Letters from a land unfamiliar
By Malaz Usta
synopsis
Upon returning from a visit to his exiled family in Istanbul, Malaz immerses himself in the images and diary entries he gathered. While trying to understand the challenges his family faces, his own sense of alienation makes unclear the line between his mundane everyday life, the footage, and the world he’s trying to build. This entanglement of past, present, and imagined reality creates an evocative reflection on the experience of displacement.
biography
Malaz Usta is a filmmaker, a designer and a visual artist, working with film, graphics, animation, poetry, editing, and sound. He was born in Damascus, Syria. He studied TV, and Cinema in Istanbul, and he obtained his Master’s of Film degree at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam. His works deal with different issues of displacement, and ideas of belonging, identity, home, and absurdity. His works have been screened and won awards at major film festivals such as IFFR, Ji.hlava international Documentary Film Festival, Istanbul International Film Festival among others.