“Imagining justice” is my base to investigate how ‘futuring’ narratives can empower people under colonial hegemony today. My conceptual documentary method utilizes the technique of “staging” to confront stagnant narratives and to give higher agency for the film participants. I am now researching how I can stage my own fantasies as a Palestinian diaspora to channel a collective desire for sovereignty and justice. Inspired by the long legacy of resistance in the Palestinian struggle, my goal is to synthesize the relentless hope-punk optimism vis a vis the rising anger and grief, into cinematic vignettes that explore the complexity of imagining justice today.
Both the practice of “staging” in documentary and the practice of Speculative fiction, are deeply rooted in pausing the question “what if” to offer another possible world or narratives. My work combines these two techniques to conjure up images that shift power dynamics creating a critical and alternative narrative.
Dalia Al Kury is an independent film director working on cross-genre projects. Her films explore different cultural taboos in the Arab world and have been commissioned by International TV channels such as ZDF Arte, Al- Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Her first feature documentary “Possessed by djinn” premiered at Hotdocs and her second feature film “Privacy of Wounds” premiered in competition at IDFA and went on to be nominated for six prestigious awards in Europe. She was a chevening scholar recipient and holds an MA in Screen Documentary from Goldsmiths University. Dalia is currently an artistic research fellow and PhD candidate at the Norwegian film school.
My presentation will include a brief introduction of my project followed by a 14 minute film which is a work in progress pilot. I plan to choose 3 different scenes in the pilot and describe my artistic process from paper to screen, with a focus on the aesthetic and ethical challenges that I faced while writing in the comfort of Oslo and directing in the reality of Palestine. What is staged, what is subverted, what is decolonized, what is abstracted and, and what is needed to create a type of catharsis in this type of work.
I am interested in finding out if emitting much of my script and dialogue can still create an engaging film. I am curious about how to further contextualize my work in themes related to hybrid cinema, diasporic cinema, arab futurism, self-fabulation, and the ethics of imagining alternative realities.