Ghosts of Songs: Oral Histories in MENA Female Cinema

Overview

Sharjah Art Foundation presents a series of online film screenings in collaboration with Habibi Collective, a digital film archive that celebrates the work of female filmmakers from the Middle East and North Africa. Taking place on 29 May, 12 June and 26 June 2020, the screenings feature award-winning short and feature-length narrative, documentary and experimental films by female artists from the Arab world. The second programme of films, Ghosts of Songs: Oral Histories in MENA Female Cinema, screens on 12 June.

Memory has been a subject much explored in the MENA cinema industry, through documents, archival footage and oral testimonies. In a region of shifting borders and mutable political dynamics, memories are often more deeply rooted than the nations themselves. The memories included in this film programme offer alternative accounts to those of mainstream histories. Drawing on diasporic, collective and inherited memories, the films attempt to narrativise a series of uprooted experiences, building for them a new home. 

Screening Information

Fiery Father (2018)
Director: Jala Wahid
United Kingdom
Experimental | 7 minutes
No dialogue with English and Kurdish subtitles

Only My Voice (2017)
Director: Myriam Rey
United Kingdom
Documentary | 12 minutes
Arabic with English subtitles

Like a String of Beads (2019)
Director: Inas Halabi
Palestine
Documentary | 26 minutes
Arabic with English subtitles

The livestream of the three films, which will be screened consecutively in the order they are listed above, can be accessed at 8:30 pm on 12 June 2020 through the link below. As the films cannot be streamed on demand, viewers who join the streaming after 8:30 pm will not be able to watch the full programme.

Click here to watch in full screen.