Culture Resource is pleased to announce the grantees of the 2022 round of the Production Award program which aims to promote and encourage a new generation of artists and writers from the Arab region by supporting their first creative projects in music, cinema, literature, visual arts and performance arts. The program team received 424 applications of which the jury selected 27.
Cinema/Video
Asmahan Bkerat, Jordan / documentary filmmaker
Concrete Land, a feature length documentary
A bedouin family encounters their worst nightmare when urbanisation encroaches on the rural area they had lived in for three generations in their traditional tent and with their animals. Caught in an existential conflict in the frameworks of social superstructures and gentrification, tensions mount between the family members over whether to cling to tradition or adapt to modernity.
Hussein Al-Asadi, Iraq / film director and photographer
She Was Not Alone, a feature length documentary
Fatima (60), a beautiful Iraqi pastoralist tending her beloved animals in the southern marshes, faces sudden and unfamiliar harsh conditions due to climate change. Forced to move to the city and move in with her brother and his family, she loses her most cherished possessions: her animals and her independence.
Maged Nader, Egypt / film director
All That the Wind Can Carry, a feature length fiction film
When dementia strikes “Susana,” her failing memory dissolves into fragments that shift in a kaleidoscope of images, home videos, real life experiences, and hallucinations. Her illness brings back an accident from this Coptic family’s past, raising unsolved questions about memory, time and loss.
Mohammed Salah, Egypt / film director
The Last Man, a feature length documentary
A documentary that explores how a couple struggles in a society that has no place for them. Hamdy, a drug addict, and his wife Nashwa, a strong but hapless woman, live in the popular Karmooz neighborhood in Alexandria. Both are HIV-positive status and are forced to cope with a dire financial situation.
Younes Ben Slimane, Tunisia / film director and visual artist
“As you walk over the land of barrenness and drought, do not be afraid to look to the sky”, a short documentary
This film explores the artistry of Sejnane’s ancestral pottery art, which has been an exclusively feminine craft since time immemorial and seems inspired by a primordial goddess. Aware that the molded matter breathes non-linguistic meanings that transcend the limitations of place, time and belief systems, the director attempts to convey these meanings through the documentation process. Towards this end, he connects the artisans’ manual sensitivity with the primal awareness of the clay, creating a lyrical portrayal of the poetry the women’s hands breathe into matter and how the elements of nature, in turn, affect the artisans.
Jury:
Liwaa Yaziji, Syria / film director, writer and poet
Nadia Kamel, Egypt / film director
Roy Dib, Lebanon / film director, visual artist and art critic
“If the gain is immediate for the grantees, those who did not receive a grant will be rewarded in the future. We are certain of that. For our part as jury members, we are grateful for this opportunity to get to know and discuss these diverse and meaningful films that reflect a vibrant and promising Arab cinema scene. Given the high quality of many of the proposed projects, we had to adhere closely to the selection methodology which resulted in five forthcoming films. We are happy that Culture Resource is a partner in their journey toward themselves as filmmakers, a journey that we hope will be as bold, lyrical and profound as its promise.”
– Liwaa Yaziji
“As jury members we had difficulty selecting just five film projects as there were far more than five that merited support. We were looking at a generation of young talents who care and, whether their focus is on public or private concerns, they do so deeply, poetically, creatively and, indeed, courageously, as many of the projects show. My hopes go out to them in these times which are bent on erasing memory, societies, freedom and the planet itself. In the end, we had to select the strongest among the many promising projects. I congratulate them on receiving the grant and hope this brings them closer to completing their films so we can see them. But I also reiterate my wishes to the authors of the promising projects that did not receive grants, confident in our belief that they will forge ahead with their films and complete them as excellently as we expect. The selection process itself proceeded smoothly and pragmatically in an atmosphere of eagerness to listen to others, thoughtfulness and the sincere desire to support the cinema movement in the Arab world.”
– Nadia Kamel
“We had to choose only 5 projects, and naturally, that was very hard. The discussion with my fellow jury members was a pleasure, but my strongest feeling was certainty. Yes, we were only able to support five films, but there were at least 20 more beautiful and amazing films that I am confident will find support from other sources, because they deserve it. My assurance has a certain selfish aspect because it stems from my relief that our generation is not lost. Despite the pervasive sense of meaninglessness, depression and stagnation that hovers over Arab societies, we are still able to think, question and work, and to produce artistic works with high aesthetic and intellectual value. I felt this positive element, not just in the five projects chosen, but in many of the proposed projects. I am looking forward to hearing news of yet more projects.”
