In a historic phone call between the late President Hafez el Assad and the Syrian astronaut Mohammad Fares, we witness the father of the nation questioning the hero about his impressions as he looks down on the Syrian lands. A conversation that features the eternal leader, who, from the comforts of his office, casts a watchful eye on the children of the nation, even as they are thousands of miles away up in space.
Twenty-five years later, at the beginning of the upheavals in Syria in 2011, the authorities, fearing vandalism, dismantled the statues of Hafez el Assad in the protesting towns. The regime tried to head off the inevitable, sacrificing the symbol in order to safeguard the image.
Ali Cherri, born in Beirut in 1976, is a visual artist and designer working with video, installation, performance, multimedia, and print.
Format: HDCAM
Länge: 7 min
Produced by Galerie Imane Farès – Paris
