Background by Khaled Abdulwahed, introduced by Kay Dickinson

A photo camera is cleaned. Click. The shutter works. Bright light. A crackle and hiss in the sound. A broken "Hello?" opens a conversation between Khaled Abdulwahed, a Syrian filmmaker living in Leipzig, and his father in Aleppo. The son reconstructs his father's journey, arriving in the GDR as an exchange student in 1956. His son applies for asylum more than 60 years later as a refugee. The civil war in Syria separates their stories, the film brings them back together and continues them. ملخص قصير يتم تنظيف كاميرا تصوير. طقطقة. المصراع يعمل. ضوء ساطع. صوت طقطقة وأزيز. "ألو؟" متقطعة تفتح حواراً بين خالد عبد الواحد، مخرج سوري يقيم في لايبزيغ، ووالده في حلب. يعيد الابن تشكيل رحلة والده، الذي وصل إلى جمهورية ألمانيا الديمقراطية طالباً مبتعثاً عام 1956. بينما يتقدم ابنه بطلب لجوء بعد أكثر من ستين عاماً لاجئاً. الحرب الأهلية في سوريا تفرّق بين قصتيهما، والفيلم يجمعهما من جديد ويواصل مسيرتهما. This screening is organized in the framework of : Working with What Is There • Cinema Research Methodologies with Non-Film Sources Symposium, screenings, talks Beirut, 21–24 October 2026 Working with What Is There gathers contributors to present alternative approaches to cinema history informed by non-film sources. It invites to think and create with films as mutable objects of circulation between people, across generations and media, irrespective of their material survival as film copies. Co-organized by Anaïs Farine and Philip Widmann, in cooperation with Orient-Institut Beirut, University of Zurich, American University of Beirut, Saint Joseph University Beirut, Metropolis Cinema, Arab Image Foundation Contributors’ bios and more information: https://www.orient-institut.org/events/detail-event/working-with-what-is-there-cinema-research-methodologies-with-non-film-sources.html