Passolini meets Ossama Mohammed

For this week’s screening Khaled Kurbeh chose to show Passolini’s Le Mura di Sana’a along with Khutwa Khutwa by Ossama Mohammed.

Le Mura di Sana’a: Yemen in 1971. Sana’a, like all of the Third World for Pasolini, was two things: an intact, sublimely beautiful medieval Arab city of the past, and a corrupted, degraded city being developed in the present. In 1971, Pasolini made this film in the form of a plea to UNESCO to save Sana’a from the destruction of modernisation.

Khutwa Khutwa: Syria in 1977. Ossama Mohammed’s film explores how in an oppressive society individuals are subjected to various stages of submission until they are prepared to accept violence. Images of everyday life in rural areas where education is minimal provide a portrait of young villagers. Theirs is a choice between a life of toil working the land as their parents have done, or that of a migrant labourer in the city. Trapped between religious and political ideologies and completely fascinated by authority, many of them choose the army.

Khaled Kurbeh (born 1987) is a Syrian music producer living and working in Berlin. He holds a degree in Economics and is a MA candidate in Spatial Strategies at Kunsthochschule Weissensee. Amongst others, he held several performances and exhibited his works at Smac Gallery Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt and BOX Freiraum. He released his first EP, Pieces From Exile, during Art Week Berlin 2015, in collaboration with initiative kommen und bleiben. Together with Oud player Raman Khalaf and an Ensemble of Berlin-based musicians, he's working on his forthcoming EP which will be released in early 2017. The project is commissioned by Shubbak, London’s largest biennial festival of contemporary Arab culture.