Writer
“It’s not my memory of it” is a documentary about secrecy, memory, and documents. A
former CIA source recounts his disappearance through shredded classified documents that
were painstakingly reassembled by radical fundamentalist students in Iran in 1979 following
the takeover of the U.S embassy. A CIA film—recorded in 1974 but unacknowledged until
1992—documents the burial at sea of six Soviet sailors, in a ceremony which collapses Cold
War antagonisms in a moment of death and honor. A single photograph pertaining to a
publicly acknowledged but top secret U.S. missile strike in Yemen in 2002 is the source of a
reflection on the role of images in the dynamic of knowing and not knowing.
Director
“It’s not my memory of it” is a documentary about secrecy, memory, and documents. A
former CIA source recounts his disappearance through shredded classified documents that
were painstakingly reassembled by radical fundamentalist students in Iran in 1979 following
the takeover of the U.S embassy. A CIA film—recorded in 1974 but unacknowledged until
1992—documents the burial at sea of six Soviet sailors, in a ceremony which collapses Cold
War antagonisms in a moment of death and honor. A single photograph pertaining to a
publicly acknowledged but top secret U.S. missile strike in Yemen in 2002 is the source of a
reflection on the role of images in the dynamic of knowing and not knowing.
Co-Producer
A guy and a girl play copycat with each other from opposite sides of the street.
Director
In 1966, the Syrian government's Ministry of Endowments solicited plans for a building to replace a 14th-century Mamluk mosque in Martyr's Square in the center of Damascus. A young architect proposed a design for a 5-star hotel and new mosque. In 1971, his plans were scrapped. In 1982, a building began to be built. Hospital? Parking garage? Military housing? The project--now called the Basel al-Asad Center--has been the subject of much rumor and speculation. As of 2007, the building remains unfinished. In this documentary video, an architect recounts the chronicle of the building and considers its possible future.
