Undoubtedly, some of the best short-films I’ve seen lately came from Richard Mosse. Born and grew up in Ireland he is now based in New York. Mosse studied at Yale, Goldsmiths and the London Consortium. He is driven by an ambivalence toward photography and a desire to revisit and even rewrite traumatic cultural histories.
Cast Lead
Shot in the ruins of Gaza and the West Bank, August 2009. Cast Lead, the IDF codename for the Gaza war of 2009, is a term derived from Haim Nachman Bialik’s Hannukah poem about a game played with a spinning dreidel made of lead.
Cinematography and Editing by Trevor Tweeten. Colorist and Post Production by Jerome Thelia.
Souffleur
In an article written several years ago, Robert Fisk referred to the wreck of a Nazi-allied Vichy French U-Boat which lies beneath the waves off the coast of Beirut. The submarine was called Le Souffleur, and was sunk in 1941 by British destroyers which had followed it up the coast from Palestine.
Souffleur was made in sixteen hours as part of the 98 weeks workshop, Beirut, September 2008.
Theatre of War
Shot in Saddam Hussein’s hilltop palace in the mountains overlooking the River Tigris, Theatre of War is a slow, virtually static video piece redolent of classical history painting. Audio was recorded at the official US military hand-over ceremony at the nearby city of Saniya. A mullah’s prayer for unity among Arabs is spoken, after which the pan-Arab national anthem, Mawtini (My Homeland) is played, emphasizing Arab national solidarity and a pan-Arab territory. Made in Iraq in March 2009.
Cinematography and Editing by Trevor Tweeten. Digital Color and Post Production by Jerome Thelia.
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