Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige

The Lebanese film-makers and artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige (1969, Beirut) interweave thematic, conceptual and formal links through photographs, video installations, fictional films and documentaries. Self-taught, they became film-makers and artists through necessity in the wake of the Lebanese civil wars. Their very personal œuvre, based on their various encounters with people, has led them to explore the realm of the visible and of absence, leading to a fascinating back-and-forth between life and fiction. For more than fifteen years, their films and artworks, created using personal and political documents, develop narratives out of stories kept secret in the face of the prevailing history. They are interested in the emergence of the individual in societies made up of communities, and the difficulty of living in the present.