12–11–2018
Sailing the Euphrates, now on DocAlliance
Doclisboa takes part in a European festival structure, DocAlliance, with its own online channel. Where now, and over the next two weeks, you can see some of the films selected for Doclisboa’18 thematic focus, curated by co-director Davide Oberto, under the title Sailing the Euphrates, Travelling the Time of the World:
Yol: the Full Version, Yilmaz Güney, Şerif Gören
Palme d’Or at Festival de Cannes in 1982 (ex-aequo with Missing, by Costa Gavras), the film was shot by Şerif Gören, long-time assistant of Güney, at the time in prison, and edited in France to where he managed to escape. A tale of a group of released prisoners dealing with military dictatorship in Turkey and the annihilation of Kurdish people. Banned for 35 years in Turkey, the film was restored and premiered in Cannes in 2017.
Buvards, Aïda Kébadian, Jacques Kébadian
Aïda Kédabian’s paintings tell stories. This video editing tells some of them, between uprooting and wandering.
Arménie 1900, Jacques Kébadian
Using photos, engravings, drawings and letters, Kébadian creates an imaginary family album of an Armenian child on the eve of the genocide of 1915.
Colombe et Avédis, Jacques Kébadian
Avédis lived in Meudon, and every week he would go to the tomb of his wife, Colombe. Serge Avedikian, his grandson, tells their life of Armenians in France: a love story. (Pictured)
Les Cinq Soeurs, Jacques Kébadian
Chouchan Kébadian began to paint at the age of 70. A desolate, but fascinating painting, with oriental and musical colours, composing her portrait.
The Marshes, Kassem Hawal
“In 1992, responding to uprisings against the so-called “Gulf War”, dictator Saddam Hussein ordered the uprooting of reeds and papyri in an area named Al Ahwar (the Marshes), and forced the people to the border with Iran. Then he dried the whole area destroying a five thousand-year-old habitat. Just before doing so, he ordered all the negative and positive copies of my film to be burnt.” Kassem Hawal
Sound, Kassem Hawal
Like a blurry watercoulor, the Euphrates painted the lands he touches with the shades of exile.
American Military Mission to Turkey and Armenia: the Expedition of John Harbord in Armenia, US Department of Defense
In August 1919, John Harbord is sent by President Woodrow Wilson to the Middle East to investigate the feasibility of the Balfour Declaration. He is also to report on Turkish-Armenian relations in the wake of the Armenian Genocide. “The footage is a remarkable record of an area wrecked by war (…). In the end, Congress ignored Wilson’s mandate request, paving the way for the Soviet invasion of 1922.” (Jay Weissberg)
More on DocAlliance here.