Documentary screening
Documentary series #1: Memories of Communism in Lebanon - Two Videos by Marwan Hamdan
- Date
- Friday 11 March 2022
- Time
- Location
-
Wijnhaven
Turfmarkt 99
2511 DP The Hague - Room
- 3.46
We open the International Studies documentary series with two experimental shorts by the Lebanese filmmaker Marwan Hamdan that engage with the histories and memories of his communist parents. After the screening Hamdan will join us via Zoom for a Q&A led by Judith Naeff.
Separation Anxiety (2014, 16’)
In 1976 my mother joined the communist party where she met my father one year after the beginning of the civil war in Lebanon which divided the city into East and West. In this video we listen to my mother (Christian from east Beirut) narrating the story of her marriage to my father (Muslim from west Beirut), and the implications of this mixed marriage on her relationship with her family, who opposed the wedding, which led my parents to elope, thus creating a family crisis.
News from Rmeileh (2018, 28’)
News from Rmeileh is an essayistic travelogue exploring exile, utopianism, and communism through two intersecting and diverging journeys: the first, by land, to Rmeileh, a town in South Lebanon inhabited by communists between 1985 and 1991, and the second, by sea, to Leon Trotsky's first residing place (1929-1933) in exile in the Princes' Islands off the coast of Istanbul in Turkey.
Marwan Hamdan is a filmmaker born and raised in Beirut, where he studied filmmaking. His practice revolves around exploring documents (mainly images and recordings) and stories of Beirut's political and social modern history, with special interest in religion, mythology, belief, and power structures.
Judith Naeff is lecturer Cultures of the Middle East at International Studies and researches cultural memories of student, labour and communist movements in the Arab World.
If you wish to attend the screening and Q&A on online, please register here for the Zoom link
Register here