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 Zaatari’s Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright telescopes the outdated format of the typewriter with the immediacy of chatting to evoke the trepidation that marks the waiting for an ex’s response.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.
letter to a friend, dir. Emily Jacir
Synopsis: A close friend is asked to start an investigation before an inevitable act occurs. Interlacing images, textures, movements, traces and sounds of over a century, letter to a friend recounts in minute detail a home and street in Bethlehem.
Bio: As poetic as it is political and biographical, Emily Jacir’s work investigates translation, transformation, resistance, and movement. Jacir has built a complex and compelling oeuvre through a diverse range of media and methodologies that include unearthing historical material, performative gestures and in-depth research. Her work spans a range of strategies including film, photography, sculpture, interventions, archiving, performance, video, writing, and sound. She investigates personal and collective movement through public space and its implications on the physical and social experience of Mediterranean space and time. Her works have been widely exhibited, and she has been honored for her achievements with several awards including a Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) for her work Material for a film; a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague (2007); the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum (2008); the Alpert Award (2011) from the Herb Alpert Foundation; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome (2015) among others. Select film juries that Jacir has served on include German Competition 35th International Kurzfilm Hamburg (2018); Visions du Reel Festival international du Cinéma Nyon (2014); Berlinale Shorts International Jury (2012); the Cinema XXI Jury Rome Film Festival (2012). She has been actively involved in education in Palestine since 2000 and deeply invested in creating alternative spaces of knowledge production internationally. She formed a school at the Firestation in Dublin in the summer of 2019 Live Free or Die. In conjunction with her survey show Europa at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin in 2016–17 she organized a 2 week workshop for her students in Ramallah alongside Irish participants To Be Determined (for Jean). She was the curator the Young Artist of the Year Award 2018 at the A. M. Qattan Foundation in Ramallah that she titled We Shall Be Monsters. She is co-founder and the Founding Director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem, Palestine.
- Year2019
- Runtime43 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryPalestine, State of
- DirectorEmily Jacir
- ScreenwriterEmily Jacir
- FilmmakerEmily Jacir
- CinematographerEmily Jacir
- EditorEmily Jacir
- AnimatorAhmad Habash
- Sound DesignEmily Jacir
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.
letter to a friend, dir. Emily Jacir
Synopsis: A close friend is asked to start an investigation before an inevitable act occurs. Interlacing images, textures, movements, traces and sounds of over a century, letter to a friend recounts in minute detail a home and street in Bethlehem.
Bio: As poetic as it is political and biographical, Emily Jacir’s work investigates translation, transformation, resistance, and movement. Jacir has built a complex and compelling oeuvre through a diverse range of media and methodologies that include unearthing historical material, performative gestures and in-depth research. Her work spans a range of strategies including film, photography, sculpture, interventions, archiving, performance, video, writing, and sound. She investigates personal and collective movement through public space and its implications on the physical and social experience of Mediterranean space and time. Her works have been widely exhibited, and she has been honored for her achievements with several awards including a Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) for her work Material for a film; a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague (2007); the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum (2008); the Alpert Award (2011) from the Herb Alpert Foundation; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome (2015) among others. Select film juries that Jacir has served on include German Competition 35th International Kurzfilm Hamburg (2018); Visions du Reel Festival international du Cinéma Nyon (2014); Berlinale Shorts International Jury (2012); the Cinema XXI Jury Rome Film Festival (2012). She has been actively involved in education in Palestine since 2000 and deeply invested in creating alternative spaces of knowledge production internationally. She formed a school at the Firestation in Dublin in the summer of 2019 Live Free or Die. In conjunction with her survey show Europa at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin in 2016–17 she organized a 2 week workshop for her students in Ramallah alongside Irish participants To Be Determined (for Jean). She was the curator the Young Artist of the Year Award 2018 at the A. M. Qattan Foundation in Ramallah that she titled We Shall Be Monsters. She is co-founder and the Founding Director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem, Palestine.
- Year2019
- Runtime43 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryPalestine, State of
- DirectorEmily Jacir
- ScreenwriterEmily Jacir
- FilmmakerEmily Jacir
- CinematographerEmily Jacir
- EditorEmily Jacir
- AnimatorAhmad Habash
- Sound DesignEmily Jacir