Author Archive for: ‘Michelle Langford’

Sohrab Shahid Saless’ Far From Home (In der Fremde, 1975) opens with a statement declaring that this is not a film about Gastarbeiter (guest workers), but rather about the word ‘Elend’. While the German term Elend literally refers to a state of misery or wretchedness, etymologically the word carries connotations of exile and displacement from home. Indeed, in the Deutsches …

Black screen: indistinct voices: the sound of laboured breathing. Cut to the image of a young man, Ismael (Bahram Radan), his body writhing uncontrollably, overtaken by a sudden violent seizure. An old woman, Gilaneh (Fatemeh Motamed-Arya), Ismael’s mother, rushes to his side to comfort him and to protect his body from further injury, but she is herself struck with such …