Sara grew up in Yemen to a Yemeni father and a Scottish mother, and at age 17, finally decided to move to Scotland.
Ten years later – 2011 – Sara returns to Yemen as a different person, geared up to face the home of her past and reconnect with her long-severed roots. But against all personal expectations, she returns to find her family and country teetering on the brink of a revolution.
SARA ISHAQ is an award-winning Yemeni-Scottish documentary filmmaker.
Her debut short documentary film “Karama Has No Walls” was nominated for an Academy Award in 2014, BAFTA New Talent Award 2013, and screened internationally, winning several awards including Aljazeera Film Festival Award for Short Doc.
"It is such a good beginning of the film. A family gathered around food, eating, discussing, among other matters the usual one, you think, about man/woman, boy/girl in a society with pretty conservative traditions, seen from our part of the world. They have fun, laugh, close-up on faces, children, youngsters, father, grandfather. They are all in a big house with a garden to which the daughter Sara has come back after having grown up in Scotland with her mother. She has a camera in hand [...] Actually you, with this opening, tend to think that you are about to watch a Yemenite version of a Marcel Pagnol film.
But you are not. You are told that a family member is in prison for treason, and you are slowly, parallel to the development and characterisation of the main characters, aware that something is going to happen outside the house in the streets of Saan’a, where demonstrations against the dictatorship take place, it is maybe a revolution."
Tue Steen Müller @ Filmkommentaren.dk
" ... Though she includes power cuts, street shooting and the sound of fighter jets overhead, Ishaq isn’t simply making a film about Yemen’s unrest but rather one family’s response to a nation in rebellion. It’s far more about negotiating her place between two worlds and her engagement with her family than a document of the protest movement, and as such reinforces the feminist refrain “The personal is political.” Yet “The Mulberry House” does so with a gentle touch, conveying a sense of familial warmth without piling on the emotion... "
Jay Weissberg @ Variety
"There have been several documentaries about the Arab spring from various country perspectives [...] but they have tended to focus on a 'firebrand' point of view. Ishaq's film is more firmly rooted in the every day. Even during a powercut with gunfire ringing out, she captures the fact that one of the young girls in the household is chiefly concerned about whether the electric will be restored before her favourite TV soap comes on in the morning."
Amber Wilkinson @ Eye for Film
no screenings
Festivals and commissioning editors are welcome to request a screener for evaluation.
Sara grew up in Yemen to a Yemeni father and a Scottish mother, and at age 17, finally decided to move to Scotland.
Ten years later – 2011 – Sara returns to Yemen as a different person, geared up to face the home of her past and reconnect with her long-severed roots. But against all personal expectations, she returns to find her family and country teetering on the brink of a revolution.
Questions & Answers with Sara Ishaq
Interview by Nader Alsarras for Qantara.de
Ishaq has assembled a film that manages to balance both humour and pain, and that makes for a very personal and raw exploration on family and politics, and how the two collide. http://www.theupcoming.co.uk/2014/03/30/human-rights-watch-film-festival-2014-the-mulberry-house/
"Throughout filming, I was able to trace shifts in perspectives and attitudes, particularly in my father, who embodied Yemen’s transformation, often expressing himself and playing the devil’s (and thus ‘my’) advocate, and my grandfather, who embodied Yemen’s unyielding traditionalism in an attempt to maintain the peace. The camera documented the gradual shift of an apolitical, conservative family into a politicised, non-conformist one; the strong personalities and controversial opinions emerging before my lens mirrored the complex and often conflicting nature of Yemeni society"
http://www.barakabits.com/
Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Founder of Setara Films, Yemen/Scotland
Award-winning independent documentary filmmaker. Co-founder of Proaction Film, Syria and No Nation Films, Germany
Independent filmmaker. Co-founder of Seen Films, Egypt
Film editor, Egypt
Film editor, Denmark (image via twitter.com/villadsenanders)
Documentary filmmaker and programme director of Film & TV at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Musician, (Oudist), Yemen
for Freezone, Denmark (photo via freezone.dk)
The Mulberry House will have it's Spanish theatrical premiere next week. It will be screened in multiple cities across the country.
For more information visit the distributor's website or click here: NP_La Casa de La Morera_CAST
As part of the Goethe Film Week The Mulberry House will be screened on September 20th, 8pm in Cairo.
More information here
We are happy to announce that The Mulberry House received a Special Jury Mention at DocsBarcelona+Medellín International Documentary Film Festival 2015!
"The four members of the Jury were unanimous in their choice, and the mention was given to the movie for "the risky way that it describes the contradictions of Yemeni society."" www.docsbarcelonamedellin.com
The Mulberry House will be screened at DocsBarcelona + Medellín in between 23rd and 30th of July 2015.
For more information please visit http://docsbarcelonamedellin.com/
Last week The Mulberry House was screened as part of the Barbican’s I/Eye in Conflict series, which aims to bring “the insider’s perspective from recent wars, revolutions, uprisings, and occupations in the Middle East, giving access to these experiences as they unfold.”
The series was created due to the organisers’ belief that “First person accounts of momentous events of our time are precious”, a statement that rings especially true for The Mulberry House, which paints an intimate portrait of the filmmaker Sara Ishaq’s family as the events of 2011 explode around them.
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