– Roy Dib
Literature
Anastasia Qarawani, Palestine / writer and illustrator of children’s literature
The Last Wolf, a novel
The novel is inspired by the stories Anastasia’s grandfather told about his father who lived in Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, served in the Ottoman imperial army and survived many wars, the last being WWI. During that war, he lost his leg in the mountains of Armenia. The story of her grandfather has haunted the author, making her feel that Palestinians can not understand their contemporary history and condition without digging deep into that past about which they know little, apart from the stories passed down from their ancestors, stories that need to be retold before they become fading ghosts. Anastasia’s interest in her great-grandfather’s story intersects with a recent surge in Palestinian academic and research activity into the pre-occupation period from an anthropological and socio-cultural perspective in order to reconstruct those little known times. This is more than nostalgia; it is a powerful and irresistible urge to recapture a personal and collective identity by gathering the fragments of the stories that keep alive Palestinian roots in the place.
Aya Tantawy, Egypt / writer and film critic
Infinite possibilities of absence, a short story anthology
A collection of short stories that follow the disappearance of several women from a poor neighborhood in Old Cairo as a result of a curse many years ago. The disappearance is both the beginning and the end of each story, thought the circumstances vary in each case: escape, murder, migration, inexplicable causes that are the subject of myth and rumour. Only the women and their bodies know the truth as to why they fled for safety from the cruelty in the confines of erasure and non-fulfilment. The stories unfold over a period of 70 years, from the distant past and into the near future. In each, the woman stands trial in absentia with her family and men of the neighborhood, popular customs and patriarchal traditions, and myths and old wives’ tales acting as judge and jury which attribute the woman’s vanishing to the power of jinn and the defense of tainted honor.
Altayeb Qurashi, Sudan / editor and poet
Kauda: The Biography of a Forgotten Land, a novel
This work aims to preserve the memories of three decades of ceaseless corruption, devastation and annihilation in the face of attempts to obliterate these memories and bury the cause of the land and people of western Sudan and, specifically, Darfur and Kordofan. This work documents the murders, rapes, expulsions, population displacement and other human rights abuses that occurred beneath the shroud of media blackouts, coverups or collusion in silence.
Mohamed Ashraf, Egypt / writer and poet
Death of the Editor (working title)
An editor, poet, photographer and recent immigrant to Germany at the time of the Covid-19 lockdown embarks on a journey of reminiscence. The protagonist lived in Libya as a child, in Saudi Arabia as a teenager, in his native Egypt in his twenties, then in Sweden and back in Germany in his thirties. A semi-autobiographical work that fuses real events with fiction and prose with verse, the novel narrates experiences with friends and family and a long life of travel. An episode might begin with biological evolution, plunge deep into the self and return to nature again. Wherever the starting point, the journey is a non-stop process of becoming, a voyage through the space-time continuum in which the past is constantly shaping the future, and from which the editor tries to capture his story, create a pleasing narrative and free it from inevitable change.
Riham Aziz El Din, Egypt / writer, journalist and editor
Alice in the Egyptian LaLa Land, a play
A comedy and fantasy drama in modern Egyptian dialect, Alice in the Egyptian LaLa Land is set in the period when data and information engineers at Facebook realize they can’t make sense of the collected corpus of Egyptians’ social media interactions because they lack database and diagnostics to understand and process the curious language they use. They therefore develop the super smart social robot “Alice” and dispatch her on a research mission to Egypt. But somehow Alice is launched in the wrong location and the connection is cut off, leaving the robot to complete the mission on her own, in her human form. Her journey begins in Munib, a popular quarter that is one of the first stopping-off points for rural migrants to overcrowded Cairo. What will Alice learn about language, culture and life in this adventure?
Jury:
Nouara Lahreche, Algeria / writer
Samar Haddad, Syria / publisher
Wajdi al-Ahdal, Yemen / writer and editor
“I personally benefited greatly from the experience as a jury member and I enjoyed reading the applications and the proposed projects that teemed with the ambitions and promising ideas of young men and women from different Arab geographies, yet all sharing the love for art, literature and creativity.”
