Joana Hadjithomas and Etel Adnan met each other fifteen years ago. Their close bond of friendship is due to their common origins in the Turkish city of Smyrna (Izmir), razed by the fire of 1922, when their families were forced to leave the country. From that moment neither of the women ever returned to Turkey: Joana's family was forced into exile after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Etel’s mother, who had married a Syrian Ottoman Army officer, lived with her family in exile in Lebanon after the Empire’s fall. During their meetings, Etel and Joana share stories and the few veiled memories they were told, building a perfect vision of Smyrna that leads them to imagine a possible return. However Etel is too old; Joana just manages to reach the town. When she finally arrives at the place that was represented in her mind over time using testimonies and family stories, Joana tries to reconstruct, through footage and photographs, the face of a city of which she somehow feels a part. The film investigates the concepts of identity and belonging, using old footage that fades out and in the end fix an image of the new Smyrna and the sea, extended beyond earthly and imaginary boundaries, on the eyes of the two women.

 

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreigem both born in 1969 in Beirut; they live and work as directors and artists between Beirut and Paris. Among their award-winning films, A Perfect Day (2005) and Je veux voir (I Want to See), starring Catherine Deneuve and Rabih Mroué, presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. Among their shows: Jeu de Paume (2016), Villa Arson, Nice and Home Manchester (2014), MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge (Massachusetts) (2015). Among their international events, the Festival d'Automne, the Festival d'Avignon, the Biennials of Istanbul, Lyon, Sharjah, the Triennale in Paris and the latest Venice Biennale (2015).