In Fields of Words: Conversations with Samar Yazbek
Details
Date: 14 May 2023
Venue: Barbican, Cinema 2
Address: Beech Street, London, EC2Y 8DS
Time: 16:00
Tickets: £13 + Booking Fee
Ages: 18+
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible
Event Info
dir. Rania Stephan, 2022, 70′ + Screentalk
Author Samar Yazbek and filmmaker Rania Stephan interrogate the relationship between language and cinema as tools to represent realities of war and violence.
This film-conversation between author, Samar Yazbek, and filmmaker, Rania Stephan, questions the relationship between language and cinema as tools to represent realities of war and violence. Speaking from Yazbek’s exiled home in France, audiences witness the limits and opportunities words can offer in realising, expressing and subverting violence of such destructive magnitude.
Ten years in the making, the film unfolds through vignettes and dialogue, and the result is a poignant and timeless reflection on violence and representation, as well as our capacity to listen, interpret and understand.
This session will be followed by an online screen talk with Rania Stephan, the director of In Fields of Words: Conversations with Samar Yazbek.
Rania Stephan
Born in Beirut Lebanon, Rania Stephan is an artist and filmmaker working with still and moving images. She has directed art videos and creative documentaries.
Anchored in the turbulent reality of her country, her documentaries give a personal perspective to political events. She intertwines raw images with a poetic edge, where filmed encounters are captured with compassion and humour
The work on archival material has been an underlying enquiry in her artistic practice.
Approaching images like an editor – part detective, part cinephile, she juxtaposes different registers of images and sound, exploring triggering renewed narratives and emotions.
Her first feature film The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (70’ -2011) considered a modern classic, has been internationally acclaimed and won many prizes. Her second feature In Fields of Words: conversations with Samar Yazbek (70’ – 2022) just won Best Film Award at the Villa Médicis Film Festival in Rome in 2022.
She is represented by Marfa’ Gallery Beirut.
Yasmin Fedda
Yasmin Fedda is an multi award winning filmmaker and academic. Her most recent work Ayouni, on forcible disappearance in Syria, premiered at CPHDox (2020). Her titles include Queens of Syria, Steal from the Capitalists and Breadmakers. Her work has screened at international festivals including at Sundance, Carthage, & Edinburgh, and is multi-award winning, including Best Film and Best Director awards, and has been Bafta nominated. Her work has been broadcast on BBC and Al Jazeera English and screened at cinemas and galleries. Yasmin is also a film educator, lecturer and film programmer.