Ib’atli Gawab / Signed, Sealed, Delivered: On longing and political resistance through epistolary forms in four essay-films.
Inspired by two love songs—Sabah Fakhri’s Ib’atli Gawab (Arabic for “send an answer my way”) and Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered—this program explores the affective and political potential of letter-writing and other epistolary forms through four films by Mona Benyamin, Emily Jacir, Ossama Mohammed & Wiam Siav Bedirxan, and Akram Zaatari. As odes to longing and the infinite wait for a lover’s response, Fakhri and Wonder’s songs are invoked to underline the subjective and situated perspectives of these films.
Set around a Facebook chat, Silvered Water follows the transmission of knowledge and experience between two Syrians, with Mohammed exiled in Paris and attempting to teach Bedirxan how to film, while Bedirxan recounts the reality of living in Homs as the uprisings turn into an unbearably violent conflict/proxy war. In a letter to a friend, Jacir addresses architect Eyal Weizman, recounting an embodied history of the urban fabric surrounding her family home Dar Jacir. Through absurd emails and a catchy soundtrack, Benyamin’s Moonscape tells the story of Dennis M. Hope’s claim of ownership over the Moon—a detour that allows Benyamin to question the impossibility for Palestinians to move freely. Zaatari’s Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright telescopes the outdated format of the typewriter with the immediacy of chatting to evoke the trepidation that marks the waiting for an ex’s response.
In the face of distance and borders, these contemporary takes on the essay-film use letter-writing as a visual and conceptual strategy to build affinities and solidarities, creating ingenious strategies of political resistance.
Film Program:
Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait, Ossama Mohammed & Wiam Simav Bedirxan, France/Syria/United States/Lebanon, 2014,103 min - Watch Silvered Water HERE (available for US audiences only)
Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright, Akram Zaatari, Lebanon/UK, 2011, 7 min
letter to a friend, Emily Jacir, 2019, Palestine, 43 min
Moonscape, Mona Benyamin, 2020, Palestine, 17 min
This program also includes a recorded discussion between filmmaker Mona Benyamin and curator Line Ajan in which they’ll explore Benyamin’s use of musical references in her film—including the late Sabah Fakhri— as well as humor as strategies of subversion and resistance.
Additional Resources:
Tea Is Coffee, Coffee Is Tea: Freedom in a Closed Room: A fascinating text by acclaimed Syrian filmmaker Ossama Mohammed bitingly describes the conditions of filmmaking under the Ba’athist regime in Syria
The 1999 text was first published in Insights into Syrian Cinema: Essays and conversations with contemporary filmmakers. Ed. Rasha Salti. New York: ArteEast : AIC Film Editions/Rattapallax Press, 2006. 149-163.
Ib’atli Gawab / Signed, Sealed, Delivered is curated by Line Ajan and presented as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Moonscape, dir. Mona Benyamin
Synopsis: Moonscape is a short film that takes the form of a music video for a ballad/middle-of-the-road song, performed as a duet between a male and female singer, in Arabic. The song traces the story of a man called Dennis M. Hope, who claimed ownership of the Moon in 1980 and thus founded the Lunar Embassy – a company that sells land on a variety of planets and Moons and makes a connection between his story and that of the director's – a young Palestinian woman living under the Israeli occupation, longing to end the misery of her people in any way possible.
The visuals of the film are a hybrid of surrealist scenes from the Arab music industry, reenacted by the artist’s parents who also play the roles of the singers in the film, and film noir; in addition to found footage from the NASA archives, references from canonic films which influenced the art world and show representations of the Moon, and screenshots of Email correspondences with staff members of the Lunar Embassy. All in order to explore the relationship between hope, nostalgia and despair.
'A moonscape is an area or vista of the lunar landscape (generally of the Earth's moon), or a visual representation of this, such as in a painting. The term "moonscape" is also sometimes used metaphorically for an area devastated or flattened by war, often by shelling.'
Bio: Mona Benyamin (b.1997) is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker based in Haifa. In her works, she explores intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma and questions of identity, using humor and irony as political tools of resistance and reflection. Her recent works have been screened — among others — at MoMA, Another Gaze, Sheffield DocFest and Columbia University.
- Year2020
- Runtime17 minutes
- LanguageArabic, English
- CountryPalestine
- DirectorMona Benyamin
- ScreenwriterMona Benyamin
- FilmmakerMona Benyamin
- CastNahia and Michel Benyamin
- CinematographerMona Benyamin
- EditorJuna Suleiman, Mona Benyamin
- ComposerDeema Azar and Loay Srouji
- Sound DesignDeema Azar, Loay Srouji, Adham Darweesh
- MusicOriginal Song by Mona Benyamin / Oud by Ghassan Diab / Song composed and performed by Deema Azar and Loay Srouji
Ib’atli Gawab / Signed, Sealed, Delivered: On longing and political resistance through epistolary forms in four essay-films.
