Rasha Salti présente Birds of September (Touyour Ayloul) de Sarah Francis

Rasha Salti will draw on the film to present the course of her research.

Birds of September (Touyour Ayloul) by Sarah Francis,

Lebanon/Qatar 2013, 99 min, digital, Arabic with English or French subtitles A glass-sided van travels through the streets of Beirut, with a camera inside exploring the city through the window. Along the way, several people are invited to share a personal moment in this moving confessional. Each person reveals themselves through a face, a body, a posture, a voice, an attitude, an emotion, a point of view and a memory. Their confessions are true, frank and intimate. Yet, quite soon, the van empties again and wanders through Beirut, continually searching for something, someone. Sarah Francis is a filmmaker who grew up and studied in Beirut (Lebanon). Birds of September is her first documentary film. As Above, So Below is her second documentary film (premiered at Berlinale Forum 2020). Dead Dog (2025) is her first fiction film. See also: 24.10 8:30 p.m. * Screening of Géographies by Chaghig Arzoumanian and conversation between the filmmaker and Rasha Salti (this screening will follow the presentation of the stage performance Elegie d’une disparition: from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Friche Belle de Mai) Rasha Salti is a researcher, writer and curator of art and cinema. She was a programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011-2016) and, since 2017, has been a program officer in the Society and Culture Unit at Arte France for La Lucarne. She co-curated Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema from the 1960s until Now with Jytte Jensen (MoMA New York, 2010-2012). She was one of the curators of the 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011). She directed the first session of the RAW Residency Academy at the Centre for Art, Knowledge and Society (Dakar 2016). She programmed the lecture and screening series “Palestine: Territory, Memory, Projections” (Mucem, La compagnie lieu de création, Marseille, 2017). With Kristine Khouri, she co-curated the documentary and archival exhibition Past Disquiet, which was presented at MACBA (Barcelona 2015), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin, 2016), the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (Santiago, 2018), the Sursock Museum (Beirut, 2018), Zeitz MOCAA (Cape Town, 2023), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2024) and Framer Framed (Amsterdam, 2025). In 2026, she was part of the curatorial team led by Koyo Kouoh for the 61st Venice Biennale. Salti edited the publication Insights into Syrian Cinema: Essays and Conversations with Filmmakers (2006, ArteEast and Rattapallax Press), Beirut Bereft, The Architecture of the Forsaken and Map of the Derelict (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2010, in collaboration with photographer Ziad Antar), and I Would Have Smiled: A Tribute to Myrtle Winter-Chaumeny, with Issam Nassar, in 2010.