LIGHT UPON LIGHT
Christian Suhr | Egypt, Denmark 2022 | 78 Min. | Arabic, English, Danish with Engl. subtitles
SATURDAY, 06.05. | 7pm
De France, Saal 1 | TICKETS
Austrian Premiere
In presence of Christian Suhr and Muhammad Mustapha
Aya is lifted into a luminous space in the middle of a ritual. Maher travels to the shrine of a holy man to find out whether there the light and love people speak of are actually real. And Sonia sees the light flowing from a person’s finger into her heart. By accompanying them with the camera and experimenting with the transformative power of images, the film team finds ways to capture these experiences of light.
LIGHT UPON LIGHT is a journey into mystical traditions of Islam and tells of people’s search for light in a time of darkness and political tensions in post-revolutionary Egypt.
Director: Christian Suhr
Camera: Christian Suhr, Amira Mortada, Muhammad Mustapha
Editing: Muhammad Mustapha, Christian Suhr
Sound: Christian Suhr, Amira Mortada, Muhammad Mustapha
Production: Hala Lotfy
SCREENINGS
CPH:DOX 2022: Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (World Premiere, Nordic Competition)
Cairo International Film Festival 2022 (International Premiere, Critics Competition)
Athens Ethnographic Film Festival 2022 (Opening film)
Ethnokino Bern 2022 (master class about the film)
Amsterdam Ethnographic Filmday, Vrije Universiteit 2022
Practices, Aesthetics and Entanglements Conference, Royal Swedish Academy of Letters 2022 (debate about the film)
DMJX School of Media and Journalism 2022 (seminar about the film)
International Conference “Art, Aesthetics and Islamic Mysticism: Contemporary Perspectives”, University of Tübingen, March 2023
BIOGRAPHY
Christian Suhr is a filmmaker and professor of anthropology at Aarhus University. In Egypt, Denmark and Papua New Guinea, he has explored experiences of spirit possession, psychiatric illnesses, religious healing, and how film can be used to approach unseen dimensions of human life. He is the author and director of the award-winning film and book “Descending with angels” (MUP 2019). “Light upon light” is the first film in a planned trilogy with the Cairo-based film collective Hassala Films.
