Perspective Film Series:
The Dam (2022), dir. Ali Cherri
October 19
5:30 PM | Dome Theatre
Maher (Maher El Kahir) works as a bricklayer in northern Sudan, not far from the massive hydroelectric Merowe Dam located on the Nile. He spends his off hours labouring over another, more mysterious building project: a towering creature he’s making out of mud. In his debut feature, Lebanese visual artist Ali Cherri has constructed his own indefinable work, a riveting film that straddles the line between nonfiction naturalism and supernatural mysticism. The Dam metaphorically evokes the destruction caused by the dam’s creation, while also situating the lives of Maher and his fellow workers against the political backdrop of former Sudan leader Omar al-Bashir’s 2019 military deposition. Cherri merges ancient and contemporary worlds in this meditative film about displacement, illusion, and mythmaking.
Country: France / Lebanon / Sudan / Germany / Serbia / Qatar
80 minutes, in Arabic with English subtitles
FREE for members. Non-members: $10—your ticket to this screening includes admission to Contemporary Calgary. Our galleries are open from 12-5 PM for viewing prior to attending the program.
About Perspective Film Series
The 2025 edition of Perspective is curated by Muriel N. Kahwagi, Associate Curator at Contemporary Calgary. Drawing on Calgary's proximity to the Bow and Elbow Rivers and the role that each of them plays in the city, the series considers the ways in which bodies of water are used and weaponized as markers of land, becoming sites through which power is negotiated, practiced, and enacted. Featuring filmic works from a wide range of geographies and genres – including ethnographic films and artists' films – this year's edition reflects on water as a site of refuge; as a border; as a means to an escape; and as a character in and of itself.
About the Curator
Muriel N. Kahwagi ((she/her)) is a writer and curator, working primarily across publishing and programming. Her research is centered on the politics of collecting and archiving the performative; and the act of listening as a form of preservation in and of itself. In 2023, she was the TD Curatorial Fellow at Art Windsor-Essex, and a curator as part of Vtape’s Curatorial Incubator, v.19. She is currently the Assistant Curator at Contemporary Calgary, and a programmer at the Toronto Arab Film Festival.
