A film by Didem Pekün
Executive Producer: Maria-Thalia Carras
Producers: locus athens (Maria-Thalia Carras & Olga Hatzidaki)/Didem Pekün
Starring / Icarus: Dino Bajrić
Cinematographer: Petros Nousias gsc
Music:
“Mountain of Air”
Written and produced by Ellen Arkbro
Performed by Johan Graden, Elena Kakaliagou, Hilary Jeffery, Robin Hayward
Master recording - Subtext Recordings
Published by Multiverse Media Publishing
Editor: Didem Pekün
Colorist: Manthos G. Sardis
Sound: Theofilos Botonakis
Sound Design: Fatih Rağbet & Eli Haligua
Sound Mix: Fatih Rağbet & Eli Haligua & Metin Bozkurt
Post-Production Supervisor: Manthos G. Sardis
DCP Mastering: Angelos Mantzios
Assistant Director: Dino Omerovic
Driver: Yasmin Livnjak
Advisors: Charles T. Wolfe, Naeem Mohaiemen, Thomas Ernst
Araf is an essayistic road movie and diary of a ghostly character, Nayia, who travels between Srebrenica, Sarajevo, and Mostar in Bosnia. She has been in exile since the war and returns for the 22nd memorial of the Srebrenica genocide. The film is guided by her diary notes of the journey, which merge with the myth of Daedalus and Icarus – Icarus being the name given to the winner of a bridge diving competition in her home country. The story of Icarus and Daedalus, a myth symbolic of man’s over-ambition and inevitable failure, is woven throughout the film as a way to think about exorcizing the vicious cycle of such events happening in the future and of a possible reconciliation. Nayia also thinks of Icarus from a different perspective, that of seeing the optimism of such a leap, his braveness in taking a leap into the unknown in this era of radical instability, that perhaps Icarus wanted to write a different narrative. Araf thus traces these paradoxes through Nayia’s displacement and her return to her home country post-war – that of a constant terror and a permanent standstill, and the friction between displacement and permanence.
didempekun@gmail.com
maria@locusathens.com
