Diasporic Futures, Queer Presents and The Cinematic Body with Careen Koleilat and Amra Heco

This episode is in english. Scroll down for tips and links.

In this recorded talk, filmmaker Careen Koleilat reflects on over a sixteen years of their creative practice spanning from 2008 to present. Moderated by Amra Heco, the conversation navigates the layered intersections of Careen’s identity as a trans, Arab diasporic artist and how this informs their filmmaking, research, and experience within institutional structures.

The dialogue moves through themes of family, diasporic memory, displacement, and narrative form, centering a filmmaking approach that resists linearity and embraces fragmentation, embodiment, and sound. The screening program was curated by Anna Linder and included a selection of Careen’s works from the past ten years, offering a wide lens into the evolution of their artistic language.

The event was held in solidarity with Lebanon and Palestine, with donations collected throughout the evening to support grassroots relief efforts. Below you will find more about how you can help!

The conversation with Careen Koleilat and Amra Heco followed our
16th edition of Nightfall – Queer Talks & Screenings – Careen Koleilat.
You can read more about Careens films on the event site above.

Film Program for the Nightfall event November 21th 2024:

In Search – البحث
(2023, 3:22 min)
An essay film exploring archives, colonial erasure, and Careen’s search for personal history.

Carpet Session (2023, 3:56 min)
A fictional therapy session unfolding through a Persian carpet—about displacement, belonging, and memory.

The East Rises (2024, 2:50 min)
A visual poem exploring decolonial thought, language, and ancestral movement.

Deduction 2.0 (Work in Progress, 2:23 min)
A speculative essay film examining the use of AI and surveillance at Palestinian checkpoints.

Water Earth Wind Fire (2014, 7:20 min)
A dance and fashion film exploring the element of life through a versatile jacket.

From Where to Where – من وین لوین  
(2023, 19:23 min)
A narrative short examining border control and bureaucratic power through a fabulatory lens.

Lost Arab (2022, 4:49 min)
A visual poetry film adapted from a collection of poetry by Omar Saker “The Lost  Arabs” on queer Arab identity, migration, and gender.

Total Length ca 45 min

(Short Break)

20:00 – conversation between Careen Koleilat and Amra Heco.

Nightfall is a night of queer talks and screenings. Inviting artists to share and talk about their work and their process. Nightfall is both a showcase for finished work and a queer peer review for work in progress.

Careen Koleilat (@careenkoleilat) is a Lebanese-Palestinian trans/non-binary filmmaker, academic, and creative entrepreneur. With 17 years of global experience, their work challenges narrative structures and explores diasporic storytelling, often bridging the gap between filmmaker and audience through conversation labs, sensory and sound-driven approaches. Educated in Beirut, London, and Gothenburg, Careen co-founded Blue Fox Studios, a queer-led post-production company with roots in London and Dubai. Their practice transforms the screen into a site of dialogue, inviting audiences into immersive, layered experiences that echo with both distance and closeness.

Amra Heco is a filmmaker, radio producer, and human rights activist currently teaching film at HDK-Valand. Her artistic practice explores personal memory and its connections to sites of trauma marked by the erasure of people, cultures, and natural landscapes. Oscillating between storytelling and story-making, she employs diverse technologies to create a process that becomes an act of reconciliation, recollection, and reconnection with fragmented geographic or mental memories. Through intuitive engagement with these spaces and different forms of listening to what calls to be uncovered and addressed, each process gives birth to its own methodology of practice. Each piece thus emerges as a gesture of offering, envisioning new pathways toward a collective imaginary

You can still help and support:

SUPPORT NIGHT FOR PALESTINE AND LEBANON!!!

The situation in Gaza and Lebanon is urgent, and many people need immediate help. You can support by swishing the Palestinian groups emergency fundraiser for Gaza on 1239011578 or swishing (via Careen) a local grassroots movement in Beirut on 0703115969. SAQMI will during the evening donate all income directly to the fundraisers. IF you cannot attend, you can still help by swishing these numbers. Feel free to write SAQMI Koleilat. Thanks in advance!

Credits SAQMI Play:
Producer: Anna Linder
Design and code: Vincent Orback
Composer: Amanda Lindgren
Recorded and edited by Matilda Friman
Mixed by Matilda Friman and Careen Koleilat
Host: Amra Heco
Original: Nightfall #16, at SAQMI space Frigga, Gothenburg.
Publisher: Anna Linder

SAQMI Play is produced with support from City of Gothenburg.