25° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
Not A Matter of If but When: brief records of a time in which expectations were repeatedly raised and lowered and people grew exhausted from never knowing if the moment was at hand or was still to come
Country: USA
Year: 2006
Duration: 32'
Rami Farah, a young Syrian performer, uses various modes of expression and behaviour (promise, threat, curse, joke, lament, prophecy) to speak to the current state of affairs in Syria and the Middle East. “This film was developed in 2005-06, during a year we spent living in Damascus, Syria. This brief period of time was witness to momentous events […]. These events gave rise to widespread anxiety and anticipation in Syria around the possibilities of imminent change, regime change, internal reform, internal collapse, civil war, U.S. invasion, and the emergence of increasingly powerful strains of Islam. […] Rami’s improvisations speak to living in a condition of uncertainty, chaos and stasis.”
Biography
film director
Julia Meltzer
is a media artist and director of Clockshop, a non-profit production company in Los Angeles. She received her BA from Brown University and her MFA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is a 2004 recipient of a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship and was a Fulbright Fellow in Damascus, Syria in 2005-06.
FILMOGRAFIA
Julia Meltzer, David Thorne:
It’s not My Memory of It (cm, doc., 2003), Not a Matter of If But When: Brief Records of a Time in Which Expectations Were Repeatedly Raised and Lowered and People Grew
Exhausted from Never Knowing If the Moment Was at Hand or Was Still to Come (mm, 2006), We Will Live to See These Things (mm, 2007), Take Into the Air My Quiet Breath (cm, 2007).
David Thorne
is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. He is a 2004 recipient of a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship and a 2007 recipient of an Art Matters grant. He completed his MFA in Interdisciplinary studies at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2004. In spring 2006 he was a visiting artist at The Cooper Union in New York City.
FILMOGRAFIA
Julia Meltzer, David Thorne:
It’s not My Memory of It (cm, doc., 2003), Not a Matter of If But When: Brief Records of a Time in Which Expectations Were Repeatedly Raised and Lowered and People Grew
Exhausted from Never Knowing If the Moment Was at Hand or Was Still to Come (mm, 2006), We Will Live to See These Things (mm, 2007), Take Into the Air My Quiet Breath (cm, 2007).
Cast
& Credits
regia/directors Julia Meltzer, David Thorne
interpreti/cast Rami Farah
produttore/producer Julia Meltzer
produzione/production The Speculative Archive
distribuzione, vendita all’estero/distribution, world sales Video Data Bank
interpreti/cast Rami Farah
produttore/producer Julia Meltzer
produzione/production The Speculative Archive
distribuzione, vendita all’estero/distribution, world sales Video Data Bank
