Pine Nuts
Pine Nuts, 16mm, (screened by DVD or Beta) 20 min, 2008
Language: English
Subtitle: Arab, French and Danish
“Once there was a forest. Then the forest became a city and the remains became a park. The city started a war and with time its park became imaginary” So begins Lasse Lau’s Pine Nuts. Horsh Beirut is a major “public” park that has been closed to citizens for the almost 20 years since the end of civil conflict. This video explores what remains and what reemerges when an urban green space empties of bodies. In the video, Lau contrasts calm, even bucolic, shots of the overgrown and empty park with a myriad of voices recounting stories of what the park once was. Through voices of the Lebanese diaspora, stories of leisure and violence unfold over shots of an orderly park gone feral. These shots are so subtle as to appear still. Without people to disrupt the scenes, the only hint that we are watching moving images is the play of wind in the strangely overgrown trees. Politics and the violence of the past are made intensely personal and spatial in Pine Nuts.
Joni Murphy, THE GREEN LANTERN GALLERY, CHICAGO
“Pine Nuts” is comprised of a series of nicely framed images of the Beirut Pine Forest, or rather the entity that the French government has ornately replanted in an effort to recreate the forest that the Civil War destroyed. In one of those ironies that seem unique to Beirut, this public park is still not open to the public – nearly 20 years after the war was ended. Lau’s premise is that the pine forest is a sort of synecdoche for the city as a whole.
Lau’s vistas are so calm that, were it not for the occasional breezes that stir the trees, they might be still images. The pines provide a frame into which are related a number of anecdotes about the forest, and Beirut, as related by expatriate Beirutis. Though it seems to work better as a self-contained piece of art, “Pine Nuts” is little less effective than Alys’ piece in capturing the range of thought on the space in question.
Jim Quilty, The Daily Star, Lebanon, August 21, 2009
“Another highlight was “Pine Nuts” by Danish artist Lasse Lau. The film looks at the history of Horch Al-Sanawbar, an ‘invented’ park in Beirut and explores its social and historical importance through the eyes of Lebanese immigrants living in the United States. The approach taken by this film showed the possibilities that short film opens up on terms of scale: a subject such as the park could make a great feature-length film but becomes a charming vignette when kept in short form.”
Caroline Curran, The Daily News, Egypt, October 14, 2010
Caroline Curran, The Daily News, Egypt, October 14, 2010
Stills
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Screenings and Credits
Prizes
- Winner of Fokus Videokunst Festival, Copenhagen 2011
Solo Exhibition
- Joan Lukas Rothenberg Gallery, Syracuse, New York, USA 2008
Group Exhibitions
- KH7 Art Space, Aarhus, Denmark 2017
- Fokus Videokunst Festival, Kunsthallen Nikolaj, Copenhagen, Denmark 2011
- Liquid Times, Westfälische Kunstverein, Münster, Germany 2009
- Sea faring- route, Artneuland Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2009
- The survival of Architecture, Komplot, Brussels, Belgium 2009
- Umtrieb - Galerie für aktuelle Kunst, Kiel, Germany, 2008
- Cameracartell, Elektrohaus, Hamburg, Germany, 2008
- Smart Project Space, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2008
Selected Screenings
- 6th Cyprus International Film Festival, Nikosia
-Kulturanstalten Vesterbro, Junst 1st, 7.30 PM Copenhagen, Denmark 2011
-Kvarterhuset, Amager, May 24th 7.30 PM Copenhagen, Denmatk 2011
-98videos, 98weeks research and project space, Beirut, Lebanon 2011
-4th Cairo Video Festival Video Art & Experimental films, Medrar for Contemporary Art, Goethe-Institut, Cairo, Egypt 2010
-The Open Secret Film Series #2, at the Green Lantern Gallery, Chicago, USA 2010
- Discursive formations, Café T-Marbouta, Beirut, 2010
- Site Scripts: (Sub)Urban Memory and its Loss, Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam,
Netherlands 2009
- Smart Project Space, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2009
- Still Lives of Walking Cities, BAC, Beirut Arts Center, Beirut, Lebanon 2009
- The Open Office for Words, Rotterdam, Netherlands 2009
- ACAF, Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Alexandria, Egypt 2009
- Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany 2008
- Dowd Gallery, SUNY, Cortland, New York, USA 2008
- Lebanese National Film Festival 7th edition, ..né.à Beyrouth, Beirut, Lebanon 2008
- Lucania Film Festival, Italy 2008
A film by
Lasse Lau
Stories by
Walid Mohanna
Sumayyah Samaha
Vatche Boulghourjian
Ayah Bdeir
Lucien Samaha
Sound Producer
Pejk Malinovski
Music by
Raed El-Khazan
Research:
Christine O'Heron
Camera Assistants:
Elie Karem
Achraf El Saied
Special Thanks to
Catherine Cattaruzza
Maroun Semaan
Fadi S. Shayya
Ali Cherri
Sten Walegren
Sandra Dagher
Ashkal Alwan
Film Lab:
KODAK Cinelabs Lebanon, Beirut
With Support from:
The Danish Arts Council
ESPACE SD