[spectre] qr video release

[JSalloum@aol.com]

A new videotape by Jayce Salloum,

everything and nothing=20
40:40, France/Canada, 2001
English and French subtitled versions available.

An intimate dialogue that weaves back and forth between representations of a=
=20
figure (of resistance) and subject, with Soha Bechara ex-Lebanese National=20
Resistance fighter in her Paris dorm room after release from captivity in=20
El-Khiam torture and interrogation centre (S. Lebanon) where she had been=20
detained for 10 years, 6 years in isolation.


For distribution please contact:
V Tape, Toronto
www.Vtape.org
chrisak@Vtape.org
or
Video Data Bank, Chicago
www.VDB.org
info@VDB.org

--

Full videotape description:
                                               =20
   =20

everything and nothing  (part 1 from the continuous tape, =E2=80=98untitled=
=E2=80=99)
=C2=A9 Jayce Salloum, 40:40, orig format MiniDV, France/Canada, 2001
English and French subtitled versions available.


An intimate dialogue that weaves back and forth between representations of a=
=20
figure (of resistance) and subject with, *Soha Bechara ex-Lebanese National=20
Resistance fighter in her Paris dorm room taped (during the last year of the=
=20
Israeli occupation) one year after her release from captivity in El-Khiam=20
torture and interrogation centre (S. Lebanon) where she had been detained fo=
r=20
10 years, 6 years in isolation. Revising notions of resistance, survival and=
=20
will, recounting to death, separation and closeness; the overexposed image=20
and body of a surviving martyr speaking quietly and directly into the camera=
=20
juxtaposed against her self and image, not speaking of the torture but of th=
e=20
distance between the subject and the loss, of what is left behind and what=20
remains.

*Soha Bechara is a heroine in Lebanon, pictures of her are seen in many=20
houses in the South and posters of her were seen all around downtown Beirut=20
when I was working there in the early 90=E2=80=99s. She was captured in 1988=
  for=20
trying to assassinate the general of the SLA, Antoine Lahad (the South=20
Lebanese Army was a proxy militia set up & controlled by the Israeli forces=20
to give a Lebanese fa=C3=A7ade to the occupation of South Lebanon). I didn't=
 ask=20
her anything specifically about the torture she underwent or the trauma of=20
detention, she was being interviewed to death by the European and Arab press=
=20
over the details of her captivity and the minutiae of her surviving it and=20
the conditions in El-Khiam and the detainees and the resistance. I went to=20
her small dorm room, not much bigger than her cell (she is presently studyin=
g=20
international law at the Sorbonne), she sat on her bed and I asked her about=
=20
the distance lived between Khiam and Paris, and Beirut and Paris, and what=20
she left in Khiam and what she brought with her, a story about flowers and=20
how she never puts them in water, how it felt for her now to be under such=20
demand, and who she was, and what the title of the tape should be, and a few=
=20
other things. This video material that I recorded of the time spent with her=
=20
is not precious, just time and a conversation, and intense intimacy at a=20
close and unbreachable distance.


Screenings to date of "everything and nothing" include; MoneyNations2,=20
Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna; Ayam Bayrout al Cinemaiya, Beirut; Santa=20
Monica Museum of Art; Arab Screen Independent Film Festival, Doha, Qatar;=20
Artists Television Access/Arab Film Festival, San Francisco; Arab & Iranian=20
Film Festival, NYC; Argos Film & Video Festival, Brussels; The World Wide=20
Video Festival, Amsterdam; The Museum of Civilization, Hull, Qu=C3=A9bec; Bi=
ennale=20
de l=E2=80=99image en Mouvement (Biennial of Moving Images), Geneva; Signal=20=
& Noise=20
Festival, Vancouver; Pacific Film Archives - University Art Museum, Berkeley=
;=20
Sarah Lawrence College, New York; and upcoming at the Centre for the=20
Contemporary Image, Geneva and YYZ, Toronto.


---- =20
other related works:

This is Not Beirut/ There was and there was not
Jayce Salloum, 49 min., Lebanon/USA/Canada, =C2=A9 1994
This Is Not Beirut is a personal essay on the popular misrepresentations of=20
Lebanon and Beirut which documents the filmmaker's own experiences while=20
working in Lebanon.  Aware of its own conceptual baggage, the tape situates=20
itself between genres in order to better expose commonplace assumptions.  Th=
e=20
examination is thus liberated to realize the actual complexities of the=20
identities of artist and subject.  The result is a critical engagement of th=
e=20
disparities and disjunctions arising on site.


---
Talaeen a Junuub/Up to the South  =20
Jayce Salloum + Walid Ra=E2=80=99ad, 60 min., Lebanon/USA/Canada, 1993
An oblique, albeit powerful documentary which examines the current=20
conditions, politics and economics of South Lebanon.  The tape focuses on th=
e=20
social, intellectual and popular resistance to the Israeli occupation, as=20
well as conceptions of 'the land' and culture, and the imperiled identities=20
of the Lebanese people.  Simultaneously the tape self-consciously engages in=
=20
a parallel critique of the documentary genre and its traditions.


---
Muqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal  (Introduction to the End of an Argument)=20
Speaking for oneself .../Speaking for others....
Jayce Salloum & Elia Suleiman, 45 min., 1990, USA/Palestine
With a combination of Hollywood, European and Israeli film, documentary, new=
s=20
coverage and excerpts of 'live' footage shot in the West Bank and Gaza strip=
,=20
Introduction to the End of an Argument critiques representations of the=20
Middle East, Arab culture, and the Palestinian people produced by the West.=20=
=20