughout, Beirut is evoked only through the driver’s thoughts and stories; nothing is visible through the car’s windows except an overexposed white light.