After my rich experience at the Berlinale Forum in 2015 with my film Al-wadi (The Valley), I continued to more or less accompany the film to various other festivals, as well as on its theatrical release in Beirut and Paris later on. It was, of course, a limited release – there’s no need to be reminded of how difficult it is to release films which go off on tangents, which take different paths. During all this back and forth, I started working on a essay film called “Chinese Ink”, that I finished at the beginning of 2016 (it was selected for the FID Marseille and exhibited as part of the Sharjah Biennal 2017). I also made a video installation (I prefer to say „video-diptych“), “Son Image”, for the MuCEM in Marseille. So no, life doesn’t stop between two features – far from it! In 2016, I had the pleasure of being a DAAD grant-holder in Berlin, and it was a privileged time! I had six months to just think, and, eventually, work – with nothing expected of me in return! There I had the chance to write my next feature film, “The River”, the third and final part of my triptych which started with “The Mountain” and Al-wadi (The Valley). And here I am, back at the Berlinale, at Forum Expanded this time, part of a section, the Forum, which is delightfully unpretentious.
Ghassan Salhab showed his film Al-wadi (The Valley) at the Forum in 2015. This year, his new work Aala kad al shawk – Le voyage immobile (co-directed with Mohamed Soueid) is shown at the Forum Expanded.
