{"id":259020,"date":"2019-10-03T15:53:05","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T18:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=259020"},"modified":"2019-10-03T16:48:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T19:48:24","slug":"movie-on-quest-for-arab-identity-reaches-10th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/movie-on-quest-for-arab-identity-reaches-10th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie on quest for Arab identity reaches 10th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Celebrating the tenth anniversary of the documentary Constantino, the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/a><\/strong> screened the movie last Wednesday\u2019s night (2) in S\u00e3o Paulo. \u201cIt\u2019s the first event of this kind at the current Arab Chamber\u2019s headquarter. Now, we intend to screen many other movies like this,\u201d said the Chamber\u2019s cultural director Silvia Antibas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u2018We intend to screen many other movies,\u201d said Silvia Antibas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The feature film was directed by Otavio Cury (pictured above)<\/em>, who traveled to Syria, where his great-grandfather was born, searching for an identity he describes as \u201cfragmented\u201d due to a language the became unintelligible and an ocean and a century separating him from his background. \u201cBack at home, I\u2019ve always heard \u2018we Arabs are like this,\u2019 but what does that mean? So, for me, [the movie] was a bridge to fulfill my hunger for an identity,\u201d Cury said during a chat with the audience after the screening.<\/p>\n

The movie is available on iTunes<\/a> and the director believes that ten years after its debut he can see it more clearly. \u201cI\u2019m very glad for this opportunity as we directors, when we release a movie, we haven\u2019t thought enough about it yet. We start thinking about the movie when it goes public, only then it\u2019s really born. And this is a very complicated movie, especially with what has happened in Syria since then. Having the chance to screen it here at an Arab-Brazilian space, at a beautiful auditorium, around people really interested that know a lot about the history being told, means a a lot for me,\u201d Cury told ANBA.<\/p>\n

Reinventing the past<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cury\u2019s grandfather migrated to Brazil and his family doesn\u2019t speak Arabic anymore. The documentary came up while he was trying to translate a book that recounts the life story of his great-grandfather Daud Constantino Al-Khoury. The document was found by his family during a visit to Syria in 2001. Years later, in 2007, the moviemaker decided to work on it and finding out the vestiges of Daud\u2019s life. \u201cMore than discovering him, I was free to reinvent my great-grandfather,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

During his travels to the cities of Homs and Damascus, he found works Daud had pursued in theater, for example. \u201cWe only knew he had been a teacher. But he was the main collaborator of a guy who would later become the forerunner of the Arab theater. The movie tells a little about this retracing. It\u2019s completely different tale of immigration. Of someone who searches for his own past \u2013 inaccessible since it\u2019s in the past \u2013 having a theater and poetry book as his guide, and then there is this quest for this image, this poetry,\u201d Otavio explained.<\/p>\n

The book \u201cThe complete works by master Daud Constantino Al-Khoury\u201d found by Otavio is being digitalized by the Arab Chamber. The director now works on new audiovisual projects. \u201cAfter this movie, I became involved in a universe of Brazilian Indigenous peoples. I made two movies and am making a third now, which is the biograph of a former Funai president, who dedicated his life to isolated Indigenous. It\u2019s somehow related to origins. Constantino was about my background and my identity. These next projects talk about Brazil\u2019s,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thais Sousa\/ANBA<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Documentary \u2018Constantino\u2019 was exhibited at the Arab Chamber last Wednesday night. Session featured a chat with director Otavio Cury, who tells the story of his Syrian great-grandfather in the movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2324,"featured_media":259056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[9859,4639,11568,11710,11705,1826,1827,11569,11709,11708],"class_list":{"0":"post-259020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-arab-chamber-en","9":"tag-camara-arabe-en","10":"tag-constantino-en","11":"tag-daud-constantino-al-khouryy-en","12":"tag-daud-constantino-al-khouryy","13":"tag-documentary","14":"tag-movie","15":"tag-otavio-cury-en","16":"tag-screening","17":"tag-tenth-anniversary"},"wps_subtitle":"Documentary \u2018Constantino\u2019 was exhibited at the Arab Chamber last Wednesday night. Session featured a chat with director Otavio Cury, who tells the story of his Syrian great-grandfather in the movie.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}