‘Something about Dreams’ (Red, Pink, Mauve, Orange)
Digital/ Super8/ Camerless Film
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‘Something about Dreams’ is project between Cheri Zohra Ahannach, a painter whose work depicts daily life in the small village of Alawi in the North of Morocco - Rif mountains. Having given up painting for 13 years, losing and then regaining her sight, Zohra looks for accessible materials and begins to paint again using the juice of olives.
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A fragmented cycle of shots and journeys, it sees Zohra, her daughter Jinat and her mother Fatima, working, sleeping, walking and talking. It weaves together snippets of time from their lives as well Cheri's own. In some moments we may become entangled. It is the aim of the work to stay attentive to these women and to the sensitive nature of ethnography and though while the filmmaker is not seen, the use of songs and cameraless film methods (scratching/ drawing/ painting on a 16mm film strip) are a material trace of my presence and touch. Tentatively collecting material without attempting to create a master narrative Cheri takes influence from film theorist Trinh T. Min-ha’s notion of ‘speaking nearby’.
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The Film’s sound track is a mix of songs from the Rif including folk songs and nursery rhymes as well as Cheri’s voice on her composed song ‘Red, Pink, Mauve. Orange’.
Still from ‘Something about Dreams' (Red, Pink, Mauve, Orange)