Al Bahr

Hit Him on the Head with a Hard, Heavy Hammer departs from the handwritten memoir of the filmmaker’s father and his experience of displacement during wartime. Referring to the notion Thomas Hardy termed ‘The Self-Unseeing’ in his eponymous 1901 poem, the film returns to childhood and the matters that harden us: upbringing, social status, education, labour, and familial bonds. The memoir weaves into the film as both a contemplation on mortality and an illustration of fading memory, reflecting on how we pen our pasts and how they can be re-told.

The road, the house, the key, the animals, Bamssi. Images with the urgency of an Instagram story create a dialogue within the family across the sea: Mourad and Fairuz, Tunisia and abroad. You have to go to the roof to see something of the surroundings: the railway behind the house. Away from the house, away from home. Street dogs and cats in front of the house. Without a house, without a home. The sound of the train carries a disturbing longing. The image of the sea opens up a dangerous desire. To stay. To dream. Time passes both slowly and quickly when the possibility of new life disrupts the routine.

Julie lost her parents when she was still very young. Now she is 13 and has long since settled in her new home, with a family who loves her. Over the years she has managed to accept her fate. “Light” follows Julie for a while and shows a girl who, despite immeasurable loss, faces the world with her arms wide open.

Gus and his pregnant girlfriend Anna are on holiday. During their nightly walk to a spot near the water, Anna makes a confession. Can the couple, amidst the wildness of nature and under a full moon, overcome the conflict? Will they reach their idyllic spot?

Belgian filmmaker and cinematographer Fairuz Ghammam’s warm, generous work explores aspects of (auto)biography, shared authorship, and collaborative practices. Staged as a walk through her hometown, Kortrijk, Culture riffs on these themes, sewing kernels of family history through a narrative, and a gaze, that oscillates between private and public space.

Three women reflect on art creation, immigration, and their own mother-daughter relationships: relationships cut short, relationships evolving, relationships to treasure. Following insights of independent experiences of love and loss, they unite in one space to celebrate a new chapter of life and friendship.

"Dear grandma, you’ll be surprised to hear my voice in your language…'" In Oumoun Brussels filmmaker Fairuz Ghammam plays the recording of a spoken letter that was never sent to her elderly grandmother in Mahdia, Tunisia. In the company of the camera, the lines become a voice over, as we witness a dialogue across languages, across cultures, across generations.