“I increasingly feel that barbarism now holds a universal potential, and I am convinced that resistance must be nothing less than universal.” - Serge Daney
During the Gulf War, Serge Daney wrote that conversation – what he called ‘a typically Franco-Arab art’ – could no longer take place between him and his Arab friends. Saddened by this realisation, an opportunity was created to offer him a space, both real and cinematic, in which this interrupted dialogue might be rekindled. The choice of his interlocutor was immediately obvious: Elias Sanbar, a Palestinian, historian, editor of the journal Études palestiniennes, and collector of images – an exile who archives the memory of his people: press photographs, family albums, postcards, and more. For Sanbar, the image serves as proof of his identity. Daney spent most of his life watching films, yet always refused to keep still images. On both sides, there was a strong desire to confront these two attitudes toward the image and to make of them, in a way, a parable of North-South relations.
Serge Daney only made one film, the short La preuve par Prince (1988), in which he edits images from television. “When a body puts time on its side, we call that style. And when there is style, television has no choice but to record.”
The screening will be followed by a roundtable discussion featuring the programme curators, Arta Barzanji and Gerard-Jan Claes, joined by film scholars Pierre Eugène and Kate Ince, to discuss the enduring significance of his criticism.
This programme is presented in collaboration with Arta Barzanji and Gerard-Jan Claes, who edited and compiled for Sabzian the issue ‘Serge Daney and the Promise of Cinema, available in English and French, featuring contributions from critics, academics, and translators from around the world.
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