Episode 01: Farah Kassem on Filming from Interiors

A woman, too afraid to leave her house, begins to make a series of calls to authorities reporting suspicious activity happening outside her window.

We kick off our premiere podcast with a conversation with Farah Kassem about her award-winning short documentary film, Cleaning Schaerbeek (2017), available to stream for a limited number of days, courtesy of the filmmaker.

Farah Kassem is a filmmaker from Lebanon whose work inspires us to think about interior-based filmmaking practices. Set entirely inside the apartment in Molenbeek, a neighborhood in Brussels known for its mix of North African, Turkish, Moroccan, and other immigrant communities, Kassem approaches the topic of paranoia in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris that had been traced back to the neighborhood. Working with self-imposed limitations, she crafts a well-composed, eloquent, and sharp short film about xenophobia with a thinly veiled sense of absurdity.

Cleaning Schaerbeek premiered at Warsaw Film Festival in 2017 and went on to screen at several other festivals across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It was awarded Best Short Documentary in the 2019 Brussels Independent Film Festival. 

In this conversation, Docs in Orbit contributor Christina Zachariades revisits the film with Farah, who is quarantined in Tripoli, Lebanon, and working on her upcoming feature documentary, We Are Inside.

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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Farah Bio Pic.jpg

Born in Tripoli, Lebanon, Farah Kassem graduated from ALBA University with a Bachelor’s in Audio Visual studies. She completed a Master’s in documentary filmmaking at DocNomads in Portugal, Hungary, and Belgium. Farah has been a director, editor, and D.O.P. on several documentaries. Her filmography includes award-winning short documentaries that have competed in Visions du Réel, Warsaw Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, and many others. She is working on her upcoming feature documentary, We are Inside, which is an awardee of the 2019 (Egg)celerator Lab Program and the 2019 recipient of the Sundance Production Grant.

FILM DETAILS: Cleaning Schaerbeek / Nettoyer Schaerbeek by Farah Kassem, Belgium/Lebanon, 19min, 2017,  French and Arabic with English Subtitles

PARTICIPATION IN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS / AWARDS

  • Ayam Beirut Film Festival - Lebanon, 2017.

  • Warsaw Film Festival - Poland, 2017.

  • DOK Leipzig - Germany, 2017.

  • Filmer à tout Prix - Belgium, 2017.

  • Alfilm Berlin - Germany, 2018.

  • Cinema Now, Kask - Belgium, 2018.

  • Crossing Europe film festival - Austria, 2018.

  • dokumentART - European Film Festival - Germany, 2018.

  • Theater aan Zee - Belgium, 2018.

  • Goethe Institute Beijing - China, 2018.

  • Lebanese Film Festival (LFF) - Lebanon, 2018.

  • Belvedere 21 | Museum für zeitgenössische Kunst in Vienna - Austria, 2019.

  • Brussels Independent Film Festival 2019 - Winner of Best Short Documentary - Belgium, 2019.

  • AFLAM, Marseille - France, 2019.

  • FIDÉ - France, 2019.

  • Lundi Soir - France, 2019.