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The Memory

الذاكرة

The Memory (al-Zakira)

I see my family, I meet people. I meet them in my sleep, see them in my dreams. I know they are dead, I see them in my dreams, says the elderly woman. She lives on her own in the small town of Quneitra. She talks to her many cats and chicken, to the film team and to herself. She listens to the stories in the radio.  She walks through the rubble.
In World War I she was in Beirut, in World War II as well, also during the wars of 1948 and 1956 she was out of town, stuck elsewhere. In 1967, when the Israeli army occupied the Golan Heights she was in her hometown, Quneitra, the governorates capital. And so was she in the war 1973. When the occupation forces withdrew they destroyed the city to make it inhabitable. Only few individuals returned. The woman says she used to write down things, not about herself, about many things that happened. All is gone, what is left is only the memory.

short film, Mohamad Malas, Syria 1975, 13 min, 35 mm (available in digital format only), Arabic
Director and Author Mohamad Malas | Photography Mohammad al-Qaj | Editor Tala'at al-Maghrebi | Production Mohammad Abu Abdallah