The Sea as a Witness: An Archaeological Memory

The Sea as a Witness: An Archaeological Memory 

A three-part film programme curated by  Cindy Chehab 

Emergency fundraiser in aid of displaced families in Beirut

About

‘The Mediterranean is wilder than we think, it’s geological, it’s planetary.’

-Etel Adnan

The Sea as a Witness: An Archaeological Memory is a curated film programme by Cindy Chehab that explores the sea as a site of memory, displacement, ecological crisis, and violent histories. Drawing from cinema across the Mediterranean, the programme positions the sea as both archive and witness, where sound, image, and motion carry stories that resist erasure. 

In a moment marked by aggression and ethnic cleansing by the Israeli Government  in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iran, this programme responds with urgency and political clarity. Across these regions, the sea has been militarized, to waters that have borne the weight of forced migration, fatalities, and ecological harm. The violence enacted upon bodies, human and nonhuman, along these shores and across maritime borders underscores a form of slow, systemic erasure that cinema can confront, contest, and document. The films gathered here insist that the sea must be understood as witness and as an active site of political meaning, where histories of violence are confronted.

The programme’s presentation in Dublin, a coastal city in Ireland, adds an urgent layer of reflection. Surrounded by the sea, Dublin’s geographical and historical positionality evokes questions of mobility, borders, exile, and the environmental and political forces that shape islands and coasts.

We come together to think collectively about the ties between the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic, and reflect about our own closeness to the sea, our position, as witness and participant. We invite the audience to imagine how memory, care, and solidarity can flow across waters and oceanic borders.

Part One

This haunting memory that is not my own (2021)
Panos Aprahamian | Lebanon, Armenia, 30’

Through semi-fictional storytelling, This Haunting Memory That Is Not My Own reflects on the links between economic growth, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Focusing on Beirut’s shoreline, its port, and the Karantina district, the film reveals landscapes marked by extraction and violence, places where both waste and lives have long been discarded.

Summer 91 (2014)
Nadim Tabet & Karine Wehbé | Lebanon, 20’’

At a beach resort on the Lebanese coast, a young woman and a young man tell their shared story in different ways. Through their conflicting memories, the film explores youth, relationships, and the fragile nature of recollection, set against the lingering tensions of wartime Lebanon.

Errands (2020)
Mira Adoumier | Iceland, Lebanon, 67’’

A woman arrives in Lebanon searching for a man she met years earlier in Iceland who has since disappeared. In Beirut, where buildings still carry the scars of past wars, his absence echoes through the city’s empty, labyrinthine streets. The call of the sea draws her southward, toward what seems like the Earth’s hidden centre.

Tickets

Event: €7.00 - €21.00
Solidarity Ticket: €7.00 - €21.00

Tickets can be purchased via our website: https://a4sounds.org/the-sea-as-a-witness

Full Event & Accessibility Information

Please visit our website: https://a4sounds.org/the-sea-as-a-witness