Talking About Trees is a heart-warming piece
Addy Fong caught a screening of Talking About Trees at Sydney Film Festival. Here are her thoughts:
In the era of online streaming and distribution of content, there is often talk about the death of the cinema and the film festival due to limits in funding or the devaluation of such cultural activities due to so-called bureaucracy or red tape. It is always challenging to justify the need for creating or consuming art when it is almost a part of who you are and how you see the world.
To me, cinema has always been a magical experience, the collective shared experience of watching something together, be it an feature, an experimental short, a home-made skit, or a cat video. The cultural importance of watching films together isn’t merely an act of convenience but the development of a shared collective conscience in which helps break down barriers and introduces audiences to new perspectives and ideas.
Suhaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees documents four filmmakers, Ibrahim Shahid, Suleiman Mohamed Ibrahim, Manar Al Hilo and Altayeb Mahdi, who studied filmmaking abroad and founded the Sudanese Film group in 1989 with the purpose of bringing cinema to the people of Sudan. Their friendship and love of movies spans over 45 years, and observations of their interactions, which are often quite playful, show that their passion still remains as it was decades ago, almost as if time never passed.
All four subjects in the film are well-known filmmakers, having studied abroad, their body of work intercut throughout the film along with heart-warming scenes of them filming on their mobile phones, acting out famous scenes, and talking about times gone by. Gasmelbari cleverly chooses to include observational footage of the mundane without narration from an external voice, sometimes the group resting on a makeshift bed captured by a simple hand-held camera that merely observes.
Bringing forth their love of cinema to a new generation of film-enthusiasts, the four filmmakers approach a group a children playing football to ask them about screening and hand out surveys on what film they should screen. A variation of responses highlights the differing perspectives but all agreeing on one thing, the need for cinema to exist.
From films being played on a laptop to the sourcing of a now abandoned cinema in Sudan, this documentary is an enjoyable and easy watch not only because it observes a group of people reminiscent of their past but it brings to light the importance of watching films collectively, sentiments echoed whilst watching the film with a group of strangers in the dark at Sydney Film Festival. Moments prior to watching this film I had rushed in after escaping a packed train and making my way to the venue, stumbling in the dark and climbing over a few elderly ladies who sat near the aisles as I tried find a spare spot, praying I didn’t accidentally injure someone on my way to my seat. Thankfully no one was injured and I made my way safely and without the embarrassment of falling on a stranger.
Talking about Trees is a film which I relate to on a personal level despite never having visited Sudan or having heard of the subjects in the film. This is because, like the protagonists portrayed in the film, my thoughts were simple, I also wanted to bring a group of people together to watch a few shorts they may not have heard of. Thankfully, at my current workplace I have been given the opportunity and support by those around me to start up a film club for students. Despite dealing a few challenges such as administrative tasks and the logistics involved in curating content to an group whose numbers would fluctuate weekly, all efforts and sacrifices related to the time and energy spent have been outweighed by the joy it has been to watch a film or create something together.
And whilst the convenience of watching content online or the process of creating films has been at times welcome thanks to the introduction of digital and the portable, Talking About Trees addresses the fact that this exchange may lead to not only the loss of celluloid, the replacement of theatres for shopping centres, but perhaps the segregation of groups whose voices may not lie within the majority.
This is addressed in the film, through the inclusion of scenes which speak about the restrictions upon screenings in an Islamic state such as Sudan, one being the censorship of content and enquiring with government authorities for clearance and documentation, and the other presented in a novel manner, the interruption of screenings whilst the call to evening prayer occurs every night in Sudan.
Despite the challenges portrayed in the film by the group of older Sudanese filmmakers whose fight to screen films to an audience may be a difficult battle, Suhaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees is a heart-warming piece that speaks about the cultural importance of film, a medium created by the people and for the people.
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Talking about Trees plays at Sydney Festival on Saturday 15th June at 10:15am at Dendy Opera Quays. Full details here: https://www.sff.org.au/program/browse/talking-about-trees
Review by Addy Fong.
