Middle East

Mohamed Yousry: A Life Stands Still (also known as Good Translator) is a short documentary about Mohamed Yousry, a naturalized American citizen who's life changed radically after September 11, 2001. Mohamed immigrated to the United States in 1980. For the next twenty years, he developed a full and happy life, as a husband, father, and academic. On September 13, 2001 Mohamed was approached by the FBI on his doorstep in Queens, NY. After appeal processes and an attempt to extradite him, Mohamed was sentenced to four years in a federal penitentiary in Fort Worth, TX.

There are approximately 30,000 Filipino guest workers living within the State of Israel. The majority are female and work as caregivers for the elderly or sick. In Tel Aviv they live in shanty town conditions around the central bus station also known as the ‘Tachana Mercazit’. On Saturdays, buses in the Tachana do not work, and this giant modernist building is occupied by guest workers, who spend their time shopping, partying and socializing in bars, clubs and shops within the compound. Beauty contests are very popular among Filipinos both at home and abroad.

The filmmaker and his friend, both Lebanese, meet two Israelis their own age in Paris, and spend some playful time with them. While they play a game, they refer constantly and humorously to the war and to the frozen status quo between the two countries.

This title is only available on Radical Closure.

"The Flag is the second part of a video series about the state-controlled national day ceremonies of the Turkish Republic. Shot during the April 23rd Children’s Day celebrations, which mark the establishment of the new Turkish Parliament, and hence the official demise of the Ottoman Empire back in 1920, this split screen film documents a pompous patriotic performance devised by elders to be performed by children.

A wistful film on the love of homeland.

Video artist Nurit Sharett recounts her childhood memories and converses with her Palestine-born parents who grew up in the British Mandate years.  They both took part in realizing the Zionist dream of establishing the State of Israel, a dream now shattered before their eyes.

Museum collections of various kinds are the object of artist Dana Levy's ongoing, consistent study in the past decade.

Based on a set of drawings that depict George W. Bush's administration as wounded soldiers in the war against terrorism, RE:THE_OPERATION explores the sexual and philosophical dynamics of war through the lives of the members as they physically engage each other and the "enemy." Letters, notes, and digital snapshots "produced" by the members on their tour of duty become the basis of video portraits that articulate the neuroses and obsessions compelling them toward an infinite war.

Taking the idea of loss and dispossession as a starting point, this second reflection on photography and its people looks at the individual’s position within the context of war and how photographs become the sole record of that displacement, at the risk of them being dispersed as well.

In the midst of the 2011 revolution in Cairo, a few beduins listen to their car's radio near Jericho, a place which looks like the end of the world. Within moments this desolated landscape transfers into a busy tourist attraction as a bus full of Polish Pilgrims enter the landscape.

Note: This title is intended by the artist to be viewed in High Definition. While DVD format is available to enable accessibility, VDB recommends presentation on Blu-ray or HD digital file.

Set in the industrial suburbs of Beirut, Majnounak (Crazy of You) explores male sexuality through interviews with three men who are asked to recount very openly the beginning, middle, and end of a sexual relationship they have experienced. The video explores the image they wanted to project of themselves, hence the image of the "male" they identify with. Their stories are alike, starting with seduction and ending after sex.

There are approximately 30,000 Filipino guest workers living within the State of Israel. The majority are female and work as caregivers for the elderly or sick. In Tel Aviv they live in shanty town conditions around the central bus station also known as the ‘Tachana Mercazit’. On Saturdays, buses in the Tachana do not work, and this giant modernist building is occupied by guest workers, who spend their time shopping, partying and socializing in bars, clubs and shops within the compound. Beauty contests are very popular among Filipinos both at home and abroad.

We will live to see these things... is a documentary video in five parts about competing visions of an uncertain future. Shot in 2005/06 in Damascus, Syria, the work combines fiction and non-fiction. Each section of the piece--the chronicle of a building in downtown Damascus, an interview with a dissident intellectual, documentation of an equestrian event, the fever dream of a U.S.

A woman recounts her story of the mass exodus of Palestinians from Jerusalem. Beginning with the arrival and ending with the departure, the tale moves backwards in time and through various landscapes. The events are neither undone nor is the story untold; instead, Farther than the eye can see traces a decaying experience to a place that no longer exists.

The Sky Is Falling... is part of an ongoing series of performances that make up The Data Humanization Project.

This work is almost a parable, where a man is imprisoned under his baby’s bed. He tries all means to survive and to find a mechanical solution that would lead him to freedom.

This title is only available on Radical Closure.

Red Chewing Gum is a video letter that tells a story of separation between two men, set within the context of the changing Hamra, a formerly booming commercial center. The video looks at image making in relationship to consumption and the possession of desired subjects. It examines issues of desire and power, and the attempt to capture fleeting time.

Tarlabaşı integrates performances of everyday movements and gestures as a direct response to the devastation caused by the centralized state sponsored urban renewal project in downtown Istanbul.

Dancer: Idil Kemer
Music: Cenk Ergün
Production: Yunus Demir

Detail is indeed a detail. It is an excerpt from Mograbi’s feature film Avenge But One of My Two Eyes, where human conditions face military situations. This is a detail of the reality as lived by Palestinians and Israelis daily in Israel and the Occupied Territories. This “detail” is what makes life unbearable.

This title is only available on Radical Closure.