Baba Hillman

When I returned to 5 cité de la roquette, I found a sign on the gate announcing the reconstruction of the building. In the days that followed, I came back in early morning or evening, when crews were not working, to film the stairwells, the stones, the doors, to stand on the landings, to listen to the sounds of the empty building, to watch the light at the windows, to hear again the songs of this place.

An immersive cinematic poem of a 7 year journey of return, “Kitâb al-Isfâr: Book of the Journey” weaves together stories of near-death and mystical experience in Andalucia. According to the director: “When I was 19 I set out, hoping I could learn the meaning of life by ‘experiencing everything’. I bought a car for 20 marks in a cafe in Ulm. I spray painted it yellow and green and drove it from Holland to Romania to Spain, sleeping in the back seat in a red blanket. Driving down to Málaga, at the crest of the mountains, the brakes went out. As the car sped down the mountain then crashed, I lost consciousness, followed by three days and nights of visions. What did I see, what did I understand? The Shaykh al-Akbar, Sufi mystic and philosopher Ibn ‘Arabî , writes that the journey only has true meaning if it brings a new beginning. In traveling, the heart becomes the goal of the journey”.

A return after many years to the home of a beloved teacher. I am less than a trace returning to this garden, but I am here and my heart turns, hearing again, though differently, the songs that hang here still, in the breath of this place. -BH