Nature Morte

Akram Zaatari's Nature Morte is a recording of a silent moment, in which two men prepare themselves for a military action. At the end, the older one leaves with a weapon on his shoulder, and the younger decides to stay.

"In this video, Zaatari works with a former member of the Lebanese Resistance, Mohammad Abu Hammane, who was featured in his video All is Well on the Border (1997). The actor's reappearance in this work is a transposition in time that evokes the awakening of an older resistant, now revisiting his military gear. This video was shot in Hubbariyeh, a Lebanese village located in the Aarqub area in South Lebanon, where the fidaeyin (Palestinian resistant fighters) based themselves in Lebanon in the late 1960s. The village is only few km away from the Israeli-occupied Shebaa farms, still disputed between Lebanon, and Israel. “Two men sit in the blue light of dawn. One is old and wizened. The other is young and baby-faced. As the old man makes explosives, the young man carefully mends the frayed cuff of a jacket. Which man will carry out the implied operation? What is the relationship between them and why does it seem so tender?”"

—Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage Catalogue (2008)