As times harden in the Arab world, people have begun to recall the greatest diva of all time: Asmahan, the Syrian princess who emigrated to Egypt in the twenties and became an entertainer. Today, traces of the Cairo that Asmahan once loved are difficult to find in the blanket of apathy that weighs on the city. But things are not quite that simple. Asmahan is not the angel everyone imagines her to be. Behind her angelic face are dark secrets, and it is time we stopped being manipulated by Asmahan’s unbearable presence.

Azza El-Hassan is a Palestinian documentary filmmaker who is the winner of various international film awards such as, The Aleph Documentary Award, Luchino Visconti Award, Jazeera Jury Award, and BBC Grierson Award. Her work usually centers around narratives in the Middle East with a special focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Azza has a special interest in the use of visual archives, in films, by nations who’s archives have been destroyed or abducted. In 2019, she founded The Void Project, a multi-media art project that aims to restore archival films, curate exhibitions, and produce narratives that center around archives and the effect of their abduction on narratives.

71 minutes. German/English/Arabic with English subtitles. The conversation will be in Arabic.