Inspired by two love songs—Sabah Fakhri’s Ib’atli Gawab (Arabic for “send an answer my way”) and Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered—this program explores the affective and political potential of letter-writing and other epistolary forms through four films by Mona Benyamin, Emily Jacir, Ossama Mohammed & Wiam Siav Bedirxan, and Akram Zaatari. As odes to longing and the infinite wait for a lover’s response, Fakhri and Wonder’s songs are invoked to underline the subjective and situated perspectives of these films.
Set around a Facebook chat, Silvered Water follows the transmission of knowledge and experience between two Syrians, with Mohammed exiled in Paris and attempting to teach Bedirxan how to film, while Bedirxan recounts the reality of living in Homs as the uprisings turn into an unbearably violent conflict/proxy war. In a letter to a friend, Jacir addresses architect Eyal Weizman, recounting an embodied history of the urban fabric surrounding her family home Dar Jacir. Through absurd emails and a catchy soundtrack, Benyamin’s Moonscape tells the story of Dennis M. Hope’s claim of ownership over the Moon—a detour that allows Benyamin to question the impossibility for Palestinians to move freely. Zaatari’s Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright telescopes the outdated format of the typewriter with the immediacy of chatting to evoke the trepidation that marks the waiting for an ex’s response.
In the face of distance and borders, these contemporary takes on the essay-film use letter-writing as a visual and conceptual strategy to build affinities and solidarities, creating ingenious strategies of political resistance.
Film Program:
Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait, Ossama Mohammed & Wiam Simav Bedirxan, France/Syria/United States/Lebanon, 2014,103 min - Watch Silvered Water HERE (available for US audiences only)
Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright, Akram Zaatari, Lebanon/UK, 2011, 7 min
letter to a friend, Emily Jacir, 2019, Palestine, 43 min
Moonscape, Mona Benyamin, 2020, Palestine, 17 min
This program also includes a recorded discussion between filmmaker Mona Benyamin and curator Line Ajan in which they’ll explore Benyamin’s use of musical references in her film—including the late Sabah Fakhri— as well as humor as strategies of subversion and resistance.
Additional Resources:
Tea Is Coffee, Coffee Is Tea: Freedom in a Closed Room: A fascinating text by acclaimed Syrian filmmaker Ossama Mohammed bitingly describes the conditions of filmmaking under the Ba’athist regime in Syria
The 1999 text was first published in Insights into Syrian Cinema: Essays and conversations with contemporary filmmakers. Ed. Rasha Salti. New York: ArteEast : AIC Film Editions/Rattapallax Press, 2006. 149-163.
Ib’atli Gawab / Signed, Sealed, Delivered is curated by Line Ajan and presented as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Moonscape, dir. Mona Benyamin
Synopsis: Moonscape is a short film that takes the form of a music video for a ballad/middle-of-the-road song, performed as a duet between a male and female singer, in Arabic. The song traces the story of a man called Dennis M. Hope, who claimed ownership of the Moon in 1980 and thus founded the Lunar Embassy – a company that sells land on a variety of planets and Moons and makes a connection between his story and that of the director's – a young Palestinian woman living under the Israeli occupation, longing to end the misery of her people in any way possible.
The visuals of the film are a hybrid of surrealist scenes from the Arab music industry, reenacted by the artist’s parents who also play the roles of the singers in the film, and film noir; in addition to found footage from the NASA archives, references from canonic films which influenced the art world and show representations of the Moon, and screenshots of Email correspondences with staff members of the Lunar Embassy. All in order to explore the relationship between hope, nostalgia and despair.
'A moonscape is an area or vista of the lunar landscape (generally of the Earth's moon), or a visual representation of this, such as in a painting. The term "moonscape" is also sometimes used metaphorically for an area devastated or flattened by war, often by shelling.'
Bio: Mona Benyamin (b.1997) is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker based in Haifa. In her works, she explores intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma and questions of identity, using humor and irony as political tools of resistance and reflection. Her recent works have been screened — among others — at MoMA, Another Gaze, Sheffield DocFest and Columbia University.
- Year2020
- Runtime17 minutes
- LanguageArabic, English
- CountryPalestine
- DirectorMona Benyamin
- ScreenwriterMona Benyamin
- FilmmakerMona Benyamin
- CastNahia and Michel Benyamin
- CinematographerMona Benyamin
- EditorJuna Suleiman, Mona Benyamin
- ComposerDeema Azar and Loay Srouji
- Sound DesignDeema Azar, Loay Srouji, Adham Darweesh
- MusicOriginal Song by Mona Benyamin / Oud by Ghassan Diab / Song composed and performed by Deema Azar and Loay Srouji