Turtles are Always Home by Rawane Nassif |  My Father is Still a Communist by Ahmad Ghossein

Join us for the screening of Turtles are Always Home by Rawane Nassif & My Father is Still a Communist by Ahmad Ghossein at the Sursock Museum. The films will be followed by a Q&A session. 

Date: March 14 - 7:30PM

Duration: 12min & 32min 

Language: Arabic with English subtitles

This event is part of Home Works 9: A Forum on Cultural Practices.

Looking forward to seeing you!

Turtles are Always Home (2016) - Rawane Nassif

“Houses have memories too. They hide them under their windowsills, tuck them in layers of paint and sometimes whisper them to birds passing by. I wonder whose memories these houses will keep. I live here but I am unable to leave a trace. I try to attach myself to the walls, dirty them, and mark them, but I fail. They are constantly cleaned, watched over, and protected. I caress them instead. And I film, lest I forget. Home is where the heart is, they say. I disagree. My heart is everywhere. It left with the music. Like a turtle, I am always home.”

Rawane Nassif is a curious soul who loves to explore new realms. Her tools are words, films, and systems of transportation. Her eclectic life pushed her to write a book on the politics of memory in Beirut, organize social projects with immigrants and indigenous people in Canada, explore nomadic traditions in Kyrgyzstan, teach anthropology in Tajikistan, create children’s books in Honduras, and undertake research between the National Museum of Qatar and the Doha Film Institute.

My Father is Still a Communist (2013) – Ahmad Ghossein 

All that remains of Rashid Ghossein and Mariam Hamadeh’s relationship is a large collection of messages recorded on audio cassettes over a period of 10 years, and sent as love letters during the time of the civil war in Lebanon. “When I was a child I invented stories about a father who was a war hero fighting with the Communist Party.”

Ahmad Ghossein is an artist and a filmmaker who works with video, installation and art in public spaces. He holds an MFA in Visual Art from the National Academy of Art-(KHIO) in Oslo and a BFA in Theater from the Lebanese University in Beirut. His practice looks into the connection between individual experiences and shared historical and political realities.