The films, which will be premiered, include the 1954 feature “Les Statues Meurent Aussi” and “The Apollo of Gaza”, among others.
Dubai-based Jameel Arts Centre is planning to screen several films and documentaries by renowned artists and cineastes Ghassan Halwani, Haig Aivazian, Arjuna Neuman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, Ghislain Cloquet and Nicolas Wadimoff.
The films will be screened at Jameel Arts Centre’s Gallery nine, located on the second floor, and are free and accessible to all. The programme, which began on January 9 will run until February 8, 2020.
The multi-film programme brings together artists’ films that explore several themes reflected in the exhibitions on show at the Jameel Arts Centre, including Phantom Limb. It includes works by 13 artists and looks at material heritage. Films that correspond to this theme include Erased_Ascent of the Invisible, Les Statues Meurent Aussi, and The Apollo of Gaza.
Ghassan Halwani’s first feature film Erased_Ascent of the Invisible focusses on those who disappeared during the Lebanese Civil War. Alain Resnais, Chris Marker and Ghislain Cloquet’s Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues Also Die), produced in 1953, looks at the transformation that objects undergo when removed from their original context into that of a museum.
The Apollo of Gaza by the award-winning documentary filmmaker and producer Nicolas Wadimoff investigates the circumstances around the discovery (and disappearance) of a statue of the Greek god Apollo in the waters off Gaza.
Haig Aivazian’s film Prometheus charts the post-Soviet-era of US power through the lens of the 1991 Gulf War and the 1992 Olympic games. Rounding off the programme is 4 Waters- Deep Implicancy, an experimental film that questions our relationship to the planet and its inhabitants. The film is by filmmaker Arjuna Neuman in collaboration with Denise Ferreira da Silva, Director of the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
Commenting on the programme, Nora Razian, Head of Exhibitions at the Jameel Arts Centre, said: “Recognising the growing centrality of the moving image in contemporary artists’ practice, the Jameel Arts Centre is committed to showcasing new and important work by artists and experimental filmmakers from across the globe, through specially curated screenings as well as through its diverse exhibitions programme.”
