Émilie Serri
Damascus Dreams
Originally from Montreal and of Belgian-Syrian descent, Émilie Serri is a filmmaker, visual artist, and songwriter. Her work, at the intersection of fiction and documentary, archival imagery, and staging, immerses itself in a universe that is both political and dreamlike. Distributed by the experimental film company LightCone in Paris and Funfilm in Montreal, her films have traveled to numerous international festivals (Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen, etc.) and to artist-run centers and art galleries across Canada. In 2018, she was awarded the Bronfman Prize in contemporary art. In 2021, she completed her first feature documentary, Damascus Dreams. In 2024, she won the La Forge competition with her new fiction project titled Mater.
In its small room, Gallery B-312 is screening Damascus Dreams, the first feature-lenght documentary by Émilie Serri. Atypical in its form and content, this cinematic work has been designed like a collage made up of a variety of types of images. Coming from personal and family archives, filming and the internet, the photographs and videos are juxtaposed. The film showing the artist when she was two years old becomes cinema just like the staged sequences, which is actually reflected in one of the extracts. There may remain some doubt regarding what is filmed, imagined, staged, or captured spontaneously. The film is constructed with back-and-forths; the keys to understanding are provided by the narration and the desire to show the creative process, including the criticisms received during the project. Émile Serri gathers several visions of Syria from three perspectives. His own is fantasized, his father's is nostalgic, and that of the Syrian refugees is tied to a reality that is still difficult to name. In the directed interviews, she asks them, among other things, to share memories or recurring dreams. Some then provide touching testimonies. Others consciously or unconsciously prefer not to remember, and do not want or cannot respond to these questions. The sound – and the silences – that accompany the images add an unsettling note, or a feverishness, to what is about to happen. With Damascus Dreams, the filmmaker intuitively continues her search for her country of origin, questioning what she can pass on from this heritage. Through the hybridity of content and interlocutors, as well as the appeal to dreams, memory, and reality, she manages to address a political and sensitive subject with delicacy and poetry. The invitation is extended to take the time to experience this exhibition differently by immersing yourself in this quest for the 83 minutes of the film.
—Joannie Boulais
"Damascus Dreams premiered at the renowned International Film Festival Rotterdam. In addition to winning the International Critics' Prize at the New Cinema Festival in Montreal, it received the award for Best Artistic Contribution at the International Festival of Curitiba in Brazil, as well as a mention for Best Documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Since its release in 2021, it continues to travel to festivals. It is also being presented in Copenhagen as part of a program on Syrian cinema from September 11 to 16, 2024.
The B-312 gallery would like to thank the experimental film companies LightCone in Paris and Funfilm in Montreal, as well as the University of Montreal Gallery, not to mention Laurent Vernet and Patrick Mailloux."
Originally from Montreal and of Belgian-Syrian descent, Émilie Serri is a filmmaker, visual artist, and songwriter. Her work, at the intersection of fiction and documentary, archival imagery, and staging, immerses itself in a universe that is both political and dreamlike. Distributed by the experimental film company LightCone in Paris and Funfilm in Montreal, her films have traveled to numerous international festivals (Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen, etc.) and to artist-run centers and art galleries across Canada. In 2018, she was awarded the Bronfman Prize in contemporary art. In 2021, she completed her first feature documentary, Damascus Dreams. In 2024, she won the La Forge competition with her new fiction project titled Mater.