Christine Gedeon - A Portrait of Michel
Sat, Apr 19
|Millennium Film Workshop
Time & Location
Apr 19, 2025, 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM
Millennium Film Workshop, 167 Wilson Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11237, USA
Guests
About the event
On Saturday, April 19, Millennium Film Workshop's Personal Cinema series presents A Portrait of Michel by Christine Gedeon. (Gallery Opening 6:30, film 8:00 PM)
“A Portrait of Michel” is an investigative video portrait of my Uncle Michel and the circumstances surrounding his mysterious abduction by the Hafez al-Assad regime in Damascus in 1978. After studying medicine in Toulouse and returning briefly to Syria, regime members abducted him off the streets. They gave no information, including the reason for his abduction, but through witnesses and bribery, we found out he was sent to three different prisons: Mezzeh, Sednaya, and Palmyra. Michel was never seen or heard from since.
My cousins in Beirut had recently found a pouch that belonged to Michel filled with some of his objects, documents, and random papers. This is all that remains of his belongings. In creating this portrait, I took photographs of these "Objects of Evidence,” and interviewed family…