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Who is Afraid of Ideology ?

Marwa Arsanios
2019 Lebanon, Kurdistan, Syria 51 min Arabic, English, Kurdish, Turkish

Three eco-feminist strategies at work, from experiments conducted by women in three war-torn places, where the issue of the reappropriation of the land and means of production and subsistence is paramount.

As an introduction, standing on a stony path, director Marwa Arsanios faces the camera and wonders: “What does it mean to belong to a place? What does it mean to “be here”? What does the word “nature” encompass? What does it imply when we say “we”? These political questions arise from experiments conducted by women in three war-torn places. First, in the mountains of Kurdistan, in early 2017, the guerrilla led by the Kurdish women’s autonomist movement invites us to experience and consider space, plants, survival, ecology and economic battles in a different way. […] Then in Jinwar, literally the “place of women”, a village in Rojava, Northern Syria, built by women for the exclusive use of women. And finally, in a cooperative in the Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border, which has become a sanctuary-like community for refugees. In these communities, the issue of the reappropriation of the land and means of production and subsistence is paramount, and it creates a different landscape. These three eco-feminist strategies at work bring about self-governance, and the creation and transmission of knowledge.
Nicolas Feodoroff (FIDMarseille)

Production :
Sophie Delhasse, Mor-Charpentier
Photography :
Mazen Hachem, Juma Hamdo
Sound, editing :
Katrin Ebersohn
Print contact :
Sophie Delhasse, sophie@mor-charpentier.com

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