{"id":88268,"date":"2024-12-11T01:56:36","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T01:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/11\/experimental-film-with-basma-al-sharif\/"},"modified":"2024-12-11T01:56:36","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T01:56:36","slug":"experimental-film-with-basma-al-sharif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/11\/experimental-film-with-basma-al-sharif\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimental Film with Basma al-Sharif"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Basma: <\/strong>Of course. Yeah. Very simply, it was a film that I made in reaction to the 2014 war, which at the time was also described as genocidal. I think a lot of people forget that today, but it was the third of Israel\u2019s large-scale military attacks in Gaza. Most of my family in Gaza had left at that point. I thought, how is it possible that we had a war that went on every single day that Israel wanted it to with the blessings of the United States, and we watched this on screen, and nobody was able to stop it?<\/p>\n

I just felt like, okay, so the civilization has failed, and that doesn\u2019t mean that the Palestinian struggle is over, that there is a way for them to erase Palestinians off the face of the earth and the way that they very clearly seem to be trying to do. So what does that mean? It was a question, and it was a question with a lot of resentment behind it because I also felt like, what does the accumulation of all these images and all this information and all of this work towards our liberation or just even justice in our cause, was like, why is it for nothing? How is it possible that this continues to happen?<\/p>\n

And so I wanted to make a film that took Gaza out of its isolation. So we stopped saying, \u201cthis is a unique thing. This is a unique problem. This is only because of them\u201d\u2014and whatever excuses. I don\u2019t even want to dignify how they justify the bloodthirsty killing that\u2019s happening in Palestine, but that how do we take this out of its isolation and reflect on it through different landscapes? So it\u2019s just a film that takes Gaza… The byline is sort of, it pays homage to Gaza through looking at it through different civilizations and other people, other struggles, and other landscapes. And so it\u2019s a meditative landscape film that begins and ends with Gaza and in between is taking you on a journey through this character who is just a vehicle for looking at these different landscapes in which we pause and look at different constructions, different moment, very brief moments.<\/p>\n

But that for me was just asking the audience to consider: why is Gaza being repeatedly destroyed? But you can have a thirteenth century castle in Brittany that\u2019s protected, and what does it mean to be a Native American who\u2019s speaking a language that has almost gone extinct, which is the language that\u2019s used in the beginning and end of the film. It also draws connections with an Italian, anti-fascist writer that is quoted in the Italian section of the film who was exiled to the south of Italy by Mussolini for writing against the war in Abyssinia. And so these things are not necessarily obvious, they\u2019re coded in the film. But it\u2019s enough for me to just plant them in the film in these really, I hope, lush landscape scenes and to have them collapse into each other, to not just look at Gaza as this or Palestine as this unique unexplainable case, but to think, yeah, no, this is part of a longer story, a longer history of upheaval and oppression without actually linking it only to other struggles, but to link it just to other landscapes and take it out of the specificity of the current time and just look at it within the larger scheme of things, I think in a very a-traditional way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not an intellectual. I\u2019m not someone who\u2019s really into theory. So for me, it was more about making something visceral again, like that you could experience that you would see Gaza and you would see it in relation to other sites, and you would see it in this different way than you might be used to seeing.<\/p>\n

Marina: <\/strong>Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, I really appreciate the nod that this is not exceptional, that it is part of these other crimes against humanity that have happened forever, but also to really challenge the viewer to say, okay, well why this and not that? Why do we care about these other things? Because they\u2019ve recorded it in history books or because they\u2019re in a different place. But yeah.<\/p>\n

Nabra: <\/strong>Another element of Ouroboros<\/em> that actually just yesterday at a Dunya Productions<\/a> meeting\u2014which your aunt is part of, Manal, so shout out to Manal for also connecting us\u2014some folks brought up the desire or need to share alongside our narratives around what\u2019s happening right now in Palestine. Also the beauty of Palestine and the beauty of Gaza for people to better understand more deeply the loss and mobilize folks through art, through beauty as well. And I brought up your film because this Ouroboros<\/em>, it shows these incredible landscapes and this beautiful homestead of this woman who\u2019s walking through what I\u2019m guessing is her space or orchards and such. And yet it doesn\u2019t also shy away from everything that you\u2019re talking about, all of the commentary and the connections to other global struggles, and also the destruction of those landscapes. So it beautifully balances the celebration, the beauty, and the loss and crisis. So really appreciated that and it\u2019s very difficult to do in art, to be honest as well. So something we\u2019ve been talking about a lot at Dunya Productions.<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>That\u2019s great to hear. It means a lot to hear that. Awesome.<\/p>\n

