Films are made of light, and we cannot make films with­out light. Yet light itself only becomes vis­i­ble through the aspects of the world that it reveals. And to com­pli­cate mat­ters fur­ther, when look­ing close­ly, light appears not only to be a visual phe­nom­e­non but may also be reflect­ed through sound, taste, smell, touch, and thought.  

Using exam­ples from the recent film LIGHT UPON LIGHT (Has­sala Films 2022), the film­mak­ers invite all par­tic­i­pants for a dis­cus­sion of cinema’s rela­tion­ship to the invis­i­ble. They under­stand the invis­i­ble to be a part of the dimen­sions of vis­i­ble real­i­ty which lie hidden in shad­ows, behind objects or out­side the frame of an image. Fur­ther­more, dif­fer­ent forms of invis­i­bil­i­ty can lie in those con­cep­tu­al, ide­o­log­i­cal, struc­tur­al, or spir­i­tu­al dimen­sions of human real­i­ty that cannot be direct­ly seen or cap­tured by a camera.  

In LIGHT UPON LIGHT, they explored the inter­face of the vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble by focus­ing on expe­ri­ences of an inner, spir­i­tu­al, or mys­ti­cal light. As well as the phys­i­cal light, the light of the sun or the elec­tri­cal lights illu­mi­nat­ing the streets of Cairo at night. Both the inner and the outer light cannot be fully cap­tured with a camera.  

The film­mak­ers tried to attend to the vis­i­ble, invis­i­ble, and mul­ti­sen­so­r­i­al dimen­sions of lumi­nos­i­ty through jux­ta­pos­ing of dif­fer­ent sources of light: through mon­tage, the atmos­pheres and rhythms of ritual action or the words and ges­tures of people. They also tried to illu­mi­nate the back­stage of the film pro­duc­tion - through includ­ing our ongo­ing dia­logue about the project in its making.  

In this work­shop Mustapha Muhammed and Chris­t­ian Suhr wish to specif­i­cal­ly address the gaze or per­cep­tu­al mode of the film­mak­ers. While the per­cep­tu­al mode of a film­mak­er is not direct­ly vis­i­ble, it is nev­er­the­less reflect­ed and felt in the result­ing footage. In explor­ing this form of invis­i­bil­i­ty, they wish to dis­cuss the con­se­quences of dif­fer­ent modes of per­cep­tion, specif­i­cal­ly what hap­pens when trav­el­ling between modes of per­cep­tion char­ac­ter­ized by love, desire, appre­ci­a­tion, or devo­tion, but also fear, inse­cu­ri­ty, arro­gance, anger, or indif­fer­ence. 

Muham­mad Mustapha is a film­mak­er based in Cairo. Since 2011 he has taken a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach towards film­mak­ing work­ing as a scriptwriter, editor and direc­tor. His work focus­es mainly on themes of mas­culin­i­ty, man­li­ness and the male – such as in male power dynam­ics and male dom­i­nat­ed spaces; in a hybrid form between fic­tion and doc­u­men­tary. 

Chris­t­ian Suhr is a film­mak­er and pro­fes­sor at the Depart­ment of Anthro­pol­o­gy, Aarhus Uni­ver­si­ty, Den­mark. He is work­ing on expe­ri­ences of spirit pos­ses­sion, psy­chi­atric ill­ness­es, reli­gious heal­ing, and how film can be used to approach unseen dimen­sions of human life. 

The Work­shop will be held in English.

Danish anthro­pol­o­gist Chris­t­ian Suhr embarks on a jour­ney through Egypt and into the spir­i­tu­al world of the Sufis. Togeth­er with his Islam­ic friend Muham­mad, he meets numer­ous believ­ers for talks and films Hadra rit­u­als. The close­ness to Allah is often described as an expe­ri­ence of light and with this motif starts an impres­sive cin­e­mat­ic search for light. For the camera loves and needs the light: between a medium that is attached to real­i­ty and the spir­i­tu­al nar­ra­tives, the film com­mits an excit­ing bal­anc­ing act.  

Suhr reports on his own “enlight­ened” moment in a Chris­t­ian church. And asks if it could be the same light as that of the Sufis. Muham­mad says: there is one truth, one real­i­ty, one light - but it man­i­fests itself dif­fer­ent­ly.… 

Chris­t­ian Suhr is a film­mak­er and pro­fes­sor at the Depart­ment of Anthro­pol­o­gy, Aarhus Uni­ver­si­ty, Den­mark. During field­work in Egypt, Den­mark and Papua New Guinea, he has explored expe­ri­ences of spirit pos­ses­sion, psy­chi­atric ill­ness­es, reli­gious heal­ing, and how film can be used to approach unseen dimen­sions of human life. He is the author and direc­tor of the award-win­ning film and book DESCENDING WTH ANGELS about pos­ses­sion, psy­chi­a­try, and Islam­ic exor­cism (2013). LIGHT UPON LIGHT is the first film in a planned tril­o­gy with the Cairo-based film col­lec­tive Has­sala Films. Films: UNITY THROUGH CULTURE (2011), Freiburg­er Film­fo­rum 2013); NGAT IS DEAD (2009); WANT A CAMEL, YES (2006).  

Direc­tor: Chris­t­ian Suhr
Cin­e­matog­ra­phy: Chris­t­ian Suhr, Amira Mor­ta­da, Muham­mad Mustapha
Script, Edit­ing: Muham­mad Mustapha, Chris­t­ian Suhr
Pro­duc­er: Hala Lotfy

Soanin Kilan­git is deter­mined to unite the people and attract inter­na­tion­al tourism through the revival of cul­ture on Baluan Island in the South Pacif­ic. He orga­nizes the largest cul­tur­al fes­ti­val ever held on the island. But some tra­di­tion­al lead­ers argue that Baluan never had cul­ture. Cul­ture comes from the white man and is now destroy­ing their old tra­di­tion. Others, how­ev­er, take the fes­ti­val as a wel­come oppor­tu­ni­ty to revolt against ’70 years of cul­tur­al oppres­sion’ by Chris­tian­i­ty. A strug­gle to define the past, present and future of Baluan cul­ture erupts to the sound of thun­der­ing log drum rhythms.