Wajd: Songs of Separation (Film Screening and Discussion)

About the Film

Inspired by the traditional sacred music of Syria, filmmaker Amar Chebib travelled to Damascus and Aleppo in 2010. Six months later the revolution began, escalating into a bloody civil war and the largest humanitarian crisis of our time. Touched by the harrowing experiences of the friends he made, Wajd transformed into the stories of three musicians turned refugees.

Over five years, we witness the struggles of Ibrahim, Abdulwahed, and Mohamed as they face their traumatic past. Forced to rebuild their lives in exile, they turn to their love of music to help them find meaning in the aftermath of destruction and atrocity. Intimate footage of their daily lives weaves together with bittersweet musical performances, extremely rare Sufi ceremonies, and poetic imagery of a pre-war Syria that no longer exists. What unfolds is a cinematic meditation on loss, yearning, and faith.

Post-Screening Discussion

We are delighted to be welcoming Professor Jonathan Shannon to Edinburgh for a post-screening discussion of 'Wajd' and experiences it explores with Alwaleed Fellow, Dr Ezgi Guner.

Professor Jonathan Shannon is an anthropologist and ethnomusicologist who specializes in the cultural politics of music and the arts in the Arab world and Mediterranean, with a focus on Syria, Morocco, Spain, and the Syrian diaspora in Turkey and Europe. He is the author of Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria (Wesleyan University Press, 2006), Performing al-Andalus: Music and Nostalgia across the Mediterranean (Indiana University Press, 2015), and a work of fiction, A Wintry Day in Damascus: Syrian Stories (Nawfara Books, 2012). He is professor of anthropology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. Shannon was a recipient of the SSRC’s International Doctoral Research Fellowship between 1993–1994 and 1995–1996.

Dr Ezgi Güner is a Fellow in Contemporary Muslim Societies in a Globalised World, with research interests in race, religion, empire and global capitalism across the Middle East and Africa south of the Sahara.Before coming to Edinburgh, Ezgi was a visiting fellow in the Anthropology Department at Harvard University and an Ernst Mach fellow in the Centre for Southeast European Studies at University of Graz. She taught critical race theory in the Department of Sociology at Boğaziçi University and the Association for Migration Research in Istanbul. Her articles are published in POMEPS Studies, MERIP, and Religions.