Nabra: <\/strong>I was wondering if there\u2019s a piece of yours that you feel especially resonates today. I mean, we\u2019ve talked about Ouroboros<\/em>, but is there something else that has been on your mind a lot lately that you\u2019ve created in the past? Thinking about… I didn\u2019t know or I didn\u2019t really register that Ouroboros<\/em> was from 2014. So is there any other pieces, older pieces that you want people to return back to for the present moment?<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>Or just a correction that Ouroboros<\/em> is from 2017. I started working on it in 2014 in response to the war in 2014.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I mean, actually it\u2019s a very interesting question, this, because I made this film, I think in 2014 actually, called O, Persecuted<\/em><\/a>, and it was a commission by the London Palestine Film Foundation. Yeah, the London… I can\u2019t remember what exactly they were called, but it was a commission based on engaging with films from the PLO Archive. Like a lot of the propaganda films that were made in solidarity with the struggle that were not only made by Palestinian filmmakers, they were restoring these archives and asking a few artists to engage with the material. I was one of those artists, and it wasn\u2019t just to make film. I mean, there was I think Antonia Shibley, the writer was asked to contribute in a text or various things. So I\u2019d been invited to engage with a film I could pick, but they sort of suggested a few.<\/p>\n

And I came across this one film called Our Small Houses <\/em>by Kassem Hawal<\/a>, who\u2019s actually an Iraqi filmmaker who made this film in a very particular moment that looks at… that sort of puts Palestinians and Israelis side by side in the struggle as persecuted people who are now thrown together to fight for liberation in a way. I mean, it\u2019s definitely from looking at Palestinians and their struggle, but sort of equates them in this way that I felt was like, \u201coh, we\u2019re so far from that moment.\u201d Look at how this film was made, I think in the early seventies, I would say. And it\u2019s very powerful, it\u2019s very beautiful, and it\u2019s really talking about, just for me, it talks so much about how… I don\u2019t know how to characterize it anymore. I mean it was a long time ago, but it was so real to me in the way that the struggle just permeates into everybody\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

In that moment it\u2019s the people on the ground in Palestine. And I was thinking, now we\u2019re in this phase where it\u2019s everybody, all Palestinians in diaspora. You have Palestinians who were born and raised and never stepped foot in Palestine who are so dedicated to the cause. It\u2019s, like, frightening, actually, in a good way, in a very good way. And I felt like it\u2019s such a different moment from when this film was made and yet there\u2019s something persists, and how do we address it? And what is it that\u2019s changed? And how do I address that visually? So I made this film that\u2019s very experimental, that\u2019s shot in black and white sixteen-millimeter film where I\u2019m painting over a projection of the film and then I run it in reverse so that it looks like I\u2019m uncovering the film. I don\u2019t know if that makes sense if you haven\u2019t seen it. But it\u2019s just basically black and white scene of someone that looks like they\u2019re removing paint, let\u2019s say lifting paint off of a wall. And underneath is this film that\u2019s playing out by Kassem Hawal.<\/p>\n

So you hear it and you sort of see it, but not very directly. It\u2019s like the soundtrack is quite obnoxious and aggressive. And at the end when the film finishes, when the credits are about to roll, it\u2019s disrupted by this YouTube footage of, it\u2019s like spring breakers. It was all taken from 2014 during the war of all these super hot girls in bikinis partying in Israel, in Tel Aviv, or in Haifa, or whatever. And in Israel, it was this sort of advertisement, \u201cCome to Israel, the raves are amazing, the women are hot, everything\u2019s great,\u201d all this stuff. So I ran those two films together in this very violent way. So we\u2019re coming from the black and white to the sudden very saturated party footage. And then I added a Gabba soundtrack, so very hardcore techno-sounding soundtrack. And in the background of those scenes is a Greek belly dancer, very orientalist, that sort of appears and disappears in the background.<\/p>\n

