Airports / Matarats
Premiere Tuesday 5 Oct 17.00, after the premiere the work is available throughout the festival in the small cinema. In collaboration with Rosa Brus.
In this audio piece, Khaled Alesmael brings back the classic and old-fashioned style of the radio stations from Damascus in the 90s. He reads his novella At the Gent’s Room which captures a tender moment between two gay Muslim men at Heathrow airport. In the second part, he interviews Lebanese French artivist Hadi Mouselly as they meet in Barcelona. Hadi speaks about his life as a queer Muslim man in-between Lebanon and Europe and talks about his short Belly Dance Vogue which he made during the 2020 lockdown. ”
Khaled is an author, filmmaker and podcaster. Hi’s debut novel, Selamlik’s been published in Swedish and German. He writes about queer men in the Middle East. His latest creative-non-fiction book En port till havet which tells the stories of nine young gay men from nine Arab countries. Khaled won the Radio Novella Prize by the Swedish Radio in 2020. He won a special prize as the best director and scenarist at Göteborg Film Festival 2019. Khaled Alesmael continues to write, perform readings, work on artistic projects, and lends support for human right issues.
Khaled selected music from Syria and Lebanon to play:
Matarat/ Airports by Kinan Adme
Massinakum by Sabah
Brounzi by Samir Hanna
Diaspora/ Halasamr by Eido Elfakir.