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Remembering Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish died 9 August 2008. In the midst of the destruction, deaths and untold misery now being meted out in Gaza, his legacy and vision can be remembered.

Arts Alliance Productions, who created the film Identity of the Soul with Mahmoud Darwish just a few months before he died, have released a trailer for a new film, entitled Darwish, A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies, which will be out early next year.

In the months before he died, Mahmoud Darwish began to think seriously about the cinema as a medium for his poetry. This film is the only existing product of that final burst of creativity. It features Darwish’s only cinematic performance – an intimate and haunting reading of his poem A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies – in collaboration with and directed by Torstein Blixfjord, who also directed Identity of the Soul.

Torstein Blixfjord has said: “Mahmoud Darwish wrote timeless poetry about identity, displacement, struggle and hope. My relationship with him, and the time we spent together, was deep and intense. He wanted to challenge poets with his own experimentation in the presentation and contextual representation of his poetry and of this film. Starting from mutual ground, we reached a film that was about listening with both the eyes and the ears. Stories, references and meaning we left to the audience to create for themselves.”

Banipal was very pleased to collaborate with Arts Alliance in Banipal 33 of Autumn/Winter 2008, which became a tribute issue to the much lamented Mahmoud Darwish, with stills of the poet from the footage of Identity of the Soul. 

To watch the trailer of Darwish, A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies, click on the Youtube video below:

 ©Arts Alliance Productions 2014

Click here for more on Identity of the Soul film.

Click here for more on Banipal 33.