The Dam (Al-Sadd) by artist Ali Cherri unfolds in northern Sudan in late 2018, beginning at a waterfall along the Nile near the Merowe Dam. At its center is Maher, a brickmaker whose life follows a steady daily routine—until the growing unrest in Khartoum begins to seep into his world.

What begins as an observational portrait slowly gives way to a surreal narrative, rich with myth and symbolism. Earth, body, and water converge, evoking a nation on the brink of transformation through layered visual and sonic textures.

The film is in Arabic with English subtitles and will be followed by a conversation with the director. To attend, please fill out the registration form here.

Ali Cherri is a visual artist from Lebanon. His work is inspired by artifacts and the natural world. His sculptures, drawings and installations explore the temporal shifts between ancient worlds and contemporary societies, as well as the links between archeology, historical narrative and heritage, seen from the perspective of the excavation and relocation of cultural objects into museums. His recent solo exhibitions include If you prick us, do we not bleed (2022) at the National Gallery in London (2022), Return of the Beast (2021) at Imane Farès in Paris, From Fragment to Whole (2018) at Jönköping County Museum in Sweden, and A Taxonomy of Fallacies: The Life of Dead Objects (2016) at the Sursock Museum in Beirut. In 2021, Cherri was the artist in residence at the National Gallery in London. His work was included in the 2022 Venice Biennale’s International Art Exhibition, titled The Milk of Dreams, for which he received a Silver Lion award for a Promising Young Artist.