And so the film was, yeah, it was posing a lot of questions about how women\u2019s bodies are used and how we think about Israelis versus Palestinians in terms of the struggle and how violently far away they are from each other. How these archives that are being restored are almost from a different world, actually, compared to what we have today. And what does it mean to be a partying Israeli while you\u2019re massacring a population for your security? These were the questions that I felt were being posed in this film, and I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about the film.<\/p>\n

I mean, it doesn\u2019t show that much, or it didn\u2019t use to show that much because I think people are freaked out by it. I mean, it premiered at the New York Film Festival in the experimental program, and I felt like people were avoiding eye contact with me back then afterwards. And then I used to feel like, oh, I need to always be there for the Q&A of this film because it seems people can\u2019t decode it, or it feels really aggressive or, yeah, I don\u2019t know. And I don\u2019t know why, to be honest. I know it\u2019s an aggressive film. It\u2019s very visually aggressive, but I mean, politically it\u2019s not saying anything new. And I feel like since for me, it was like an eerie prediction of this, what happened at Nova Festival. It\u2019s how do you justify, I\u2019m sorry to use this language, but a fucking rave next to an open-air prison?<\/p>\n

It should just make everyone sick. We never need to justify violence. But how do you justify that? How did the world know that this was the situation, the case, and then completely not understand why there was an attack? A complete inability to contextualize. And so I\u2019ve been thinking about my film, this film from ten years ago, which seemed to be saying that in a way and has been shown a bit more now since, because I feel like it clicked for certain audiences that this was not an attack. October 7th wasn\u2019t something that just fell out of the sky by bloodthirsty animals. This was in response to decades of violence and the very cruelty of something like a rave happening next to two million people under siege for seventeen years on top of decades of occupation, I think. Yeah. So I feel like I keep thinking about that film. It\u2019s definitely less poetic and less gentle, but it makes me happy that it seems to be getting a bit more recognition, not because it\u2019s a peace of mind, but just that it\u2019s clicking for people. And that makes me, in a sense, relieved to not have to keep explaining why these things… why there is violence from the Palestinian side.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an engagement between the maker and the viewer, I think, where, I\u2019m just organizing the things in a particular way and then saying, \u201cSo what does it mean? Let\u2019s together figure it out.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Marina: <\/strong>I mean, I\u2019m glad it\u2019s clicking too. I guess I can and I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s taken so long for certain things, but I hope that anyone who\u2019s listening who could program it somewhere continues to. So this film sounds like it really is putting things together in a way that is now resonating with people, hopefully, more. Although it sounds like, I mean, as we know it should have before too, because you\u2019re right. In 2014, we were using the language of genocide to describe what was happening in Gaza. I sometimes find myself without words for the situation, so unbelievable is the word that I\u2019ll go with right now. But it has felt believable because we\u2019ve seen it continue.<\/p>\n

This season with Kunafa and Shay<\/em> we are using performance art sort of as our umbrella term thinking of \u201cWhat is performance?\u201d And we really talk about theatre a lot on the podcast. And so, we really wanted to also talk about things like experimental film and artists who are doing these multidisciplinary things that aren\u2019t really lumped into just a theatre landscape. How do you feel experimental film fits into the realm of performance art, or installation work if you do, I guess?<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>I mean, I think anything that takes a more commercial form and sort of questions how it works, they\u2019re all connected in some way, like experimental music and experimental or performance art or experimental cinema, poetry. Anything that is… it\u2019s not that it\u2019s rejecting a particular form, it\u2019s actually acknowledging a particular form and saying, \u201cWell, what else can it do?\u201d Or, \u201cHow can we use that to sort of subvert or cause people to think differently about something?\u201d So it\u2019s very useful in that sense, and I think it\u2019s come to sort of be understood as marginal or hard to decipher and maybe a bit pretentious. And I sometimes agree with that, to be honest with you. Sometimes I feel like, why is this form so unbearably dense and unpleasurable and hard? And it\u2019s the questions I ask myself about my own work. I\u2019m not always happy when a piece is maybe being met too much with questions or inability to read the material.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that\u2019s useful always. And as artists, I think we decide how much we veer into a very niche, specific kind of reading of a work or work that\u2019s made for an audience that can decipher it because they\u2019re in that world or if we\u2019re trying to reach a wider audience. And always, it\u2019s a sliding, what do you call it? It\u2019s a spectrum of, for me, sometimes I want things to be way more legible, sometimes I don\u2019t. And I think, yeah, if that was the question, I\u2019m not sure if I understood it correctly, but that these different fields are really useful as ways to explore and question and try new things and get people engaged in working a bit harder or being, I don\u2019t know, curious\u2014again, not just being fed something, not just sitting back and having the work do the thinking for you, but asking you to do thinking and to be complicit in what the meaning is of a piece.<\/p>\n

