Errans & one sea, 10 seas
Mira Adoumier and Nour Ouayda in conversation
Wednesday 26.10.22
Wednesday 26.10.22
Welcome to a double screening of Errans by Mira Adoumier and one sea, 10 seas by Nour Ouayda, two creative non-fiction films which introduce characters observing and contemplating the landscapes surrounding the coast of Beirut.
The films are examples of a first person documentary approach to filmmaking that is evident in recent cinema from Lebanon. This mode of personal portraits of cities and places seem to appear when a region has been overexposed in media due to violent conflict. It reflects a natural need to represent one's own perception, and even dreams, of a particular place when international media coverage has been controlling the image-production and as a result shaping one-dimensional realities.
After the screening, there will be a conversation between the filmmakers and Head of KH Cinema, Silja Espolin Johnson. The conversation will be in English. The event is part of the program series Suspended Presents, Stolen Futures: Sci-Fi, Humor and Nostalgia in New Arab Cinema.
About the films
one sea, 10 seas
Lebanon | 2019 | 42 min | Directed by Nour Ouayda | Language and subtitles: Arabic, English
Eight tapes dating from 2014 to 2018 contain footage of the Mediterranean Sea, more precisely a small section of the coast around Beirut. Three women examine the recorded images and sounds, looking for traces of what they call “apparitions”, ghost like images of people.
Errans
Lebanon | 2020 | 67 min | Directed by Mira Adoumier | Language: French with English subtitles
A woman arrives to Lebanon to search for a missing man she met in Iceland years ago. Through her voice, we embark on a journey as she wanders following landmarks and traces of him, in a landscape still bearing traces of violence from past yet ongoing conflicts, in a territory where myths and the strata of civilisations seem to unfold in parallel spaces. A persistent sound of sirens coming from the sea draws her progression towards the south, the mythical center of the earth.
Errans is an aural and visual essay, a collage of images and voices that attempts to evoke the state of exile the filmmaker grew up in, the displacement and the resulting alienation that one is condemned to.
In conversation
Nour Ouayda is a filmmaker, film critic and programmer. Her films and videos experiment with various forms of fiction writing in cinema. She is deputy director at Metropolis Cinema Association in Beirut where she also manages the Cinematheque Beirut project. She is as well the co-editor of the Montreal-based online film journal Hors Champ and a member of the film collective The Camelia Committee with Carine Doumit and Mira Adoumier.
Mira Adoumier is a Lebanese and French filmmaker living in Oslo. With an initial background in psychology, philosophy and biology, she later on completed a degree in film Production at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal. Through her work with fictional short films and film essays, she explored characters living at the margins of in-between worlds, while also in parallel experimenting with the formal aspect of the image. Her first feature film, Errans premiered at CPH:DOX 2020 in the next:wave competition. She is also part of The Camelia Committee, a collective that explores hybrid forms of writing for and in cinema.
