Screening | The Landing by Akram Zaatari

Monday, October 21st, 2019 | 7:30pm at Metropolis Empire Sofil

The Landing | 63', 2019

UAE/Lebanon

The Landing takes as its starting point Shaabiyat Al Ghurayfah, a public housing project built for descendants of Al Kutby tribe (pronounced ‘Ketby’) in Al Madam, Sharjah in the early 1980s. In 1994, the families moved to new housing in the vicinity, leaving their old houses to be covered slowly in shifting sands. Today, Shaabiyyat Al Ghurayfah looks like ancient ruins. 

Three men find themselves in the desert. Their moves, their communication, their assessment of location take the form of an acoustic exploration of space. A repertoire of simple gestures playfully engages with structure, space, threshold, verticality, and perspective. Cables, sewage pipes, tubes, shovels, kitchen tools, electric air blowers, and even a helicopter landing on site are all deployed in this film for their sonic rather than narrative potential—creating refractions, confrontations, and transformations in a broken narrative. 

Cinematography: Talal Khoury; editing: Rita Mounzer; cast: Sharif Sehnaoui, Ali Hout, and Abed Kobeissy; sound design: Victor Bresse

Commissioned for Sharjah Biennial 14

Akram Zaatari (b. 1966, Saida, Lebanon) lives and works in Beirut. His work pursues a range of interconnected themes and practices related to excavation, political resistance, intimacies among men, the circulation of images in times of war, and the play of tenses inherent to various letters that have been lost, found, buried, discovered, or otherwise delayed in reaching their destinations. Zaatari was one of a handful of young artists who emerged from the delirious and short-lived era of experimentation in Lebanon’s television industry, which was radically reorganized after the country’s civil war. He has produced over fifty films and videos, and represented Lebanon at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013). He is the co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation. 

This event is part of Home Works 8: A Forum on Cultural Practices.

Image is courtesy of the artist.