Science Fiction Against the Margins Film Series
UCLA Film & Television Archive

part of
PST: Art & Science Collide

An Evening with Larissa Sansour (and Her Films): 
 "In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain," "In Vitro,"
"Nation Estate," "A Space Exodus," and "Familiar Phantoms"

VIEW TRAILERS OF ALL FILMS

December 14, 2024 – 7:30 p.m.
Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum

Tickets are free, no RSVP required
Box office opens at 6:30 p.m.

followed by a discussion with
Larissa Sansour, filmmaker, and
Distinguished Professor Chon Noriega, UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television

In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain (U.K./ Denmark, 2015)

Guided by a therapist-like voice, a self-proclaimed “narrative terrorist” recounts her dreams. In one dream, porcelain plates adorned with the traditional Keffiyeh print gently drop from the sky until they begin to catapult down dangerously. The narrator divulges to her therapist (or interrogator?) her plan to bury the DNA-coated plates for archaeologists to find in the future, falsifying proof of a people’s past existence. Sansour combines science fiction, politics and archaeology in her third sci-fi film to allude to current practices used to prove (or disprove) a people’s existence. In still and slow-panning shots, the uncanny dystopia visualized here probes into who gets to be the narrator of history. Combining images of past and future, archival and CGI, dead and living, the film poses the question: what is the future for a people denied their past? — Nicole Ucedo

In Vitro (Denmark/ Palestine, 2019)

An eco disaster in Bethlehem reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba forces survivors out of their homes and into a new life underground. Two women meet in a bunker beneath the city’s streets. The elder of these holds lived memories while the younger’s memories were implanted. Thus, the basis for a set of arguments between two generations: Are the inherited memories as valid as lived ones? Can our identities be rooted in memories we didn’t experience firsthand; that is to say, in memories passed on by our ancestors? Originally commissioned for the 58th Venice Biennale, the two-channel black-and-white video switches focus between the younger woman, Alia, played by Maisa Abd Elhadi, and the elder Dunia, played by prolific Palestinian actor Hiam Abbass, as they discuss what can and should be rebuilt.  — Nicole Ucedo

Nation Estate (Denmark, 2013)

Sansour’s dark sense of humor comes out most fully in "Nation Estate." The film offers a solution to the deadlock in the Middle East: permit Palestinian statehood within a skyscraper, the Nation Estate. By stacking one Palestinian city on top of another — one floor for Jerusalem, one for Sansour’s childhood home of Bethlehem, etc. — the fight for land is no longer an issue. Vertical living allows Palestinians to access their cultural landmarks via elevator without getting in the way of the rulers. Luxury living and freedom are packaged into a controlled and constrained environment. A pregnant woman stares out the Nation Estate window at the real Al-Aqsa. The film induces a sad chuckle. —Nicole Ucedo

A Space Exodus (Denmark/ Palestine, 2009)

Perhaps Sansour’s most pointed work, "A Space Exodus" shows a Palestinian astronaut reaching the moon through recreated scenes from the first moon landing and Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, "2001: A Space Odyssey." The theme from 2001, Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra,” signals the event as recognizable, but when arabesque sounds join the melody, the juxtaposition between image and sound is brought to the foreground. As the astronaut (Sansour herself) plants the Palestinian flag on the moon, the orator back on Earth says, “a small step for a Palestinian, a giant leap for mankind.” This satirical film’s iconic images frame the colonization of outer space in a nonsensical manner as our astronaut floats off farther and farther from the call to Jerusalem. —Nicole Ucedo

Familiar Phantoms (U.K./ Palestine, 2023)

"Familiar Phantoms" is the most personal project yet for Larissa Sansour, who co-directed the film with her partner Søren Lind, the film’s screenwriter. Revisiting family anecdotes, objects and spaces, "Familiar Phantoms" considers what it means to remember, and what it means to remember something that didn’t happen to you. Told through theatrically staged vignettes starring Sansour’s siblings as her father and aunt (Maxim Sansour and Leila Sansour), the recreated scenes attempt to bring life to tales Sansour was told as a child. Though vibrant in color, the memories are just as cloudy as anything else we’re told as children, at times debunked when conflicting facts and dates are proven.

The film combines Super 8 archival footage from Sansour’s childhood in Bethlehem with the sharp reenacted scenes and ghostly moving shots down a large home’s hallways and rooms — the stand-in for their family home in Bethlehem. The film switches between full screen to dual screen, making visual connections between the past and present. Sansour searches for explanations for the loss of a home in Palestine through clues in the family objects that remain, and the home movies shot by her parents. Self-reflective in form, Familiar Phantoms winds the viewer through the stages of remembering, forgetting and searching for meaning in what’s left. Whenever Sansour leaves Bethlehem, she has the feeling that she’s left something behind. — Nicole Ucedo

Background on Film Series

The Science Fiction Against the Margins film series of the UCLA Film & TV Archive is a constituent part of the Getty’s PST: Art & Science Collide, a broad range of art exhibitions and events held throughout Southern California in fall 2024. The films in the festival will be shown free of charge from October 4–December 14, 2024 at the Billy Wilder Theater of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. The series is presented in partnership with Cinema & Media Studies of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; the UCLA International Institute is a community partner of the festival.

Filmmakers showcased in Science Fiction Against the Margins occupy the “margins” of mainstream cinema in order to challenge and subvert the science fiction genre. Hollywood’s ubiquitous sci-fi story structure functions within the conventions of action-driven melodrama, resolving social issues in private, emotional and moral terms that reinforce the status quo.

While the focus is on the feature film as a global form of mass entertainment, the series also includes documentaries, shorts, video art and television episodes.

Cost : Free

Sponsor(s): UCLA International Institute, Center for Near Eastern Studies, Film and Television Archive, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television