“Staggering”: Oscar-Shortlisted Doc ‘A Broken House’ Enters A Syrian Artist’s Work, With A Snorkel Lens
deadline.comIn one of Syrian-born artist Mohamad Hafez’s stunning 3D pieces, a figurine of the Virgin Mary stands before an ornate portal, her hands joined in prayer.
The building around her, rendered in plaster, paint, rusted metal and found objects, is blasted to ruins.The artwork is titled “Why Have You Forsaken Us?”Hafez created the piece in 2017, in the midst of the civil war that has devastated the country of his birth, and reduced architectural treasures to smoking rubble.
He constructed the work in Connecticut, where he lives, far from his native Damascus – a place that, for him and for so many others forced from their homeland, exists only in memory.The Oscar-shortlisted short documentary A Broken House, directed by Jimmy Goldblum, reveals the artist at work, carefully building and decorating his miniatures.
And then damaging them.“Mohamad’s art is staggering when you see it in person,” Goldblum tells Deadline. “He creates a perfect sculptural rendition of a Damascus cityscape.
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