45th Parallel

45th Parallel, by Jordanian artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, is set inside the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a unique Victorian building located on the Canada – US border, between Rock Island in Quebec and Derby Line in Vermont. Built in 1904 as a symbol of unity between the two states, it is one of the world’s few cross-border theaters. Anyone can enter, unchecked. A black line on the floor is all that marks the international border. The film is a monologue in four acts, starring Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel, who, as often happens in Hamdan’s work, is inspired by a legal matter – the Hernández v. Mesa case. In 2010, 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca, unarmed, was shot to death at the Mexican border by a US Border Patrol officer. Each act of the monologue is marked by a change of scenery on the Opera House’s stage. The first painted backdrop is the Grand Canal of Venice, the second a concrete culvert in El Paso – Juárez, site of the Hernández shooting, and the third is an aerial view of Damascus. Following Fleifel’s narrative, each image projects the viewer into different geographical locations. 45th Parallel is a reflection on how borders are not just lines but layered spaces, and reminds us how free movement and freedom of thought are under constant threat