Video Concerning the Arab World

TransArab Itinerant 2003-2005

2003 / 2005 / 2006 / 2009 - TransArab

Video Concerning the Arab World

This programme is not intended to provide an overview of independent video in Arab and Islamic countries, nor does it seek to be representative in any way.

The works being presented, like the programme as a whole, reflect the notion of “slices of reality”, in the sense that they are subjective visions, aware of their partiality, which do not exclude contradiction or conflict. Visions that perceive a strong tension on their surface and take up these eddies of confusion and violence as cause for  urgent reflection and knowledge.

Images and stories, realities in themselves, rhizomatic realities: interwoven without a centre or a fixed meaning. And for that very reason, instead of giving rise to cultural dualism based on opposition, they engender a web of underground connections.

Anya displays a double trajectory. On one side, an exploration of the imagined frontier that makes up the Bosphorus, and on the other a tale, recounted offscreen, of a young Iraqi woman waiting for a visa for Australia during 12 years. A waiting time made of hope, disappointments and forced perseverance.

Set in an imagined present in which a bridge spans the Strait of Gibraltar, Atlantropa mixes fact and fiction by connecting the bridge to contemporary news reports and to a modernist architect's vision: to dam the Strait and create a new continent. Originally intended as a symbol of unity between Africa and Europe, the bridge is eventually seized by EU forces and takes on a completely different meaning. The Gilbraltar Bridge, first mentioned in science fiction by Arthur C. Clarke, has more recently been investigated as an actual possibility by the United Nations.

The exchange of knowledge and experiences, which contemplates transformation, is increasingly more necessary and urgent. In order to deeply transform the notions that have shaped the globalized world; making a radical revision of the notions of time, work, culture, and the persistence of a single model with its totalitarian drift.

Ceuta, which has always been governed by the right, is the door to Europe for thousands of sub-Saharan migrants. This was the first demonstration supporting migrants in Ceuta, one of the North African enclaves in Spain, organized by many different European organizations and individuals after the murder by shooting of more than 14 black Africans as they tried to cross the border fence.

Prodein, a Melilla-based children's rights association, documents the difficult situation of sub Saharans who try to cross the border between Africa and Europe in search of a better life. “Murder” is the best way to describe the deaths that took place - and continue to take place - on the border at Melilla and Ceuta. The summary shooting of all migrants who attempt to climb the fence... “with their backs turned and defenceless, without previous arrest, without administrative or legal proceedings” can only be called “murder”.

Border Crossings touches on crucial issues that surround the increased militarization of the U.S. / Mexico border. The United States Border Patrol, now part of the new formed Department of Homeland Security, has a history of abusing its power. Examples of this abuse range from sexual assault to unnecessary use of deadly force.