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The screening of the film will be followed by Q&A discussion with the audience. Running time is 53 Minutes, 2008. English subtitles. The program begins at 12:00 PM US EDT; 18:00 Europe; 19:00 Palestine Time
About the Film
This film is Abdel Salam Shehadeh homage to the studio photographers of the 1950's - 70's in Gaza. At a refugee camp in Rafah, the film features a remarkable look back at fifty years of Palestinian and Arab history, through photographs and the voices of these photographers today. "To My Father" is a deeply personal and moving film that brings history to life.
Synopsis
“At that time, girls were more beautiful, and their eyes were full of colour, in an era that had not yet seen colour. So what has changed today? The camera or the eyes?” This is how artist Abdel Salam Shehadeh asks in a poetic style, recalling the era of itinerant photographers and photography studios between the fifties and seventies of the last century. Part of this film takes place in a refugee camp in Rafah, and takes a look at fifty years of Arab and Palestinian history through photographs, reports, and photographers that still exist to this day. “To My Father” is a deeply personal and touching film that confirms the sincere talent of “Al-Ghazzawi” director Abdel Salam Shehadeh, who participated in many works around the year as a director, photographer, and journalist before moving to cinema. The images he presents here are not just images, but creativity that revives history
Abdel Salam Shehadeh
About the Filmmaker
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is a Palestinian director and photographer born in 1961 in Rafah. In 2008, he directed the film To My Father, in which he introduced himself as follows: “My name is Abdel Salam, I was born in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza. My family always told me stories, all of them stayed with me. How they were expelled in 1948, stories engraved in me, becoming memories and photographs. Now I have become a story myself, let me tell it to you.”
This hybrid film, in which the videos and photos of the director, as well as those of his friends, take the form of a long poetic evocation, sometimes autobiographical, sometimes historical, conducted by the voice-over of Abdel Salam Shehadeh. There we meet several photographers from Rafah, of whom we feel that they influenced the director who trained alongside them: Hajj Shehadeh, Ibrahim Harb. The evocation of these figures reveals the director's love for photographic techniques, the profession of photographer, for the image and for the camera. It seems that Salam is above all a cameraman, that is to say someone who carries his camera on his shoulder to document the world around him, and to try to report an aspect of its reality . In this, he often takes on the role of journalist in his documentaries.