1. Program
  2. /
  3. How Can We See (each other)?
  4. /
  5. Family, Border, Separation: Films by Liang Ying and Sholeh Zahraei & Kamil Saldun

Family, Border, Separation: Films by Liang Ying and Sholeh Zahraei & Kamil Saldun

OV with English subs
Followed by a talk with Kamil Saldun and Sholeh Zahraei

九月二十八日·晴 A Sunny Day
Liang Ying, Fiction, Netherlands/Hong Kong 2016, 25 Min.

 妈妈的口供 I Have Nothing To Say
Liang Ying, Hong Kong/Taiwan 2017, 25 Min.

Granny's Garden
Sholeh Zahraei/Kamil Saldun, Cyprus/Iran 2012, 5 Min.

Letters To Cyprus
Sholeh Zahraei/Kamil Saldun, Cyprus 2014, 22 Min.

Celluloid Me
Sholeh Zahraei/Kamil Saldun, Cyprus/Iran 2014, 3 Min.

The Olive Tree At The Border
Sholeh Zahraei/Kamil Saldun, Cyprus 2014, 6 Min.

This short film programme focuses on exile, separation and family dispersed over borders. In A Sunny Day a young woman visits her father in his Hong Kong flat. She has not seen him for a while and tries to have lunch with him before the Umbrella Movement reaches a critical juncture. In I Have Nothing To Say,a Chinese mother meets with her exiled daughter from Hong Kong. Drawing from his personal experience living in exile, the director Liang Ying tells their moving story, subtly depicting the political dilemma of Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Granny's Garden shows a young man in his final hour, having flashbacks to his granny's garden where there was life, love, nature and hope. Letters To Cyprus isbased on the pen-friendship that the mother of one of the directors maintained during the war in 1974.After 42 years of waiting for peace, a Cypriot woman returns back to the home that she was previously forced to leave. Celluloid Me is a poetic film about abandoning a body, transforming into other bodies and the desire to become one with water, nature and celluloid. The Olive Tree At The Border is areflection on Cyprus, nature, division, and a man who goes beyond borders.

Sholeh Zahraei was born in Tehran, grew up in Berlin, and studied in Amsterdam and Cyprus. Sholeh has worked with directors like Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Bahram Beyzaie, and Derviş Zaim. In 2016, she participated in Berlinale Talents as a writer and director. Since 2011, she has made several experimental, fiction, and documentary shorts, music videos and TV ads with Kamil Saldun.

Kamil Saldun was born in Famagusta, Cyprus. He graduated at Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta. Since 2013 Kamil has been working as a film editor. Sholeh and Kamil were selected to participate in a filmmaking workshop mentored by Abbas Kiarostami and are part of the Imago Mundi Luciano Benetton Collection.