“ THE DAY BEFORE… “ Video installation in public spaces,Damascus, Syria, 2010/2012

As the title refers to the concept of time, this film is an urban journey of what "where" means when people dwelled together peacefully in Damascus. I filmed these genuine moments of life in the old town of Damascus in 2010, just a few months before the events that would change our life and the city once and for all happened.

This film shows the intimacy of people's movement, the narrow spaces accumulating the colourful urban soul of Damascus through time, with all of its symbols and hidden secrets. Each space is like a heart full of treasures, where you can barely imagine its depth due to the multiplicities of layers and colours that constitute its shape. 

I was filming in the old city, even without asking the shops' owners if I could do this. It was a spontaneous act in a peaceful town with good-hearted people. Many were interacting happily, without even knowing what it was all about, or what might become of it in a gloomy future waiting for us.

When the war broke out, and we were witnessing destruction by all means, and when I left the country for another place, I wanted to keep this memory alive as the last mapping of the life -as I knew it- in my city.  

Is anyone could imagine that there is an ongoing war there!?

Twenty-eight minutes of visual meditation as poetic cartography of Damascus as I want to remember it in The Day Before... 

Excerpt https://vimeo.com/56769456