Director: Sunara Begum / UK / 15 mins / 16mm Black and White
‘Eternal Mother in Prayer, Father Watches, Ara Dances to Remember’
Ara Trilogy is a short film on the inversed symbolic trilogy of mother, father and daughter and is an exploration of motherhood, femininity and cultural identity. It looks at a woman’s evolution of displacement and alienation through her own intimate reflections on life. Ara Trilogy is an unfolding narrative, which brings a unique and personal perspective drawn from lived experience, interweaving statements, prayers and chants expressing the eternal search for solace and a place of belonging – the inner sanctuary. The Trilogy looks at the relationship of hands through time between the past and present, for beneath each image lies a private eye with layers of history. We are taken on a journey through prayer and recitation, remembrance, sorrow and loss.
Amma
Where has my daughter gone?
I hear not her quiet voice proclaiming her childhood dreams
I go upstairs into her closed room to feel a part of her
But instead I find a red cloth
Hanging upon the thread of my memory
Spilling distilled blood across walls
Her eyes saw something beyond these ceilings
Away from the present
Gazing at her place within a bigger dimension
This world of immortality
An object that will prove her to be real
And what will allow her to feel
The point of her being alive
Where is she now?
I walk beneath her, and her shadow searches an imprint of expressions impressions
I will always memories as I sit in qibla
Ya Allah, You know how her days are passing
I remember looking down as we were sitting by the
Gentle euphoria of water streams
We saw our shadows casting on tactile grounds
I am your mother and you are my daughter
But then the clouds over looked what we were getting to know
And all I see is concrete floor
And all I see is concrete
I wanted you to marry
You said no
I wanted you to be a preacher
But instead you chose to be a speaker a reader of your own soul
A dancer in your own abode
And I do not know
I wanted you to stay at home when the world was discovering
I wanted you to suffocate
As I did
My choice was my consequence
And now I wanted life to be the same for you as it was for me
I tried to deny change for so long
I was afraid
And now my fears are of what I will do to myself
As I lay here half dead
Live the voice or die by choice
I think I already am
I loved you to be mine
And now you are the worlds
I do not see you here but I feel you are
The call I denied and eventually destroyed
You are what I once dreamed
You are what I did not become
Test by Shahanara Begum
Sunara Begum
info@sunarabegum.com
United Kingdom
27 Val Mckenzie Avenue
London N7 7JL
Bangladesh
Moushumi 2, Officers Quarters
Eskaton Garden Road
Dhaka 1000
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