Fairuz Ghammam, Maryam Kamal Hedayat and Zohra Benhammou & Romy Mana share one thing: all four are inspired by stories close to home and translate these stories into film. In their short films Culture, Genderless and Days, they search for words for what unites them in all their diversity.

During this short film evening, Fatima-Zohra Ait El-Maâti will talk to the four filmmakers about family ties and about the personal stories of the makers’ parents or siblings. In all three films it’s the daughters’ voices that allows their stories to be shared with a wider audience. The Beursschouwburg Café is the ideal setting to chat and share stories. Feel free to bring your parents, a sibling, an uncle or an aunt.

This evening will be in Dutch, with simultaneous interpretation in English

Register here.

19:00 films

• Cultuur (Fairuz Ghammam) 15’ – AR&NL, OT ENG 
• Genderless (Maryam Kamal Hedayat) 10’ – FARSI, OT ENG
• Dagen (Zohra Benhammou & Romy Mana) 20’ – NL, OT ENG
   

20:00 conversation with Fatima-Zohra Ait El-Maâti, Fairuz Ghammam, Maryam Kamal Hedayat and Zohra Benhammou & Romy Mana (in Dutch, with translation)

Fairuz Ghammam graduated as an experimental filmmaker at a time when categorisation was still fashionable. She works as an editor, cinematographer and director in cinema beyond genres and formats. In her practice, Fairuz mainly explores (auto)biography, dialogue, predetermination, abundance & scarcity, shared authorship and collaborative practices.

Maryam K. Hedayat is a filmmaker, writer and curator. After studying Language and Literature at the university of Antwerp and film directing at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, she focused on making short films, documentaries and video installations. She also writes opinions and columns that have previously appeared in rekto:verso magazine, Mo magazine, De Standaard and Deus ex Machina, among others.  In 2019, Hedayat and other filmmakers co-founded Wanda, an action group for female and non-binary directors that fights for more inclusion and diversity in the film industry. In 2020, she started working part-time as city curator at argos, a centre for audiovisual arts in Brussels. Hedayat is currently in pre-production on her short film The Magician, for which she received support from the Flemish Audiovisual Fund, and is writing the screenplay for her first feature film.

Romy Mana and Zohra Benhammou are a filmmaker living and working in Brussels. They share a love for film and for personal histories. They are also interested in the complexity of the different social and cultural realities inhabiting and defining bodies in modern society. These shared interests evolved in writing and making films together. Romy and Zohra are currently working on their first film, a feature documentary film, Ana w yek. 

Fatima-Zohra Ait El Maâti is an artist, art programmer and curator based in Brussels. Initially trained in architecture, and passionate about multilingual artistic practices, she quickly reoriented herself in the audiovisual arts. She notably directed the documentary My Grandmother Is Not A Feminist, acclaimed by the New York Festival of Amazigh Film in 2020. In 2019, she founded the Imazi.Reine collective, a decolonial feminist collective driven by self-determination where themes such as spirituality, gender and sexuality are made accessible through art.

This event is part of Lost Stories. A Female Gaze on Migration Histories, a March 8-11 film festival about migration through the eyes of women filmmakers from North Africa and Southwest Asia.

An event by VUB Crosstalks with Fatima Mernissi leerstoel, Cinema RITCS, Cinéma Galeries, Globe Aroma and Beursschouwburg