Promised Lands
Promised Lands profiles cinematic and geopolitical relationships throughout the Indian subcontinent (Bangladesh, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) and across to West Asia and the Middle East (including Afghanistan, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey). In the context of the APT, which seeks to question the cultural and geographical frameworks of the Asia Pacific region, Promised Lands opens up a deeper conversation with West Asia and the Middle East. This discussion underlines the need for a more specific awareness of distinct histories and genealogies within these regions, while also acknowledging interactions and shared influences across borders. Through the process of bringing political geographies and histories into question, the opportunity arises to reflect on how the region’s complex and diverse cultures and artistic practices contribute to new and more nuanced understandings of ‘Asia’.
Promised Lands includes five programs of film and video that consider local politics and individual lives within a larger context. Each program has an autonomous curatorial framework: responses to civil war in Sri Lanka (The Road to Jaffna) the legacies of partition across the Indian subcontinent (Cinema of Partition); dissent and the affirmation of cultural identity in a climate of political intervention in West Asia, as well as the fraught nexus of religious fundamentalism and national politics (The Tree of Life); the traumatic histories linking Armenia and Turkey (Return of the Poet); and fault lines throughout the Middle East in response to conflict and territorial incursions in Palestine, Lebanon and Israel (Eating My Heart). Several broad themes appear across these strands, in particular the intersection of daily life with relationships to land, religious affiliations and cultural histories.
While political and colonial legacies have divided land and communities, Promised Lands points to the aspirations of artists and filmmakers to reframe these struggles and find a path forward. Promised Lands looks to artists and filmmakers who find opportunities to rethink the past and imagine the future. Their work draws on the historical roots of contemporary experience, bringing the past to life in the present to transform our understanding of then and now. The program brings together works that project possibilities for change and explore the hopes of exiled and dispossessed communities to return to, or create, a homeland. The artists and filmmakers featured in Promised Lands provide extraordinary insights into complex contemporary situations, and work in myriad ways to counter the insidious effects of cultural homogenisation. Their individual narratives offer a depth of understanding rarely available in official histories and suggest new possibilities for relationships and understanding. The past and present in the first person take discussions of the future out of the realm of rhetoric and into a shared framework of responsibility.
The Road to Jaffna
Featuring work by Beate Arnestad and Morten Daae, Asoka Handagama, Vimukthi Jayasundara, Dharmasena Pathiraja and Prasanna Vithanage...read more
Cinema of Partition
Featuring work by Ritwik Ghatak, Nemai Ghosh, Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian, Lalit Mohan Joshi, Sanjay Kak, Amar Kanwar, Tareque Masud, Deepa Mehta, Govind Nihalani, MS Sathyu, Supriyo Sen, Sarah Singh, Santosh Sivan and Sabiha Sumar...read more
The Tree of Life
Featuring work by Kasim Abid, Fenar Ahmad, Shahram Alidi, Siddiq Barmak, Asghar Farhadi, Bahman Ghobadi, Hana Makhmalbaf, Samira Makhmalbaf, Mahmoud al Massad, Jafar Panahi, Nahid Persson Sarvestani, Parvez Sharma and Hassan Yektapanah...read more
Return of the Poet
Featuring work by Atom Egoyan, Reha Erdem, Pelin Esmer, Harutyun Khachatryan, Mahsun Kırmızıgül, Sergei Parajanov, Artavazd Pelechian and Gariné Torossian...read more
Eating My Heart
Featuring work by Hany Abu-Assad, Kamal Aljafari, Nurith Aviv, Yael Bartana, Simone Bitton, Ari Folman, Amos Gitaï, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Annemarie Jacir, Lamia Joreige, Mai Masri, Avi Mograbi, JocelyneSaab, Larissa Sansour, Eyal Sivan and Michel Khleifi, Elia Suleiman and Akram Zaatari...read more