I find that really pleasurable, I think, when I feel I\u2019ve been presented with something that\u2019s a little… In an unusual form that I have to really question like, \u201cOh, is this what was meant?\u201d Or, \u201cWhat do these things all mean together?\u201d This kind of thing. It feels exciting and it feels like I\u2019m participating in the work. You know what I mean? I don\u2019t know if that makes sense, but it\u2019s like you\u2019re participating in making the work meaningful through your reading of it. And I think that\u2019s what I appreciate in with my own work when someone has read it actually. And it can be not exactly how I intended, but I appreciate what they bring to it and how they\u2019ve read it. And I think that\u2019s so much of experimental work is what you bring from your background and your knowledge.<\/p>\n

And I think it\u2019s, in my sense, the same across the board. I feel that way when I see performance that I\u2019m less familiar with, performance or music that\u2019s more experimental, where it\u2019s not really\u2026 I don\u2019t know it. I didn\u2019t study it. I don\u2019t understand why making sound in this way is interesting or legitimate, but I have to think about it. And sometimes it really clicks and other times it doesn\u2019t but I think I appreciate that. I like the process of reading.<\/p>\n

Marina: <\/strong>Yeah. That feels really meaningful too, that you\u2019re talking about expanding, I don\u2019t know, genres in a way that\u2019s sort of more capacious, but also the importance of the audience. You need the audience member in a way that I mean, yes, theoretically, I hope that we need audience members in narrative theatre pieces because we hope that there\u2019s also interpretation and understanding happening, but it sounds like they\u2019re playing a different role here in experimental film, and that\u2019s really meaningful to have such a conversation and to really want to be in a different kind of dialogue, perhaps, with that audience.<\/p>\n

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But actually, the accumulation of people making work, Palestinians or otherwise, making work about Palestine is building towards liberation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nabra: <\/strong>I also keep thinking about what you said about accessing the visceral, and in these more experimental forms, I find myself needing to trust what I\u2019m feeling viscerally more. Again, there\u2019s not that narrative to tell me why I\u2019m feeling the ways I\u2019m feeling or what the story is. It\u2019s that gut, whatever emotions are coming up, whatever you\u2019re noticing is what you need to use to work to figure out what this means and what this means to you. And so it feels like this form also connects audiences to the visceral more directly. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s also your… It sounds like also that resonates with what you were saying earlier about where you try to go with your work.<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>Totally. Totally. Yeah, I mean, because it\u2019s also an active process of myself questioning. I mean, sometimes I have a hard time explaining what a work is or what… I have a hard time summing it up because, for me, it\u2019s also questions that I\u2019m posing through this very structured form. I mean, experimental is also for me, is not totally, there\u2019s an aspect of it that\u2019s very free, but there\u2019s an aspect of it that\u2019s highly structured and very precise in how I\u2019m making something. And I think oftentimes it\u2019s, I\u2019m trying to work through something. I\u2019m asking these questions of myself in this form, and so it\u2019s not that I\u2019m like, \u201cI have the answers\u201d and I\u2019m proposing it to someone to try and figure it out. I feel we\u2019re both figuring it out together. So it\u2019s an engagement between the maker and the viewer, I think, where, I\u2019m just organizing the things in a particular way and then saying, \u201cSo what does it mean? Let\u2019s together figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nabra: <\/strong>So what are you working on right now, if you don\u2019t mind revealing?<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>I don\u2019t. I mean work is hard in this last year, I have to preface by saying that. And I think it\u2019s important to talk about, because I think a lot of makers right now are feeling\u2014like writers and filmmakers, musicians\u2014all of us are feeling quite crushed I would say. That it\u2019s a really difficult moment to keep making, and yet I have to convince myself of this often. But I think it\u2019s really important to keep making because it\u2019s, I think Mohammed El-Kurd actually talked about this in an article he wrote that was published in September of 2023<\/a>, so right before the beginning of the genocide. And he says something about, \u201cwhat is art for art\u2019s sake,\u201d in this more or less, let\u2019s say, I\u2019m paraphrasing in this moment, \u201chow does it contribute to the struggle and is it really going to liberate us to keep making art?\u201d And by the end of the article, he\u2019s sort of explaining that every piece is kind of an accumulation of something. And it\u2019s really powerful to read that, I think, as an artist: that no one poem, no rap song, no film is going to liberate Palestine. And it\u2019s not going to… you can\u2019t use it at a checkpoint. But actually, the accumulation of people making work, Palestinians or otherwise, making work about Palestine is building towards liberation. No single one thing.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m using that now to keep working because it\u2019s hard. It feels futile in certain ways and, honestly, a bit grotesque to be sitting around thinking about production when people are being rounded up and exterminated in Jabalia right now. It doesn\u2019t sit well, but I think I\u2019m trying to work…<\/p>\n