– Nouara Lahrachesh
“The experience as a jury member was a pleasure beyond description. What saddened me was that the majority of themes proposed were sad, concerned as they were with war and refuge. Unfortunately, this reflects the tragic conditions in which Arab youth are growing up.”
– Samar Haddad
“What struck me was that most of the proposed projects contained original ideas quite unlike what we are familiar with. This made the selection process extremely difficult. My hope is that all these beautiful projects conceived by young writers will come to fruition regardless of whether or not they are selected.”
– Wajdi al-Ahdal
Music
Hani Aldahshan, Jordan / composer and instrumentalist
“Asabaka ‘Ishq,” an album
A concept album with eight tracks, all with Arabic lyrics. The central concept is vocal art, classic Arabic poetry and spiritual romantic odes from different parts of the Arab region. These vocal works are inspired by the ancient modes of classical Arabic music such as the mawwal, the Hijazi majas and ibtihal, and are underpinned with an organic fusion of Arabic instrumentals, EDM, and jazz.
Khaoula Jaziri (POPYTIRZ), Tunisia / writer and composer
“Lenticular Generation,’ an album and accompanying video clips
The album will consist of seven tracks revolving around the duality of beginnings and ends, and the illusions and hopes we experience in between. The songs will be inspired by various human, emotional, social and political themes. The videos will employ photographic techniques that reflect the lens through which the artist interprets our times and laments the circumstances of her generation.
Kinan Abuakel, Syria/ Buzuq player
“Buzuk Messages“, an album
In this project, four original pieces for the Buzuk instrument will be presented, the composition are new terms of writing and performance, shedding light on new sound spaces Buzuk I can say it is a continuation of my project “contemporary Buzuk”, which aims to take this instrument to new places and horizons in music, a special video will be developed for each work that matches it in form and content.
Mohamed Ali Chebil, Tunisia / musician
“Denya,” a musical performance
Combining Ali Chebil’s vocals, Mohamed Ben Salha’s composition and percussion and Syrine Chekili’s lyrics, this musical project also incorporates melodic genres of different traditions and origins, from Sufi dirge and rural and bedouin folk music to more familiar styles of contemporary and urban music. Syrine’s intensely lyrical texts brim with the turbulent emotions that grip one in a tumultuous world riddled with social and political upheaval that might either inspire or stymie an artist. In addition to the techniques and modes of expression derived from local musical heritage, which forms the core of the project, it is also infused with influences from other world music.
Yara Al Asmar, Lebanon / visual artist, musician and puppet maker
“4,” a one-hour music video
A sonic and visual approach that explores the detachment from one’s reality, surroundings, and the self. This hour-long musical video project will comprise collages, animated puppets and filmed footage as well as a filmed musical performance that will serve as a backdrop for the composed music. The music will be written for accordion, theremin, synthesizer, bowed metallophone, and other toys and objects.
Yves Younes, Lebanon / percussionist and graphic designer
“On off, and off on,” a musical track and video
This work focuses attention on the current period in Lebanon through a musical performance linked with circuit breakers connected to many balcony lights on the facade of a building which will be added to the audio effects that will create the music. The idea is to highlight the adaptability and other positive aspects of this otherwise dark time. Still, the question remains: how long will it take the Lebanese to find alternative solutions? When will the real revolution begin and people stop just adapting and accepting?
Jury:
Ahmed Nazmi, Egypt / composer and instrumentalist
Huda Asfour, Palestine / oud and qanun player, and composer
Nabila Ma’an, Morocco / singer, composer and poet
“This was a great opportunity to get to know many young musicians and composers whose talents and creative energies were reflected in the original and exciting ideas in their proposed projects. I noticed that projects involving songs were far more numerous than other types of musical projects. I personally would have preferred more projects by instrumentalists and composers. Also, the project descriptions and other technical matters we needed to assess the proposals thoroughly were incomplete and not well formulated. Deciding which of the projects should be awarded grantees was difficult, though the discussions with fellow jury members were lively and rewarding.”
– Ahmed Nazmi
“I truly enjoyed the variety I saw in this year’s round, both in terms of style and geographic and cultural diversity. I got to explore and discover an exceptional pool of talent from all around the region. The applications reflected many creative and intriguing ideas. Still, I found that the descriptions of the projects in most of these applications lacked the technical detail and information we needed to accurately assess them. However, the potential that most of them showed made me hopeful. The decision was difficult as is usually the case. I hope that those who were not fortunate to make the cut this year will apply again, providing clearer descriptions and better demos for their proposals.”
