https://youtu.be/Q_E0T4H85BQ
Original Name: Banc D'attente
English Name: Talking About Trees
Year: 2019
Run Time: 93’
Language: Arabic/ English/ Russian
Type (Colour/ Black & White):Colour
Country: France / Sudan / Germany / Chad / Qatar
Director: Suhaib Gasmelbari
Producer: Marie Balducchi
Cast: Suleiman Ibrahim, Ibrahim Shaddad
Screenplay: Suhaib Gasmelbari
Cinematographer: Suhaib Gasmelbari
Editor: Nelly Quettier, Gladys Joujou
Sound Designer: Elsadig Kamal, Katharina von Schroeder
Production Company: AGAT Films & Cie
World Sales: Wide House
World Sales Phone:+33 7 70 07 64 04
World Sales Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Festivals:
Berlin IFF 2019
BFI London FF 2019
Istanbul IFF 2019
IDF Amsterdam 2019
Tallinn Black Nights FF 2019
Selected Filmography:
2019 Talking About Trees\
2012 Ode to My Feet (Short)
Director’s Biography:
Suhaib Gasmelbari was born in Sudan in 1979, he lived there until the age of 16. He studied film at the Université Paris 8 in France and worked as a freelance cameraman and editor for Al Qarra, Al Jazeera and France 24. He has written and directed many short fiction films and documentaries. Talking About Trees is his first feature-length documentary. During his research into Sudanese audio-visual archives he found some films believed to have been lost and actively participated in national and international projects to save and digitise them.
Synopsis: Suliman and three further members of the ‘Sudanese Film Club’ have decided to revive an old cinema. They are united not only by their love of cinema and their passionate desire to restore old film stock and draw attention to Sudanese film history once more, but also by the fact that they have all enjoyed a film education in exile. Tirelessly, they try to get the cinema’s owners on their side and make the place operational again. In the meantime, they sit together and talk about the past – including their experiences of persecution and even torture as oppositional artists. They also read out old letters written while in exile and dream of a Sudan in which art and intellectual thought can be free. It is in laconic moments such as these that the viewer is able to perceive the friendship, as well as the bond and ideological solidarity that exists in the struggle for common ideals.
