TIFF Bell Lightbox, Cinema 2

Diary of A Sky
Screening with: Familiar Phantoms

Duration: 45 min Director: Lawrence Abu Hamdan Genre: Experimental Documentary Year: 2024
Country: Lebanon Languages: Arabic with English Subtitles

Description:
While the world came to a standstill in many places in 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an almost eerie silence set in, the noise level increased massively not only in the port city of Beirut, but also in the surrounding airspace. The noise of the roaring generators to compensate for the lack of electricity supply from the state mingles with the noise of the fifty or so Israeli army drones and fighter jets that fly over the country every day. The Diary of a Sky is an essayistic collage of videos aggregated by the artist between 2020 and 2021.

This vast collection of videos is organised here into a chronology that documents the ways in which repeated incursions of Israeli fighter jets and drones have militarised the air itself. All the chapters in this diary bear witness to the ways in which this atmospheric violence is both terrifying and yet so integrated into daily life that it becomes ignorable in its monotony.

Awards: http://lawrenceabuhamdan.com
More Info: Square Eyes