– Huda Asfour
Performing Arts
Almonther Aldamani, Syria / theater director
“Echo,” a theatrical performance
A performance that examines the interconnection between the concepts of death and freedom in Syrian thought and in Arab thought in general during the past ten years through the story of Issa, a young man whose loss of his father leads him to question the nature of death. His father’s death just as the revolution erupts in 2011 prompts a private journey in search for freedom which begins with the ghost of his father, the shadow of his mother and the dark corners of his home against the backdrop of the region’s search for freedom.
Bashir Nahra, Palestine / writer and theater director
Three Women, a play based on Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women awarded Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1994
The approach to producing this play rests on an ongoing creative dialogue between all team members – the director, designer, actors and composer – who discuss the progress, organize the artistic process and continually refine the performance up to presentation. The play revolves around three women who clearly have a close bond. It soon becomes clear that these are the same woman, but at different times in her life. This sets into motion a meeting between generations and a train of interactions and dialogues that are variously angry, painful and sarcastic. Along the way, we see how it is possible to break down our lives into eras and set them in conversation with each other. This is also a play about feminism. The characters speak about their world and the choices they have made. Are they a portal to contemplating the state of women in Arab societies and the realm of freedom they have to think, criticize and change?
Mayar Alexan, Syria / theater director
“Dust,” a movement performance in collaboration with choreographer Hoor Malas.
This interactive movement performance between the director Mayar Alexan and choreographer Hoor Malas is a study of the landscape of the human brain and its decay due to Alzheimers. It explores the range of information with which a person defines oneself and those around them. What characters do they play in their life and how does this world fall apart? The project is a contemplation on the idea of home and the longing an Alzheimer’s patient has for their first home, and the relationship between this and the memory of Damascus and its connection with its inhabitants.
Nicolas Fattouh, Lebanon / visual artist and filmmaker
“Living with a Piece of Furniture,” a performance work
How do we process the loss of a loved one? Can the objects left behind help us live with their memory? “Living with a Piece of Furniture” is an immersive performance about a family experiencing different stages of grief which this work explores by injecting life into a static piece of furniture with the five senses: smell, sound, sight, taste and touch.
Selim Ben Safia, Tunisia / dancer and choreographer
“El Botinière,” a theatrical dance performance
“El Botinière,” a mythical cabaret in the heart of Tunis, is also a choreographic piece that unearths the hidden nightlife in the Tunisian capital. It was not until he was ten that Selim Ben Safia began to understand what happened beneath the building in which he and his family lived. When night descended, his street became a mysterious world inhabited by nebulous haggard specters, fleeting passions and lusts, frenzied cries of ecstasy or deep despair. The young Selim observed them for years. He could not understand what made those “adults” metamorphose the moment they passed through those wide wooden doors. But the images of those faces and bodies became imprinted on his young mind and fed vivid memories that have never faded.
Yara Boustany, Lebanon / choreographer
The Valley of Sleep, a dance/theater performance
The performance is inspired by “The Lover of Jinn,” a painting by the Egyptian artist Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar. In interweaving reality and fantasy, “The Valley of Sleep” becomes a performative spell. The jinns steal into the valleys of sleep, wander the landscapes of dreams and then, with a sharp blow, they cast their spell.
Jury:
Amer Hlehel, Palestine / actor, writer and theater director
Kamal El Khalladi, Morocco / playwright, dramaturge and researcher
Mariem Guellouz, Tunisia / choreographer and sociolinguistics researcher
“Reading artistic projects in their early stages of conception and formation is like visiting a strange and new type of museum. It displays the artists’ dreams and fragments of their lives and the lives of the people they live with and among. Thanks to this journey through the evaluation of the projects proposed for this year’s Production Awards, I discovered many things teeming with life and rich stories that merit being told. My congratulations to the well-deserving grantees and best of luck to the other artists when applying to future rounds.”
– Kamal El Khalladi
“I was happy to be part of this jury. It was an exciting and rich experience to read and evaluate some 60 applications applying the established criteria, such as artistic quality, originality and relevance. Many of the proposed projects focused on very important artistic and social issues that need attention today in the Arab world. To me, the proposed projects, with their fusions of theater, dance and video, also represented the interdisciplinary dimension art today. The majority of them offered a fresh and innovative glimpse into Arab society and its artistic practices. I was delighted to discover so many interesting projects by Arab artists. Congratulations to all candidates. ”
– Mariem Guellouz
Visual Arts
Fadi Al Hamwi, Syria / plastic artist (sculptor)
“Souvenir from Damascus“, an installation.
