Al-Houbut

The Landing

Forum Expanded 2020

Whether they inhabit the desert or are lost in it, three men are clearly confronted with the ruins of modern times. They are explorers of times past or players/performers in an existing architectural site. Their encounters, their moves, their assessment of location take the form of an acoustic sounding of space. Al-Houbut takes place in Shaabiyat al Ghurayfah, a public housing project in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates built in the eighties to provide descendants of the Ketbi Bedouins with their first concrete homes. This site, now totally deserted, witnessed the first move of Bedouin families from tents into modern designed habitations.
The film unfolds as a repertoire of simple gestures, a few of which are inspired by the photographic documentation of performances by Hassan Sharif, playfully engaging with architecture, vegetation, space, movement, threshold, surveillance, and perspective. Cables, sewage pipes, tubes, shovels, kitchen tools, electric air blowers, and even a helicopter landing on site are all deployed in this film for their sonic rather than narrative potential – creating refractions, confrontations, and transformations in a broken-off, folded narrative.

by Akram Zaatari
with Sharif Sehnaoui, Ali Hout, Abed Kobeissy Lebanon / United Arab Emirates 2019 Arabic, English 63’ Colour Documentary form

With

Sharif Sehnaoui
Ali Hout
Abed Kobeissy

Crew

Written and Directed by	Akram Zaatari
Cinematography	Talal Khoury
Editing	Rita Mounzer
Sound Design	Victor Bresse
Sound	Victor Bresse
Production Design	Khaled El Sawy
Assistant Director	Nagham Abboud
Production Manager	Lara Chekerdjian
Producer	Akram Zaatari
Commissioned by	Omar Kholeif Sharjah Biennial 14

Produced by

Akram Zaatari

Akram Zaatari

Akram Zaatari, born in 1966 in Saida, Lebanon and based in Beirut, has produced films and videos, all sharing an interest in writing histories and practices related to excavation, political resistance, the lives of former militants, the legacy of an exhausted left, the circulation of images in times of war. Zaatari has played a critical role in developing the formal, intellectual, and institutional infrastructure of Beirut’s contemporary art scene. As a co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation, he has made invaluable and uncompromising contributions to the wider discourse on preservation and archival practice. Zaatari represented Lebanon at the Venice Biennial in 2013 with his film Letter to a Refusing Pilot. His works have been shown all over the world in solo and group exhibitions.

Filmography (selection)

1997 Al-Sharit Bi-Khayr (All Is Well on the Border); 45 min. 2003 Al-Yaoum (This Day); 86 min. 2005 Fo Haza al-Bayt (In This House); 13 min. 2008 Tabiah Samitah (Nature Morte); 10 min 2010 Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright; 10 min. 2011 Hia wa Houa (Her + Him); 33 min. 2013 The End of Time; 14 min. · Letter to A Refusing Pilot; 34 min. 2014 Beirut Exploded Views; 30 min. 2015 Thamaniat wa ushrun laylan wa bayt min al-sheir (Twenty-Eight Nights and a Poem); 120 min., Forum 2015 2018 The Script; 7 min., Forum Expanded 2019 · The Script 2019 Al-Houbut (The Landing); 63 min.

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2020