Walid Raad
2021Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (English Version)
Walid Raad
Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (English Version) is an experimental documentary about "The Western Hostage Crisis." The crisis refers to the abduction and detention of Westerners in Lebanon in the 80s and early 90s by "Islamic militants." This episode directly and indirectly consumed Lebanese, U.S., French, and British political and public life, and precipitated a number of high-profile political scandals like the Iran-Contra affair in the U.S. This period is examined through the testimony of Souheil Bachar, who was the only Arab to have been detained with the American hostages kidnapped in Beirut in the 1980s. In 1999, Bachar collaborated with The Atlas Group to produce 53 videotapes about his captivity. Tapes #17 and #31 are the only two tapes Bachar makes available outside of Lebanon. In the tapes, Bachar addresses the cultural, textual, and sexual aspects of his detention with the Americans.
Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (English Version)
I Only Wish That I Could Weep
Walid Raad
This 'document' is attributed to a Lebanese Army intelligence officer, Operator #17, who was assigned to monitor the Corniche, a seaside boardwalk in Beirut. From 1996 onwards, and for some unknown reasons, the officer decided to videotape the sunset instead of his assigned targets.
I Only Wish That I Could Weep
The Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs
Walid Raad
"The Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs is a three-part video project: Missing Lebanese Wars (in three parts), Secrets in the Open Sea and Miraculous Beginnings (in two parts). The work investigates the possibilities and limits of writing a history of the Lebanese wars (1975-1991). All parts are short fake documentaries, hysterical symptoms of sorts that present imaginary events conctructed out of innocent and everyday material. The tapes document fantastic situations that beset a number of individuals during the civil wars. The tapes do not document what happened, but what can be imagined, what can be said, what can be taken for granted, what can appear as rational, sayable, and thinkable about the wars."
The Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs
Talaeen A lunuub
Walid Raad, Jayce Salloum
Up to the South is ostensibly a documentary on the south of Lebanon exploring the conditions of the time it was shot, the issues behind those conditions and their representation both in the West and in Lebanon itself. Within this we were trying to tackle two other concerns. One being the terms (and positions) inherent in the discourse surrounding the issues, i.e. terrorism, colonialism, occupation, resistance, collaboration, experts, spokespeople, leadership, the land, etc., and the other being the history and structure of the documentary genre specifically in regards to the representation of other cultures by the West in documentary, ethnography and anthropological practise and the problems/agenda involved from the perspective of the subjects viewed and the practitioners practising. Up to the South challenges traditional documentary formats by positing representation itself as a politicized practice.
Talaeen a Junuub
