Presented in conjunction with the Conference and Exhibition, Abounaddara. The Right to the Image

New York premiere. The filmmaker Liwaa Yazji is present for a post-screening discussion with Jason Fox.

Building on Syria’s rich and exceptionally vibrant film scene, this feature-length portrait of exile by one of Syria’s most highly acclaimed poets, Liwaa Yazji, captures a situation of profound displacement and uncertainty in the midst of Syria’s civil war. Yazji’s first film, Haunted bears the mark of a distinct literary voice, and brings the viewer close to a visceral confrontation with some of the repercussions of the political strife in Syria. The film has been shown in art cinema houses in Europe; this is the first New York screening.

HAUNTED, Liwaa Yazji, Syria, 2014, 112 minutes
“When the bombs fell, the first thing we did was run away. It was not until later that we realized we had not looked back. We were not allowed to say goodbye to our home, our memories, our photos and the life that was lived within them. We have become vacant like these spaces; our hastily packed belongings and the forgotten things haunt us.” An uncertain existence followed the escape and expulsion from Syria that tumbled into a physical and mental nowhere, a non-space between yesterday and tomorrow. Haunted tells of the loss of home and security, of the real and metaphorical meaning which a house, a home has in one’s life.

Participants
Liwaa Yazji: Writer and Filmmaker
Jason Fox: Filmmaker and Teacher

Liwaa Yazji was born in Moscow in 1977. She is a graduate of Theater Studies in Damascus/Syria and worked in the fields of theater dramaturgy, playwriting, and screen writing. She acted in Abdullatif Abulhamid’s September Rain (Syria 2009) and was assistant director of Allyth Hajjo and Ammar Alani’s docudrama Windows of the Soul (Syria 2011). In 2012, she published her first play, Here in the Garden, and is currently preparing the second one with the Royal Court. In 2014, her poetry book Peacefully, We Leave Home was published in Beirut. She wrote the screen play for the TV drama series The Brothers (2013) which was broadcast on Abu Dhabi TV, CBC Egypt, and LBC Lebanon. Haunted (Syria/Germany 2014) is Yazji’s directorial debut. She is a recipient of a 2015 CEC ArtsLink Grant.

Jason Fox is a filmmaker and professor based in New York City. He has taught at Vassar College, Cooper Union and at CUNY Hunter College. As well, he has worked as a documentary programmer in conjunction with The American Museum of Natural History, The Flaherty Seminar, and Maysles Cinema, among others. He also serves on the Board of Organization for Visual Progression, an organization that partners with social justice organizations to provide training on using visual media in their advocacy efforts. He holds an MA from New York University and and MFA from CUNY Hunter College.

Curated by Jason Fox, this screening is supported by UnionDocs and organized by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School, in conjunction with the exhibition and conference Abounaddara. The Right to the Image, presented at Parsons from October 22 through November 11, 2015.

Click here to buy tickets from the Union Docs website.