THE SUN AND THE LOOKING GLASS

On a land perpetually threatened by colonial appropriation, the transmission of history and narratives plays a particular and vital role. The Sun and the Looking Glass – for one easily forgets but the tree remembers is an artistic essay-film. It paints a portrait of a place on a hill above the West Bank village of Ein Qiniya. Surrounded by earth, roads, and trees, the landscape pulls us into an undying world before walls, before checkpoints, before erasure. There, we go back in time through objects uncovered in the renovation of two late Ottoman houses. Looking at the objects through a magnifying lens, the film becomes part performance, part historical document told through disappearances and revelations. To blind oneself to anything in this place, to erase it from the narrative, is to exploit the past to justify the present.

directed by Milena Desse
cinematography Mashal Kawasmi and Milena Desse
sound recording Montaser Abu Alul, Chloe Despax and Sylvie Bouteiller
editing Milena Desse
sound design and mixing Sylvie Bouteiller
developped in the frame of a residency at Sakiya – Art Science Agriculture Ein Qiniya, Palestine
produced by Milena Desse
consulting producer Mohanad Yaqubi
with the support of A. M. Qattan Foundation, WBI – Wallonie-Bruxelles International, KASK – De Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten Ghent, Idioms Film, Labokube

trailer
download press kit
see film online (for private use only)
contact@milenadesse.be to host public screening

Doc Alliance Award 2021 official selection