SIGHT UNSEEN
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Synopsis
Omar al-Mukhtar (1885-1931) was the leader of the organised resistance against the Italian colonisation of Libya (1911-1943). He became a symbol of the Libyan people’s resilience, but in Italy his name remains unknown. Sight Unseen explores the concealment and appropriation around the memory and documentation of Mukhtar’s final days and spectacularised state killing, through the analysis of visual and material culture that has been subject to either manipulation or obfuscation in Italy. These materials include the most complete—but legally unpublishable—series of images of Mukhtar’s capture and execution; Mukhtar’s contested glasses and purse; the Hollywood production The Lion of the Desert; and Monumento al Carabiniere, a memorial to Italian armed forces in Turin. Sight Unseen attempts to portray the carefully orchestrated politics of visibility and invisibility that shape the memory of colonial trauma in Italy.
Sight Unseen screens as part of the shorts program Colonial (Dis)entanglements, on Sunday, June 27 at 1:45 pm.
About the Director
Alessandra Ferrini (b. Italy 1984) is a London-based artist, filmmaker and researcher. Experimenting with the expansion and hybridization of the documentary film, her research questions the legacies of colonialism and Fascism with a specific interest in the past and present relations between Italy, the Mediterranean region and the African continent. She has exhibited and screened her work internationally, including at Manifesta 13 Les Paralléls du Sud (2020), Open City Documentary Festival (2020), the RAI Film Festival (2021 and 2017), Sharjah Film Platform (2019), Villa Romana (Florence, 2019), 2nd Lagos Biennal (2019), Istanbul Biennal’s collateral (Depo, 2019), and Manifesta 12 Film Programme (Palermo 2018). In 2017 she was the recipient of the London Film Festival’s Experimenta Pitch Award.
