Don't Get Too Comfortable (لا تاخذ راحتك)
Ajyal Competition, Made in Qatar, Ajyal at Vox, Ajyal at Katara
Shaima Tamimi / Short Documentary / Yemen, United States of America, Netherlands, Qatar, United Arab Emirates / 2021 / 9 min / Colour / DCP
In Arabic, English, Swahili / Arabic subtitles
Interests: Documentary, Immigration, Family, Identity
Middle East Premiere
Synopsis
Nominated for an Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film at this year’s Venice Film Festival, ‘Don’t Get Too Comfortable’ is a heartfelt, introspective letter to the filmmaker’s deceased grandfather. The letter questions the continuous pattern of movement amongst Yemenis in diaspora. The film fuses archival photographs, sourced footage, parallax animation, and abstract videos to create an audio-visual body of work that calls attention to the collective feeling of statelessness and sense of being felt by Yemeni (or non-Yemeni) migrants.
About the Directors
Shaima Al-Tamimi is a Yemeni-East African visual storyteller based in the GCC. Her work explores migration, identity, and culinary culture through introspection and a deeply-rooted documentary approach. Using photography, film, audio and writing as mediums, she merges historical and family archives with present-day portraits and visuals to create vivid narratives. Challenging mainstream and linear notions of identity, her work offers unique perspectives into the lives of her subjects and calls for a more nuanced understanding of native experiences. Previous projects include the 2020 global “Prints for Yemen” fundraiser and ‘Voices from the Urbanscape’ (2017). Her work has been featured in Gulf Photo Plus, Art 29, JDEED Magazine, Khaleejesque Magazine, CNN, and Doha News.
Credits
- Director
- Shaima Tamimi
- Producer
- Mayar Hamdan
- Editor
- Mayar Hamdan
- Sound
- Falah Hannoun
- Mixing
- Nadim Maalouf
- Cast
- Shaima Al Tamimi, Saleh Al Tamimi, Ramla Al Tamimi, Sanaa, Iman, Mohammed, Sultan Al Tamimi