Marwa Arsanios

Falling Is Not Collapsing, Falling Is Extending

Marwa Arsanios

Marwa Arsanios’ video Falling Is Not Collapsing, Falling Is Extending is an investigation into the changing landscape of Beirut, the city where she lives and works. After the closure of a major municipal landfill site in 2015, thousands of tons of rubbish clogged the streets of Beirut. This led to public outcry, protests and accusations of government corruption. Since the 1990s, in the years following the end of the Lebanese Civil War, Beirut has been rapidly reshaped by property developers. Using strategically placed rubbish dumps, the surrounding land is devalued and left open for redevelopment. The aftermath of this process is the subject of the film, a portrait of a contested urban environment that connects the crisis with the city’s property boom.

Who Is Afraid of Ideology? Part 2

Marwa Arsanios

A generous and lyrical continuation of Lebanese artist Marwa Arsanios’ interest in the ties between ecology, feminism, and collective organization, this documentary showcases the radical politics of a Lebanese farming cooperative and the citizens of Jinwar, a women-only village in the north of Syria.

Who is Afraid of Ideology? Part 1

Marwa Arsanios

Marwa Arsanios’s new film examines the structures of self-governance and knowledge production fostered by the Kurdish autonomous women’s movement. She asks: what kinds of democracies are enabled without a state, and what kind of ecology is produced under the conditions of war? A propositional portrait of guerrilla ethics, Who is afraid of ideology? Part I disassembles the traditional documentary format, not only to show the contradictions inherent in such a portrayal, but also to doubt the regime of transparency.

Who Is Afraid of Ideology? Part 3 Micro Resistances

Marwa Arsanios

Inspired by these intense exhanges and images partially filmed in the South of Tolima in Columbia. The final film of the trilogy focuses on the current systemic war led by transnational firms against the tiniest and most essential aspect of life: seeds.

هل سبق لك أن قتلت دبًا؟ أو أن تكون جميلة

Marwa Arsanios

Marwa Arsanios

A video that uses the history of a magazine – Cairo’s Al-Hilal ‘50s and ‘60s collection – as the starting point for an inquiry into Jamila Bouhired, the Algerian freedom fighter. An actress designated to play her role is showing the magazine’s covers to the camera. From the different representations of Jamila in cinema to her assimilation and promotion through the magazine, the performance attempts to look at the history of socialist projects in Egypt, anti-colonial wars in Algeria, and the way they have promoted and marginalized feminist projects. The clear gender division used to marginalize women from the public sphere was overcome for a short moment during the Algerian war of independence (Jamila becoming its icon). Different voices and film and print material are used to explore this history. What does it mean to play the role of the freedom fighter? What does it mean to become an icon?