And on a Different Note
Mohammad Shawky Hassan
2015
Digital cinema
24 minutes
Today in this house nothing happens, nor does it in the homes of others. Time and place stand on parallel lines, refuting the coordinates of existence. The chronology of events is obscured, subversive noise is obliterated, elucidation impossible and language futile. All that remains is a soundscape perpetually occupied by self-proclaimed patriots, and scattered spaces carved by the rhythm of everyday life, all conspiring to maintain the status quo while hiding the humming background noise of the world.
And on a Different Note is a navigation of an attempt to carve out a personal space amid an inescapable sonic shield created primarily by prime time political talk shows with their indistinguishable, absurd, and at times undecipherable rhetoric/ noises. Equally repulsive and addictive, these noises travel across geographies gradually constituting an integral part of a self-created map of exile.
Mohammad Shawky Hassan is a filmmaker and video artist living and working between Cairo and Berlin. He studied philosophy, film directing and cinema studies at the American University in Cairo, The Academy of Cinematic Arts & Sciences and Columbia University. His films include it was related to me (2011), On a Day like Today (2012), Compos Mentis (2016) and And on a Different Note (2015), which premiered at the Berlinale Forum Expanded, and was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 2016 as part of its permanent collection.