“A richly multi-layered exploration of memory . . . a love letter to Beirut.” —Variety
Mizna’s 16th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival opens with Memory Box and a post-screening discussion with Lebanese artist duo Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. On Christmas Eve, Maia and her daughter Alex receive an unexpected delivery of notebooks, tapes, and photos from Maia’s life in 1980s Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box, but Alex secretly dives into her mother’s archive. Alternating between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese Civil War. 2021, France/Lebanon/Canada/Qatar, DCP, in Arabic and French with English subtitles, 102 minutes.
Copresented with Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival.
Arab Film Festival’s Opening Night Reception at 5:30 pm in the Bazinet Lobby, catered by Baba’s.
Post-show conversation with director Khalil Joreige onstage with Mizna’s film curator Michelle Baroody.
About Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival
Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival
September 28–October 2
Mizna’s Arab Film Festival showcases films made by Arab and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) makers. The opening-night film, copresented by Mizna and the Walker, screens at the Walker Cinema. All other festival films will screen at the Trylon Cinema (2820 E. 33rd St, Minneapolis).
For a full schedule and festival pass information, visit mizna.org.
Support is provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, the McKnight Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.
About the Artists
Filmmakers and artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige question the fabrication of images and representations, the construction of imaginaries, and the writing of history. Their works create thematic and formal links between photography, video, performance, installation, sculpture, and cinema. Since the 1990s, they have collaboratively directed numerous films that have screened across the world. The artists are known for their long-term, research-based projects that focus on personal or political documents as well as their particular interests in invisible histories, like those of the disappeared during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the Lebanese space program from the 1960s, and the geological and archaeological foundations of modern cities.
Before Your Visit
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Visiting the galleries? Enhance your experience by joining a public tour or with self-guided resources accessible for free on Bloomberg Connects.
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