0 / 256
Opensources: If the Sky Sounds So Loud
Institute of Contemporary Arts
March 2023
A person in a green hooded jumper walks through the desert, with others in the distance doing the same
Fragments From Heaven, dir. Adnane Baraka, Morocco 2022, 84 min., Tamazight & Arabic, with English subtitles


This programme probes the political and philosophical nature of the night sky, featuring new non-fiction work by artists from Morocco and Afghanistan. Using sound as a tool for both memory and introspection, the selected works look at obscured histories and promised futures, whilst both ruminating on the human condition bound by the cosmos.

In Fragments From Heaven, meteorite showers descending upon the Moroccan Sahara create communion between the desert and cosmos, while providing a lifeline for the region’s inhabitants. For some, these splintered comets help elucidate an inquiry into the origins of life, for others, they promise a more urgent and material means of sustenance, in the context of a radically changing labour market disturbing traditional nomadic lifestyles. For both groups, this astrological activity presents a meandering and high-stakes quest in a landscape so often portrayed as void.

Takbir explores the sonic memory of Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul and its various foreign occupations, filmed on the night that the Taliban took power in 2021. Shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ ring out and obscuring its orators, Hazara’s camera follows its reverberations throughout a dizzying, fluorescent sky, at the turn of a new day and a new political regime.

More screenings of Fragments From Heaven from Friday 7 April.
Programme:

UK PREMIERE Fragments From Heaven, dir. Adnane Baraka, Morocco 2022, 84 min., Arabic with English subtitles 

Takbir, dir. Aziz Hazara, Afghanistan 2022, 10 min., no dialogue
This programme has been curated by Opensources, a film exhibition project dedicated to exploring the intersection of ethics and aesthetics via non-fiction cinema. Their programming foregrounds innovative approaches to addressing humanitarian and environmentalist questions on-screen.
 
Book tickets
06:40 pm
Thu, 06 Apr 2023
Cinema 1

From £11, half price for Green/Blue Members, £5 for 25 & Under

All films are ad-free and 18+ unless otherwise stated, and start with a 10 min. curated selection of trailers.

Red Members gain unlimited access to all exhibitions, films, talks, performances and Cinema 3.
Join today for £20/month.