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Mama Habibti  ماما حبيبتي

Video Essay

 DV Pal, 20 min, 4:3, 2009
winner of the Berthoud Visual Arts Prize, 2012        

During a trip to Romania, a narrator maintains a filmed correspondence with her mother from a country that had previously turned her away at the border. Two journeys unfold simultaneously: one follows a physical route through Romania, the other traces what it means to move through that space as a woman, shaped by a legacy of migration. Shot in early 2008, the film takes place during a fragile moment of transition — as Romania emerges from the shadow of Ceaușescu’s era and prepares to enter the European Union, initiating a wave of reforms while still bearing the weight of its recent past. Through this intimate address, the artist questions what it means to inhabit a place that once rejected you, while drawing lines between memory, filial love, and the embodied experience of movement.

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