Sisters
Documentary feature based on 8 mm films found in an Institute for teenage girls classified as mentally handicapped in Klentnice, Czechia. While nuns took care for the young inmates, one of them had a camera. Film unfolds the story of the gaze itself as these marginalized women made their existence visible through filming. Those who were to remain unseen are now looking back.
Dance with Me
In our family house in South Lebanon, we had colorful DVDs lying around of my uncle’s belly dancing shows, “The Adam Basma Dance Company”. However, I was never allowed to watch them. Years later, discovering my own identity and defying all the expectations my Muslim family had for my personal life and career by leaving the country to follow my own dreams, I am set to discover why my uncle is the “family’s secret”. Conversations with my family members lead to a blurry portrait of Adam; he left Lebanon on his own amid the civil war in the 70s to follow his dream of becoming a dancer, a dream nobody believed in. Today, he is retired in his big, beautiful villa in Los Angeles, after making a fortune and successfully sharing his culture, music, and dance on the American stage. I haven’t seen Adam since I was 5 years old, and after a few attempts to get in touch with him and his refusal to see me, I finally enter his empire. Intrigued and fascinated by his extravagant career choice, his unapologetic personality, his humour, and his love for belly dance, I dive deep into his life to learn about his journey which leads me to unpack the reality of who he really is: flowing between reality and his persona, but with the consequences of our broken family that becomes a miniature of Lebanese society, celebrating its successes and cultural heritage on the outside, yet pushing its people away. As I get closer to Adam, the film gradually reveals itself as my personal journey as well. In understanding his choices, I begin to better understand my own and my relationship to my family. Adam and I end up being much more similar than I thought. Throughout the film, I finally find in Adam a family member I can relate to, with the same passions and angers, validating my life choices. My uncle Adam and I end up building an unconventional niece-uncle relationship with a bond that probably nobody else in the family would understand.