Splinter film @ Speldenstraat
Splinter x Gallerie Platte Commerce presents:
𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗺𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗮 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝘆𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻
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𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙚 (2018) 9 min
Trouble in Paradise is a dysfunctional sitcom set out to explore humor as a mechanism of coping with trauma, pain, and taboos in relation to the Nakba and the Israeli occupation, by posing three
sets of jokes ranging from the classical misogynistic genre to anti-jokes and culturally specific humor; in order to examine why Nakba jokes never fully evolved as a genre and entered the
Palestinian mainstream.
The main protagonists of the film are the director’s parents who do not speak English and read the jokes from transliterated title cards and have went through the Nakba (1948) and the Naksa
(1967) and never shared their memories from these major events.
𝙈𝙤𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚 (2020) 17 min
Moonscape is a short film which takes the form of a music video for a ballad/middle of the road song, performed as a duet between a male and female singer, in Arabic. The song traces the story
of a man called Dennis M. Hope, who claimed ownership of the Moon in 1980 and thus founded the Lunar Embassy – a company that sells land on a variety of planets and Moons, and makes a
connection between his story and that of the director's – a young Palestinian woman living under the Israeli occupation, longing to end the misery of her people in any way possible.
The visuals of the film are a hybrid of surrealist scenes from the Arab music industry, reenacted by the artist’s parents who also play the roles of the singers in the film, and film noir; in addition
to found footage from the NASA archives, references from canonic films which influenced the art world and show representations of the Moon, and screenshots of Email correspondences with
staff members of the Lunar Embassy. All in order to explore the relationship between hope, nostalgia and despair.
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𝙈𝙤𝙣𝙖 𝘽𝙚𝙣𝙮𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣 (b.1997) is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker based in Haifa. In her works, she explores intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma, and questions of identity, using humor and irony as political tools of resistance and reflection. Her recent
works have been screened — among others — at MoMA, REDCAT, Sheffield DocFest, and Columbia University.
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Doors open at 5.30 pm
Film starts at 6:00 pm
