Two films set in liminal spaces of exile. In the wake of dispossession, when dreams are forcefully deferred and memories bring pain, small acts of collective speaking generate new threads of resistance, liberation and hope.
The Retreat – Exile as a space for transnational solidarity is explored through a discursive, community-oriented process of production centred around a retreat in the South of France. An international group of participants with distinct but shared experiences of displacement come together to find common language. Fragments of conversation are laced together with dream-like sequences reflecting on the connections between exile, mental health and modes of antifascist praxis.
A Stone’s Throw – Amine, a Palestinian elder, is exiled twice: from land and from labour. Displaced from Haifa to Beirut, then again to Zirku Island, an offshore oil platform and work camp in the Arab gulf. A Stone’s Throw is a story of memories and disappearances, of trespassing borders, archives and private property to reveal the more than human relations that survive colonial space-time.
The Retreat | Dir. Gelare Khoshgozaran | United States, United Kingdom, France | 2023 | 21m | English
A Stones Throw | Dir. Razan AlSalah | Palestine, Lebanon, Canada | 2021 | 44m | Arabic with English subtitles
Content warning: Mental health issues