Fatima’s Letter

Fatima’s Letter, 1992, 16mm film, 19 minutes

FREE 16mm FILM SCREENING
Thursday 24 August 2023 6pm - 9pm
As part of the exhibition Life is More Important Than Art…
Whitechapel Gallery, London
(Showing twice each hour)

A woman remembers her past by faces she sees while travelling on the London Underground. She begins to believe that these people, like her, have all taken part in the same event. She composes a letter to her friend Fatima - a personal documentary around journeys, memories and watching. The story is spoken in Urdu with sub-titles in English, although the subtitles do not always appear in conjunction with what is spoken.

“Alia Syed's practice as a filmmaker tests the conventions of writing. Even though her films deploy a narrative structure they do so to unravel the very idea of beginnings and endings that is necessary to the act of making sense. Instead she uses repetition, circularity and the layering of word and image to explore the conditions under which the subject of language and desire is made present but also eludes our grasp.

Juxtaposing oblique camera angles with written and spoken words, she places the spectator in a position of negotiating and attempting to find points of correlation between two, some times three, registers of language: visual, graphic and aural. Each register offers a different form of narrative that transforms history, be it personal or collective, into myth…” Alia Syed by Amna Malik. Luxonline. Watch the whole film on the BFI website.

Currently showing in the exhibition “Life is More Important Than Art’ at Whitechapel Gallery until 17 September 2023

Press
The Arts Desk
The Guardian
Mia London Blog

Group Show 
2022 Gimple Fils, London

Selected Screenings
2020  London Short Film Festival ICA 
1997  “Views of London”, ICA, London UK
1996  National Film Theatre, London, UK 
1995  Mango Film Festival, Manchester UK
1994  Museum of London, E.M, Media Canada
1994  Ikon Gallery “Beyond Destination”, Birmingham
1994 Toured North America
1994 Xenix Film Club, 12, 13, and 14th, of June
1992  Euclid, Toronto, Canada
1991  25 years of British Avant Garde, Tate Gallery, London, UK
1991  ICA, London, UK