VIDEOMAPPINGS: AIDA, PALESTINE

Till Roeskens employs an ingenious device to lend these oral testimonies by refugees in the Aida camp of the West Bank a striking visual dimension. On screen: nothing but another screen. At first untouched, a blank sheet of paper is slowly filled with lines. Then these lines grow, push and cross each other, to finally form a drawing, a layout. They unfold a topography, mark places, build houses, give directions, describe tangles of roads and obstacles. In essence, they are laying down “flat biographies”. Six sheets slowly come to life in this way, following the rhythms of stories told by children, women or men, people we never get to see. Where are these voices? Behind the sheets. Of course, but where else? Exile, mourning, divided space, it all creates a slowmotion animation, the visible testimony of an experience whose protagonists are de facto concealed: leaving only voices and scribbled signs. (Text adapted from Nicolas Féodoroff, FIDMarseille)

Director: Till Roeskens

Date Released: 2009

Duration: 46mins