An installation piece for a public space in Berlin, it reconstructs a segment of the Berlin Wall, with the same dimensions, but using traditional Damascus wood mosaic. The work is a dialogue between Berlin’s history during the period of the wall between East and West Germany and the current reality of Damascus, Syria. It is an invitation to contemplate the rituals of change: from reviving and honoring the memory, to paying tribute and acknowledging where we came from and where we are now, to expressing and embodying the type of change we want. The work is a gift as a souvenir from Damascus to Berlin.
Joud Al-Tamimi, Jordan / researcher art curator
“A Song for Many Movements” (working title), a video installation
A project that uses dream as a means to engage in practices of world shattering and world building, summoning anticolonial afterlives and insurgent imaginaries in various sites of collapse across the city of Amman. Four female protagonists intersect in the fragmented and shifting terrain of a dream. They act, interact and enact, evoking anti-existential modalities, and embodying a mass exodus for the here and now. Then new modes of coexistence emerge, improvised at first, but rebellious and resounding.
Mostafa Abdel Aty, Egypt / photographer
“Meow“, an exhibition
Sadly, animals in Egypt suffer from maltreatment and other problems due to ignorance and lack of laws to protect them. Even Egyptians who love animals rarely see local street dogs or cats as beautiful or as animals that deserve care and protection like foreign house pets. Even at best, people rarely look at animals as anything but a form of entertainment or of food. This project aims to present the animals we have in Egypt in a new light, whether photographed in their environment or in a special studio like movie stars. The photographs will be exhibited in a gallery and subway stations.
Wiame Haddad, Tunisia / visual artist
“La Nuit à Peine” (Barely Night), an exhibition
The project consists of a triptych of photographic panels and a 16mm film, both based on archival images of the Sabra and Shatila massacres and displayed in an especially designed setting, seemingly from West Beirut. The purpose is to probe the subjective power of the image and question its ability to convey reality objectively. In blending fiction with documentary, the project attempts to reassess the credibility of representations and the value we attach to them as historical evidence.
Yara Alheswani, Syria / architect and urban researcher
“Suspended,”, an urban documentary project
An urban documentary project in an innovative, artistic context, “Suspended” aims to read a city from unfamiliar angles and analyze its reality artistically. The work focuses on Jaramana, a city that seems to hover outside of time in a state of waiting, evoking the absurd. The result will be a visual diary of the city with some texts. After all, why not give a city a human consciousness to write a diary? A city suspended in time is hard to quantify using the normal chronological scales. Its days are not sequenced in any particular way. We can read them in any order we like, as to the city the days are equal and each day is “suspended,” waiting for a calendar. The plastic artist Lama al-Qura has teamed up with the curator, Yara Alheswani, in this attempt to fuse critical architectural and visual arts perspectives into a vision of the city. Other team members include people from diverse academic and artistic backgrounds: in architecture, urban planning, art, literature, sociology and other disciplines.
Jury:
Hadia Gana, Libya / visual artist
Mohammed Joha, Palestine / plastic artist
Walid Taher, Egypt / plastic artist, designer and children’s story writer
“I was delighted by the richness of the proposed projects, in which I noticed a distinct interest in the research dimension combined with the trend to erase the boundaries between the creative disciplines. At times the formulations of ideas and rhetoric in the presentations tended toward the overly complex. But perhaps this is a phase to go through before the return to simplicity and depth.”
– Hadia Gana
“During my experience as a jury member, I encountered many rich and diverse young artistic experiments set in powerful and moving contemporary political and social contexts. They herald a generation of emerging artists who carry in their veins fresh and innovative blood and ideas expressed in a good diversity of media and modes of presentation.”
– Mohammed Joha
“My first general observation is that the applicants are relatively young which leads us to expect wildness, ambition and high-energy artistic visions. Instead, I sensed a certain restraint at odds with the impetuousness we associate with youth at the outset of their careers. I was also struck by how literary aspects and political and social intents prevailed over the pure and immediate occupational dimension. What was missing was pure visual art, the core elements and spirit of visual art, unencumbered by social roles or the political biases and positions of the applicants.”
– Walid Taher
