Pipe Dreams and more

Pipe Dreams

2012. Lebanon/France. Directed by Ali Cherri. Haunted by images of protestors knocking down statues of leaders from Stalin to Saddam Hussein, Cherri's video appropriates YouTube footage of the Syrian government dismantling public statues of former president Hafez al-Assad to preempt their desecration. Interwoven with Syrian television clips of the historic phone conversation between Assad and astronaut Mohammad Fares during his flight in space, Pipe Dreams reflects on how authoritarian regimes enforce and protect representations of their all-pervasive power. In Arabic; English subtitles. 6 min.

Letter to the Prison

1969/2008. Tunisia/France. Directed by Marc Scialom. With Tahar Aïbi, Marie-Christine Lefort, Myriam Tuil. Shot in 1969 between Tunis and Paris—under the watchful eye of Jean Rouch and using Chris Marker’s 16mm camera—Letter to the Prison was stowed in boxes for some 40 years due to lack of funds, before finally seeing completion in 2008. Straddling the line between documentary and fiction, the film chronicles the torments of a young Tunisian immigrant to Paris who reads, in voice-over, a letter to his brother, in prison on a murder charge. Letter to the Prison’s vanguard modernity is both compelling and evocatively contemporary. In French; English subtitles. 70 min.