Event Details:
7:30 PM: Seating Opens
8:30 PM: Films Begin
10:00 PM: Q&A with Three Promises producer Marielle Olentine, moderated by Lila Nazemian, ArteEast's Programs and Communications Director
This program is presented by ArteEast in parternship with Rooftop Films
Three Promises, Yousef Srouji, Palestine / US / Lebanon, 2023, 61 min.
Three Promises is the story of a mother and her camera, of a son and his suppressed memories, and of an entire country. At the start of the 2000s, while the Israeli army is retaliating against the second intifada in the West Bank, Suha films her daily family life, punctuated by frequent trips underground and overwhelmed by the anguish of her two young children. At every moment of intense danger, she promises God that she will leave if they survive. In 2017, her son, the director of this film, discovers this archive and reconnects with this suppressed past. While on the surface there emerges the heartrending portrait of everyday life in times of war, it is the staggering beauty of a mother’s love that is revealed between the lines.
our songs were ready for all wars, Noor Abed, Palestine, 2021, 22 min.
our songs were ready for all wars to come is an experimental film of choreographed scenes based on documented folk tales from Palestine. The perforated edge of the film, occasionally silhouetted by flashes of light, highlights the nature of the work as a mediated document. Images of women performing draw connections between latent stories of water wells and communal rituals associated with disappearance, mourning and death. The only narration in the film is a song, which is sung by Palestinian singer Maya Khaldi. Its lyrics are a collage of different folk tales. How can folklore become a common emancipatory tool for people to overturn dominant discourses, reclaim their history and land, and rewrite reality as they know it?