A self-described ’Private Ear,’ Turner Prize winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan gathers, investigates, and analyzes audio and video recordings of Israeli fighter jets illegally infringing on the otherwise peaceful skies above Lebanon. Since Israel’s invasion in 2006, the repeated aerial hum of choppers and planes has escalated steadily toward terrorizing noise pollution. These incursions insinuate an intentionally weaponized proximate border, but to what end? Abu Hamdan’s meticulous video-essay pieces together evidence of the normalization of this eroding sensorial boundary, exposing what appear to be tactics verging on auditory torture. Combining monologue with archival record, video recordings, eye witness testimonies and shrewd observation, The Diary of a Sky documents contemporary life in Lebanon, in which the people on the ground must navigate the fickleness of two domineering and opposing forces: Hezbollah and Israel.
Community Partner
Mazen El-Sayed
Lebanon
2024
In Arabic with English subtitles
Self harm
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Cinematography
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Amir Afshar, Ghalya Albani, LarissaAoun, Jad Atoui, Zeinab Awada
Editor
Mohamad A. Gawad
Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an independent investigator or Private Ear. His investigations focus on sound and linguistics and have been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and as advocacy for organizations such as Amnesty International and Defense for Children International together with fellow researchers from Forensic Architecture. Abu Hamdan received his PhD in 2017 from Goldsmiths College University of London and in 2021 completed a professorship at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz where he developed his research airpressure.info. Past fellowships have been held at the University of Chicago and the New School, New York.
Photo by Diana Pfanmatter
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile
Julia Loktev's follow up to last year's film about dissident journalists in Moscow tracks the reporters as they are forced into exile across a four year period, but still striving to counterbalance state propaganda as Putin pursues the war in Ukraine.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Once Upon a Time in Harlem splices together footage shot by William Greaves in 1972 of a group of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in conversation at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The film is a living archive of memory, disagreement, style, and Black genius.
Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
Alex Gibney's doc relates the near-lethal attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022, the writer's painful rehab and recovery, and his reflections on life before, during and after the publication of The Satanic Verses.
Possible Love
Lee Chang-dong’s first film since Burning (2018) is a sardonic, slow-burning satire about two couples: a documentary filmmaker married to a wealthy businessman, and a working-class family struggling to make ends meet after the husband has been laid off.
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al