Autobiography

This Is Not Beirut is a personal project that examines the use and production of images and representations of Lebanon and Beirut, both in the West and in Lebanon itself. It also records Salloum’s interactions and experiences while working in Lebanon, focusing on this representational process by a Westernized, foreign-born Lebanese mediator with cultural connections to and baggage from both the West and Lebanon.

Divino explains how he got introduced to video. “Filming is my profession; that’s what I was born to do ... not for the work with the axe. I wasn’t born to plant. I already said this to my wife.” Today, Divino dominates the language of video and its filming and editing techniques. He also talks about working in partnership with his community. Directed by Divino Tserewahu; edited by Tutu Nunes. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

Recently I found myself rising from a forced landing on the floor after being catapulted into the air by an exercise machine and bouncing off the dresser. Through raccoon eyes, the effect of falling on my face, I squinted into the fog-filled room of my present, stumbling about apprehensively, my long-term memory scrambled and short-term memory severely inhibited. My once reliable body and memory were teetering on the brink of self-betrayal.

Space Ghost compares the experiences of astronauts and prisoners, using popular depictions of space travel to illustrate the physical and existential aspects of incarceration: sensory deprivation, the perception of time as chaotic and indistinguishable, the displacement of losing face-to-face contact, and the sense of existing in a different but parallel universe with family and loved-ones.

In Barbier’s meditative journey through India, she deconstructs the myth of the objective documentary by using textual commentary and off-camera remarks to address the problematic relationship of observer to observed. Framing the images through the artist’s subjective and distinctly female point of view, she explores images of women working, sweeping, cooking, and tending children in direct juxtaposition to men who sit, relax, and observe the spectacle.

On a back-to-nature trip to Boulder, Colorado, George goes to the mountains, but goes on the rocks emotionally.

This title is also available on The World of George Kuchar.

In a motel in El Reno, Oklahoma, George observes the weather and copes with leaking air conditioning, food shopping, loneliness, television, and eating, among other things.