We are delighted to present Fragments from heaven (2022), from the evocative film program curated by researcher and scholar Rasha Salti.

Inspired by the themes explored in Abdullah Al Saadi’s Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia, the program invites audiences to reflect on the intricate interplay between remembrance and forgetting, evoking profound connections to collective and personal histories.

To celebrate the film’s cultural origins, Moroccan food will be served for audiences to enjoy as part of the film evening.

Fragments from heaven (2022)

Director: Adnane Baraka 

Language: Arabic, Tamazight and French.

Subtitles: English

Genre: Narrative

Duration: 84 Minutes

Synopsis:

The barren landscapes of south-eastern Morocco are known for frequent meteorite showers. Mohamed, a nomad who lives with his family in a tent in the desert, searches for meteorites fragments. Like the other men who scour the terrain with him, he hopes to find a valuable rock from space that would mean his escape from poverty. On the other side of the country, scientist Abderrahmane analyses meteorites for enclaves of long-dead celestial bodies. He observes the rocks through his microscope, enlarges the images on his computer, then lectures his students on supernova explosions and the formation of the cosmos from nothing: “We, and everything around us, are made of stars and fragments of the sky”.

About the Curator: 

Rasha Salti is an independent Curator and freelance Writer, working and living between New York and Beirut. After receiving a BA in Fine Arts from Georgetown University, she earned a graduate degree in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research in New York (2000). Her work has been published widely in international newspapers, magazines and journals as well as catalogs for arts festivals and events. In 2005 she earned the Phillip Shehadi award for new writing on the Middle East.

Her involvement with art and cultural practice began at the Theatre de Beyrouth, an independent cultural space that was a marker for the city’s post-war cultural landscape. On moving to New York she began collaborating with ArtEast, a pioneering non-profit arts organization, and in 2005 she was appointed director of CinemaEast Film Festival, a biennial of recent films from the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas. In 2006 she curated a retrospective of Syrian cinema at the Lincoln Center and edited and translated Insights into Syrian Cinema: Essays and Conversations with Filmmakers (Rattapallax Press, 2006). She writes about artistic practice in the Arab World, film and general social and political commentary. Her work has been published widely in international newspapers, magazines and journals as well as catalogs for arts festivals and events. In 2005 she earned the Phillip Shehadi award for new writing on the Middle East.