FILMOGRAPHY
Song For the Deaf Ear, 2008
Song for the Deaf Ear is a film meditation on the insanity of war and violence in my country, Lebanon. In 2007, I went back to Lebanon with my camera and created this film around the death of my neighbors some 20 years ago. My account revolves around a man who was shot dead on the pavement during the civil war, as well as the crumbling world surrounding him. We see flashes of him throughout the film -- first bleeding on the pavement, and, finally, his death. At the film’s end, we see a home movie shot the summer before he died. He is sailing, with his family and his fiancée, enjoying a simple day in their life. [more]
Asmahan, 2005
Asmahan is a film poem about the famous Syrian singer of the same name. The film is a rearrangement of Asmahan's B-film Passion and Revenge (1944), that changes the original film's plot to create a narrative reflecting its star's own life in colonial Egypt. As in the films of American artist Joseph Cornell, I re-arranged selected shots and changed their function from a mechanical to an expressive one. I also added "dream" shots (also in 35mm): candles, moon, cup, trees, amoeba, and animals, which are not present in the original film. These arrangements of found footage explore the material qualities of the film stock itself, shifting attention from the photographic content of the footage to the formal effects of its rearrangement. [more]
Vertices, 2003-2005
Vertices: Beirut-Dublin-Seoul is a Polyvision* video capturing fragments of a day in the life of each city. Simple scenes from every day life are recorded with a video camera, following in the tradition of the documentaries of the Lumière films. Each shot lasts 50 seconds, the approximate time a film reel lasted in early cinema. [more]
Chabrol á Biarritz, 2002
Documentary, 23 minutes
Shot in the French coastal town of Biarritz during the 15th edition of the International Festival of Audiovisual Programs in 2002, this film creates an intimate portrait of the French filmmaker Claude Chabrol who was a member of the jury. Chabrol shares his views about language, nationalism, cinema today, technology and the internet, and reminisces about Eisenstein, Hitchcock, Lang and his passion for filmmaking.
[more]
La Recontre, 2002
Dramatic Digital Video, 28 minutes
Learning of her father's suicide, Emma Zunz (Muriel Romero) embarks on a crusade to exact revenge from Aaron Lowenthall (Christian Paterne), the man responsible for her father's demise.
Set within the French coastal town of Biarritz this adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges' short story follows the transformation of a quiet, introverted young woman into a calculating murderer.
Awoken from her uneventful life by the news of her father's suicide, Emma must change herself in order to perform the horrific task. She will need to exist somewhere between reality and
fiction as she meticulously orchestrates events that will inevitably lead her to a simple act of justice.
[more]
City of Brass, 2000-2002
Digital Video, 28 minutes
Antoine Galland (Misha Kuznatzov) buys a rare manuscript known as The Arabian Nights from an Arab Moor (Ellis Foster) living in Europe at the turn of the 18th century.
While translating the manuscript Antoine realizes that it is incomplete. The Arab promises to deliver the rest but delays fulfilling his promise as he carries on an affair
with Antoine's estranged wife, Alma (Nicole Wilder), who in turn becomes a sorceress in control of Antoine's dreams.
[more]
Message from a Dead Man, 1992
Film, 30 minutes
A 16-mm fictional film meditation onexile, memory, and identity in the life of a survivor of Lebanon's Civil War.
[more]
The Leaves of a Cypress, 1991
Video, 15 minutes
The Leaves of a Cypress is an adaptation of a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. The original story is told from the point of view of one person, however,
the video tells the narrative from various view points (both male and female) which are interconnected. Paganini's 24 Caprices play an important role in the
overall rhythmical structure.
[more]
Vertov's Valentine, 1991
Video, 10 minutes
A video documenting a day in Cambridge, MA. after Dziga Vertov's film The Man with the Movie Camera.
The Rediculous Man, 1989
Film, 22 minutes
The Ridiculous Man is a 16-mm film adapted from a short story by Dostoevsky called The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.
The Third of May, 1988
Film, 20 minutes
The Third of May is a 16-mm film about a man who mistakes himself for the character being shot in Francisco
de Goya's painting The Shooting of May Third 1808.
The Sun, 1987
film, 5 minutes
The Sun is a super-8 short film which documents an hour in the life of a farmer.
Phantasmagoria, 1987
Film, 12 minutes
A Phantasmagoric Conception is a short super-8 fictional film which tells the story of a middle-aged man,
his art, his encounter with his dead mother, and his fear of the unknown.
The Shadow, 1987
Film, 12 minutes
The Shadow of Exiles is a super-8 film about a character who is obssessed with the
past and the guilt he carries while living in exile.