Joana Hadjithomas and the artist and poet Etel Adnan met fifteen years ago. They quickly became close, sharing a city that they had never been to: Smyrna, in Turkey. Joana’s paternal Greek family were forced into exile from Smyrna by the Turkish armies after the end of the Ottoman Empire. Etel’s Greek mother was also born in Smyrna and was married to a Syrian officer of the Ottoman Army and exiled in Lebanon after the fall of the empire. Etel and Joana have both lived in an imaginary Smyrna, today called Izmir, without ever setting foot there. Nowadays they are confronted with the transmission of history and trauma, questioning their attachment to objects, places, imaginary constructions and mythologies without images. What is to be done with the sorrow of our parents? Their personal experiences, their stories serve as a background to the region’s changes after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the evolution of the borders questioning the notion of identity and belonging.
Directed by Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
Your score–
Not scoredImages
Cast
Related
To Kill a Tiger
Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story
Woman
A Toxic Love Story
American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince
Uncle Yanco
Seduced and Abandoned
The U.S. vs. John Lennon
Trainwreck: The Real Project X
Naqoyqatsi
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library
My Mom Jayne
Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me
McQueen
S4: The Bob Lazar Story
On the Adamant