Familiar Phantoms
2023, Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind, 27’
An experimental documentary short film about memory, history and trauma: Familiar Phantoms is inspired by anecdotes from Larissa Sansour’s own family history and her old childhood in Bethlehem, making it her most personal film to date. Combining scenes filmed in a derelict mansion, Super 8 footage and private photos, the editing mimics the workings of memory, constantly revisiting the same imagery alongside new fragments in search of meaning. Throughout the film, the mansion serves as the seat of memory. In the rooms, vignettes are played out, adding a theatrical dimension, enlarging and exaggerating the narrative components, just as memory perpetually reworks, reinforces, adds and subtracts. While most scenes are acted out by actors, other scenes turn objects and mementos into sculptural installations, a dark space decorated with dozens of suspended lovebird cages, a group of taxidermy seagulls sitting on the floor or a free-standing sink full to the brim of lemons.

As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night
2022’, Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind, 21’

A three-channel short film featuring a single aria on loss, mourning and inherited trauma: As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night features a single aria performed by Palestinian soprano Nour Darwish. The aria is a new composition based on Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and the Palestinian traditional song Mashaal. An underlying theme is the genetic transfer of trauma between generations. Filmed in a derelict chapel, the aria is accompanied archival material from Palestine and special effects. The piece is presented in black and white dividing the screen into three parts, like an altar triptych. 

In Vitro
2019, Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind, 27’
Set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. A vast bunker under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. A conversation between two scientists soon evolves into an intimate dialogue about memory, exile and nostalgia. Central to their discussion is the intricate relationship between past, present and future, with the Bethlehem setting providing a narratively, politically and symbolically charged backdrop.