I had this idea for a piece that looks at… So I\u2019ve moved to Berlin, sorry to preface this\u2026 I moved to Berlin almost five years ago during COVID, and it was kind of a happenstance. I wasn\u2019t planning to move, but I ended up deciding to stay, found an incredible community, but I have a child and decided maybe this is a good place to raise my child, which sounds a bit funny now. But it\u2019s the third time technically that I immigrate, that I\u2019m an immigrant somewhere in my life, and I\u2019m really sensitive, I think, to questions of integration and how migrant populations are treated. It feels like that\u2019s the history of my life is just being a foreigner everywhere under the mercy of different governments and states and national identities and all this bullshit. So it\u2019s the third time doing it. I have a child, so I\u2019m seeing the effects it has on him and the school system. And Germany\u2019s a very, wow, their culture is very present and very dominant and, frankly, very xenophobic and racist.<\/p>\n

And so I started, this was before October of last year, I started developing a kind of short, actually narrative film, much more narrative than anything I\u2019ve done, that would look at\u2014the big ideas of it are, it\u2019s looking at integration and how migrant populations are treated through the experience of a child entering kindergarten and experiencing separation anxiety. And making a parallel between the separation anxiety we experience as children, as the one we experience as adults, as immigrants, to places when we can\u2019t go back home. And so it\u2019s a very kind of poetic, visceral, again, narrative in three parts where we\u2019re seeing a father and a son in their morning routine. And as the child gets dropped off for daycare, that ends in a sort of surprising way that I won\u2019t reveal. But so I\u2019ve been in development for it much slower than usual, but I should be shooting early next year, actually. And I was going to say, so I had this idea before October, and the piece is really critical of Western cultural hegemony and the racist policies that Europeans have, especially Northern Europeans, against migrants, specifically Arab, but sort of all migrants.<\/p>\n

And when October happened, I was just like, \u201cNever mind. Why would I make this film? This is ridiculous and forget it, and I need to not make work actually for a bit.\u201d And then I brought back up the project of one of a friend was asking me about it, because the people commissioning it actually were still very much encouraging that I keep making the work, and I have to really thank them for that.<\/p>\n

But yeah, I brought it up to a friend saying, \u201cWhat on earth am I… Why would I make this film?\u201d And she told me, \u201cActually, I think this film speaks to what\u2019s happening in Palestine so much without directly addressing it, which is, anyways, impossible right now.\u201d And, yeah, so I got encouraged and developed the script and started to put the pieces in place and feel against all odds, we\u2019ll try to make the piece happen and we\u2019ll see where it goes.<\/p>\n

Marina: <\/strong>Thank you for sharing that with us. It\u2019s been an incredibly hard time for… I mean, just to be a human and to be watching this happen, and then also to be making art on top of it when… I appreciate the Mohammed El-Kurd, like that it\u2019s cumulative, that adds up to something. And I\u2019m in a Palestinian book club with Noor, Basma\u2019s cousin, who… we\u2019re just giving shout-outs to the family members of Basma.<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>By all means.<\/p>\n

