The third installment in the series "resistance" issued on DVD by Lowave Label offers a compilation of video makers and visual artists from the Middle East and North Africa from a common theme as indicated by the title track : resistance.
Resistance: noun,
action to resist physically to someone, a group to oppose the attack by force or by arms. Action to resist authority, to oppose what we do not approve: Resistance arbitrariness. Encounter resistance from his family. Ability of someone to stand the test or entities, of a living being to withstand extreme conditions: Have a good resistance to fatigue. Property of a material to resist the effects of an external agent: Textile material used for its strength. Force that opposes the motion in a fluid: The air resistance.
The conjunctures, political, religious, societal, are sadly enough legions in the Maghreb and the Middle East to confront and push the artists from these regions develop attitudes of resistance: authoritarian regimes, fundamentalism, civil war, human rights, status of women, poverty, the Israeli-Palestinian
... In the works selected and proposed by Lowave, these attitudes are different ways of resistance that range from indictment to derision. The formal choices that artists adopt, embrace a very wide range that goes from short fiction to experimental video. While the videos are not all of equal values, but this compilation gives a fairly comprehensive view, sufficiently varied contemporary production too little about the Middle East and North Africa.
"The illuminati, Halida Bougriet (Algeria)
The topics covered are obviously those previously mentioned. An important part of the proposed video query and challenge the status of women: "Les Illuminations" Halida Bougriet (Algeria) captures our attention through a point of view POV of a woman wearing burqa, this woman (we) meets people in the subway, expressions surprises, curious, shocked, embarrassed to read on the faces, in "Coloured Photograph" to the aesthetic reminiscent of campaigns of United Colors of Benetto, Waheeda Malullah ( Bahrain) chooses it, to color a group of women wearing black burqas, frozen in a still shot taken near the front. "This smell of sex" very subtly blends stories free very young men and women about their relationship to sexuality. They never appear on the screen remains black and immerses us in our turn in frustration. An oscillating almost imaginary and exotic oriental "Coloured Photograph", a black and white "trash", shot in real life and falling near the happening, with "The illuminati, or the disappearance of the figure in" This smell of sex " . These three videos, in addition to addressing the problems related to the status of women, have in common to probe our own eyes the face of otherness with different devices.
"Coloured Photograph" Waheeda Malullah (Bahrain)
"If the name of human leans his mortal condition, the face because visible light, is what allows the man s' understanding in the eye of his vis-à-vis and see the reflection of himself "
Houria Abdelouahed in Art Press 371," The erotic veil "
In these three videos, there is So much talk about the flow of light. Different strategies: the front is with "Coloured Photograph, with no" This smell of sex "refers to the absence So frustration set but also explicitly to the idea of censorship choice imposed by the circumstances or wishes of the director, no matter ... "The enlightened" him by striking reversal of opinion made in the end, and also asked us condescension, the veiled woman, here, becomes like a zoo animal that we observe. Each being located on both sides of a boundary line. It could also relate to a lesser degree, the very nice video of Ismail Bahri "Resonances" this problem. In fact, this movie has provided guests a bathroom, instead of the toilet, instead referring to the private sphere, the intimate as opposed to public image and violence which may leak out as in "The Illuminated," by fantasy the Western eye can navigate bound orientalizing images of the harem, steam room, Arabic calligraphy that covers the walls of a bathtub ... Portrait of a Lady also "The parade of Taos" Nazim Djemaï (Algeria), ambulation A woman in Algiers still reeling from years of civil war, illegitimate couples, love and sexuality forced underground. Despite the abuse of children assimilating a witch, this woman draws her way, her head high ...
"If the name of human leans his mortal condition, the face because visible light, is what allows the man s' understanding in the eye of his vis-à-vis and see the reflection of himself "
Houria Abdelouahed in Art Press 371," The erotic veil "
In these three videos, there is So much talk about the flow of light. Different strategies: the front is with "Coloured Photograph, with no" This smell of sex "refers to the absence So frustration set but also explicitly to the idea of censorship choice imposed by the circumstances or wishes of the director, no matter ... "The enlightened" him by striking reversal of opinion made in the end, and also asked us condescension, the veiled woman, here, becomes like a zoo animal that we observe. Each being located on both sides of a boundary line. It could also relate to a lesser degree, the very nice video of Ismail Bahri "Resonances" this problem. In fact, this movie has provided guests a bathroom, instead of the toilet, instead referring to the private sphere, the intimate as opposed to public image and violence which may leak out as in "The Illuminated," by fantasy the Western eye can navigate bound orientalizing images of the harem, steam room, Arabic calligraphy that covers the walls of a bathtub ... Portrait of a Lady also "The parade of Taos" Nazim Djemaï (Algeria), ambulation A woman in Algiers still reeling from years of civil war, illegitimate couples, love and sexuality forced underground. Despite the abuse of children assimilating a witch, this woman draws her way, her head high ...
