Event

The Suffering Grasses/Yamo

The Suffering Grasses/52min

Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring and the complicated politics of the region, this documentary seeks to explore the Syrian conflict through the humanity of the civilians who have been killed, abused, and displaced to refugee camps. While focusing on the plight of those caught in the crossfire of the hegemons, this film explores the motivations of its actorsthe Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Free Syrian Army and other geopolitical players like the US, Israel, Russia, China, Iran, Lebanon, Turkey, the Gulf countries... When elephants go to war, it is the grass that suffers. West Coast Premiere.

Yamo/70min

The complexities of personal memory, silence and Lebanon are drawn out by way of Rami Nihawi's affecting film, Yamo. Situated beside recollections of the filmmaker's mother, Nawal, the boundaries between personal history and national history become increasingly blurred as questions of family memory and 'what happened' post-1975 are explored. At times a participatory documentary donned with voice-over and interviews, at others, an experimental non-linear venture into a dream-like account of Nihawi's (and Lebanon's) past, Yamo captures what it means to remember, to recollect and the process of forgetting that cannot be divorced from the remembered event.