Marina: <\/strong>We\u2019re reading Wisam Rafeedie\u2019s Trinity of Fundamentals<\/em>, which was recently translated into English and some other… That\u2019s sort of spiraled into us reading other prison literature. The book was written while he was in prison and then smuggled out of prison, and now it\u2019s translated, and it\u2019s in circulation. But it\u2019s interesting to me that him and other political prisoners have chosen fiction as this media that they have written accounts of their lives that are fictionalized for, I think, I\u2019m sure legitimate reasons, but using this medium to be able to communicate something with this audience. And I feel like the prison literature in that way is also a cumulative where I feel like, oh, I\u2019m getting this education in this fictional way, but it\u2019s still really giving a piece of this larger puzzle that is necessary for my life but for maybe all of our lives. So yeah, it just felt like a tie-in with how you were speaking about it.<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>I mean, it\u2019s interesting that you bring that up because also, one of the things that really, really, I mean, to go back to your first question, one of the things that really inspired me when I was a teenager was the work of Cuban writers. And I\u2019d never been to Cuba, I didn\u2019t know a Cuban person. I had never met a Cuban person. I was growing up in Chicago, and someone had given me Reinaldo Arenas\u2019s But the memoir itself just blew my mind, and really I felt like I was there, and it\u2019s the story of his life. But then I then read his other works, which are really experimental and weird and very hallucinatory literature. So he\u2019s someone who fought in the revolution for Castro and then becomes ostracized by him, imprisoned, publishes his memoir or other… I can\u2019t remember if it was the… smuggled several of his books out while he was imprisoned and then eventually is out of prison, and then is in exile in the United States.<\/p>\n

He just lived a life of immense struggle and just trauma and has these incredible books, this incredible literature that I found. So I don\u2019t know, they would just transport me into another world. They weren\u2019t even necessarily explaining to me the history of Cuba or what their struggle was. I mean, in part, yes, I think I started to understand it, but it\u2019s a place I\u2019d never visited and didn\u2019t know anyone from, and I thought, \u201cThis is so beautiful.\u201d He made work against all odds when it was totally useless or hopeless, not useless, hopeless, and it reached me. This teenager in Chicago who was Palestinian in diaspora, and it just gave me the sense of, \u201cThis is what we have to do, because it\u2019s important when you\u2019re not under the bombs and when you\u2019re not living under occupation, to have also this…\u201d It\u2019s like a testament to your will to survive is to make art, to make something that isn\u2019t actually for your survival, but it just really… I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

I think it reaches people in this way that\u2019s really powerful and really… Yeah, I\u2019m not saying this in the right way, but I was so moved by this writing, and then when I went, I got to go to Cuba actually for the first time, I think, two or three years ago. Two years ago, three years ago. And it was so funny to be there and to think this place, actually, I owe the reason for starting to make art, because it was a question, why do this frivolous thing? Does it amount to anything? And then being handed this book and thinking like, yes, absolutely. It\u2019s very powerful. It\u2019s very important to make art that isn\u2019t just political and documentary and whatever, but stuff that can make you imagine things and dream, and I mean, just in response to fiction, to enter these worlds that aren\u2019t real is super important.<\/p>\n

Marina: <\/strong>Yeah, very much so. Yeah, I think I\u2019m on a whole Palestinian futurity kick with some of the films that I\u2019m watching and thinking about, and it feels very difficult to be thinking about the future right now, but also immensely necessary, especially when if you\u2019re in a position right now to be able to think about the future, then it needs to be done so that those who are not able to think about it every moment right now can also then join in.<\/p>\n

Nabra: <\/strong>Well, we\u2019ve come to the end of our time together, and that\u2019s a beautiful way to end to thinking about the future and reflecting on what art even means right now, which is a lot of this season, to be honest, what has come up this season from so many artists considering what that means. So thank you for illuminating that for us as well Basma, and for all of your work.<\/p>\n

Basma: <\/strong>Thank you so much for inviting me to this and to the conversation, and for the very thoughtful questions.<\/p>\n

Marina: <\/strong>This podcast is produced as a contribution to HowlRound Theatre Commons. You can find more episodes of Kunafa and Shay<\/em> and other HowlRound podcasts by searching \u201cHowlRound\u201d wherever you find podcasts. If you loved this podcast, please post a rating and write a review on your platform of choice. This helps other people find us. You can also find a transcript for this episode along with a lot of other progressive and disruptive content on the howlround.com website. Have an idea for an exciting podcast or TV event the theatre community needs to hear. Visit howlround.com and contribute your ideas to the Commons.<\/p>\n

Nabra Nelson & Marina: <\/strong>Yalla<\/em>, bye!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n