Mark Boulos
Artist Mark Boulos works with documentary film to investigate the
relationship between ideas, ideology and materiality.
Mark Boulos writes;
"I have just graduated from the National Film and Television School
with a MA in Documentary Direction, where I directed and produced five
films over the past two years. Before NFTS, I lived in New York City,
where I was a field worker and interviewer in the child welfare and
criminal justice systems. During that time, I studied in Third World
Newsreel's work shop, through which I produced and directed two
shorts, and was also a member of the activist collective, Paper Tiger
Televison, with whom I collaborated on two documentaries about
American involvement in Middle East Politics. Before that, I worked in
independent feature film development and production for two years, and
was the assistant to documentary director Errol Morris, my first job
after graduating from college. I came to Errol after having studied
philosophy at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and Deep Springs
College in California. I was born and raised in Boston, USA by
Syrian-Lebanese and Swiss parents. I now live and work in London."
Jerusalem, a three minute film from 2004, was shortlisted for Beck's
Futures Student Award in Film and Video, screened at ICA, London and
broadcast on Channel 4. The film begins with Moslem cleric, Abu Hamza,
preaching in north London followed by a belly dancer girating to the
anthem of the Women's Institute while Wiliam Blake's poem is orated in
Arabic.
In The Gates of Damascus, 2005, Myrna Nazzour, a Syrian housewife and
mother, claims to bear the stigmata wounds of Christ's crucifixion, as
well as having ecstatic visions of Jesus and Mary. The film follows
her re-enactment of the Passion story. During the Easter weekend, her
body becomes a display and her home turns into a holy place. Every
year large numbers of pilgrims, doctors and journalists go to her
house to witness the miracle, and listen to Myrna's revelations.
The Word Was God, 2006, puzzlingly juxtaposes an interview with an
elderly hermit in Syria, who laments the passing of his way of life
and his children's desire for the trappings of modern life, with
images of the effusive congregation of a Pentecostal church in London.
One rapturous woman sits on the floor, between pews, rocking and
nodding, bracing herself as if about to give birth while belting out a
prayer.
