Official Competition 2018

The Drift

Maeve Brennan I 2018 I 51'

SYNOPSIS

The film presents three stories of men in contemporary Lebanon: a gatekeeper guards the ruins of Roman temples, a young car mechanic customises his car from scrap parts, and a conservator preserves clay artefacts. All of them share the resistance to progress at the expense of history.

BIOGRAPHY

Maeve Brennan

MAEVE BRENNAN (UK, 1990) graduated in Fine Art and currently lives and works between London and Beirut. Her research examines the historical and political resonance of materials and places. Her work, including gallery installations, has been exhibited worldwide.

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Critical text

In The Drift, the female artist Maeve Brennan carries out a documentary approach to concepts such as reconstruction and preservation which are conveyed by three characters who coexist in different territories of the Lebanese Republic: the gatekeeper of the Roman temples of Niha, an archaeological conservator and a young mechanic who assembles cars from automobile parts which are found in scrapyards. It becomes clear the historical and political echoes underlying the activities of these three characters throughout the film. The Drift shows the true value of material things and the existing trading culture in contemporary Lebanon. At the same time, it makes clear the need to restore the human values in an unstable territory, but perhaps the most outstanding point of the film is the wild nature of resistance that each character exhales, the persistence, the certainty, and that unbreakable attachment to life. NURIA CUBAS

Technical Sheet