This set of experimental short films explores the connections between language, memory, and home. While inseparable elements for some, for others they pose the very obstacles preventing them from connecting to their identities. With this in mind, the filmmakers question how language shapes our memories of home and––inversely––how our recollections of the past are sculpted by the mother tongue we did (or did not) learn to speak. The films are poetic in form and content and take us on a journey from the coasts of Egypt to the water wheels of Hama, Syria to an abandoned family home in Baghdad. They beautifully weave images of texts, nature, cityscapes, and personal archives to convey a perpetual longing for a life that could have been.
This program is curated by Nanor Vosgueritchian
In the pieces I store and carry along my many different roads, my dialects may be signs of bruises but reclaimed they form the skin and voice I live in. Experiences of the where, from where, to where; a narrative amongst others. And as the words finally trickle through the needles, fingers seeping with tints trace the outline of whirling fields where I hang a jasmine branch on suspended necks and in the in-betweens, language soothes, swans mend, and the daily brings calm. We are the comfort of our multiples.
About the filmmaker:
Nada El-Omari is a filmmaker and writer of Palestinian and Egyptian origin based in Montreal, Quebec. She has centered her practice and research interests on the intergenerational transmissions of memories, displacement and the stories of belonging and identity through a poetic, hybrid lens. Focusing on process and fragments in text, sound and image, Nada explores different ways to self-narrate new ways to speak hybridity and self. Her films have recently been shown at Nuit Blanche Toronto, Les Instants Vidéos, NYU’s Orphan Films Symposium, Belfast Film Festival, Palestine Cinema Days, Visions Cairo, Toronto Palestine Film Festival and on Shasha and Tenk. Her work has also been published in Montreal Serai and qumra journal. She is currently displaying a digital project commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario (on view at:1-home.net) in collaboration with Sonya Mwambu. El-Omari holds a BFA in Film Production and MFA in Film from York University.
- Year2021
- Runtime8 minutes
- LanguageArabic, English, French
- CountryCanada
- DirectorNada El-Omari
- CinematographerCarine Zahner
This set of experimental short films explores the connections between language, memory, and home. While inseparable elements for some, for others they pose the very obstacles preventing them from connecting to their identities. With this in mind, the filmmakers question how language shapes our memories of home and––inversely––how our recollections of the past are sculpted by the mother tongue we did (or did not) learn to speak. The films are poetic in form and content and take us on a journey from the coasts of Egypt to the water wheels of Hama, Syria to an abandoned family home in Baghdad. They beautifully weave images of texts, nature, cityscapes, and personal archives to convey a perpetual longing for a life that could have been.
This program is curated by Nanor Vosgueritchian
In the pieces I store and carry along my many different roads, my dialects may be signs of bruises but reclaimed they form the skin and voice I live in. Experiences of the where, from where, to where; a narrative amongst others. And as the words finally trickle through the needles, fingers seeping with tints trace the outline of whirling fields where I hang a jasmine branch on suspended necks and in the in-betweens, language soothes, swans mend, and the daily brings calm. We are the comfort of our multiples.
About the filmmaker:
Nada El-Omari is a filmmaker and writer of Palestinian and Egyptian origin based in Montreal, Quebec. She has centered her practice and research interests on the intergenerational transmissions of memories, displacement and the stories of belonging and identity through a poetic, hybrid lens. Focusing on process and fragments in text, sound and image, Nada explores different ways to self-narrate new ways to speak hybridity and self. Her films have recently been shown at Nuit Blanche Toronto, Les Instants Vidéos, NYU’s Orphan Films Symposium, Belfast Film Festival, Palestine Cinema Days, Visions Cairo, Toronto Palestine Film Festival and on Shasha and Tenk. Her work has also been published in Montreal Serai and qumra journal. She is currently displaying a digital project commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ontario (on view at:1-home.net) in collaboration with Sonya Mwambu. El-Omari holds a BFA in Film Production and MFA in Film from York University.
- Year2021
- Runtime8 minutes
- LanguageArabic, English, French
- CountryCanada
- DirectorNada El-Omari
- CinematographerCarine Zahner