"Resonances," Ismail Bahri
Political conditions also, in the words inscribed on the walls of the bathtub, trying to cling desperately to resist the water flowing, little little fade, dissolve, a reminder metaphoric of the deprivation of freedom of expression especially in Tunisia which is from Ismail Bahri?
Loss of a dream, loss of territory, loss of freedom ... ... Fallen Dreams
"Revolution" by Khaled Hafez (Egypt) confronts us with the dream Nasserist pan-Arabism, the hopes raised in 1952 with the proclamation of the republic in Egypt, we asked about those hopes ... Three people are confronted: the civil, religious and military, each is separate, compartmentalized, enclosed in a frame, no porosity possible parables of logic and aspirations different for the construction of society? In any dialogue is not established, no longer stands. The soldier pointed his gun at the two other characters: he is the guarantor of the country's cohesion as in Turkey, the army is the guarantor of freedom? Is it a threat?
"Is it legitimate to criticize or influence over the military remains the real master of politics in some countries? The time has come to revive and implement the slogan of the sixties revolutionary left in the third world saying that "power is in the firing line? "As Olivier Hadouchi in the preface to this collection.
Loss of a dream, loss of territory, loss of freedom ... ... Fallen Dreams
"Revolution" by Khaled Hafez (Egypt) confronts us with the dream Nasserist pan-Arabism, the hopes raised in 1952 with the proclamation of the republic in Egypt, we asked about those hopes ... Three people are confronted: the civil, religious and military, each is separate, compartmentalized, enclosed in a frame, no porosity possible parables of logic and aspirations different for the construction of society? In any dialogue is not established, no longer stands. The soldier pointed his gun at the two other characters: he is the guarantor of the country's cohesion as in Turkey, the army is the guarantor of freedom? Is it a threat?
"Is it legitimate to criticize or influence over the military remains the real master of politics in some countries? The time has come to revive and implement the slogan of the sixties revolutionary left in the third world saying that "power is in the firing line? "As Olivier Hadouchi in the preface to this collection.
"3494 houses and one fence " Mireille Astore and fabian
Evocation of the Lebanese civil war with" 3494 houses and one fence "and Mireille Astore fabian (Lebanon) that in a video filmed in a residential suburb of Australia, maelstrom of facades of houses accompanied by a soundtrack consisting of bursts of machine guns, explosions, punctuated by freeze frames which open open bite on fences, walls evoking barbed wire, destruction, reminds us of On the one hand, elsewhere, beyond our tranquility, wars take place, on the other hand, that democracy and peace is not a definitive conquest.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with "Run Lara Run Larissa Mansour (Palestine), here no direct mention of the conflict, but just a girl running in all directions, at breath, runs into walls, closed doors, finding no escape. A woman, still trying to account by his obsessive quest, the immeasurable political situation of a small territory, cut up gradually, where the future is precarious, where the desire to take flight not on the hope for a youth. The immeasurable is also expressed in "We Began by Measuring distance" Basma Alsharif (Palestine), measured distances between Oslo, Madrid, Sharm El-Sheikh, distances measured from the loss of territories, a world before tragedy, distance of exile for many Palestinians. Exile, loss, evoked by the earth, fruits, trees, the tradition ... Gap, gap between a lost world without a future and a present ... read Immeasurable distance will lead to a viable peace ...
"What can a collection of videos and films face a series of bombings, relentless surveillance systems and releases unfinished? Resist, rebuild from the ruins exist saying and showing "
Hadouchi Olivier, preface to the book" Resistance (s) Volume 3
In the video of Ismail Bahri, the words get carried away, slide, dissolve in the uniform mass of water, seem to disappear but they cling, cling, reflect, tint, color, traces remain persistent nonetheless. They resist.
Resistance (s) Volume III
Published by Lowave Label
www.lowave.com
