Basil is a documentary filmmaker whose films focus on diaspora, Syria, film archives, and the history and present of various liberation struggles.
Introducing a real labor of love and pain, a popular cut of my fourth documentary short “Nondesertion.”
Also showcasing my previous films, “Detroit, the Intersection,” “For All Of Us” and “Blurred Canvases”
Nondesertion
Introducing a real labor of love and pain, a popular cut of my fourth documentary short “Nondesertion.” The film is a meditative collage poem on shattering revolutionary dreams, shrinking horizons, and displacement in Syria. It’s a love letter to the memory of censored images, lost images, and poor images: weapons in the arsenal of any revolutionary. Along with the film is an interview I conducted with a personal hero, Hala Alabdullah, whose first film “I Am the One Who Brings the Flowers to Her Grave” introduces and bookends Nondesertion. Hala’s work, along with her peer and mentor, the giant of Arab documentary cinema Omar Amiralay, serves as a personal inspiration on the level of form, politics, and poetics.
For All of Us
FOR ALL OF US documents the activities of the Earth Day 2020 team at the University of Michigan. In particular, the film examines the relationship between student organizers and the University, and their different priorities behind celebrating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. FOR ALL OF US poses questions about the framework of Environmental Justice, and the limitations of white-centric brands of "environmentalism." At the same time, the film celebrates the labor and love at the heart of student organizers' work, who are constantly pushing their own understandings of how to fight for a more just world from the confines of the University.
Detroit, the Intersection
DETROIT, THE INTERSECTION is a documentary short film that examines Black and Arab solidarity in the city of Detroit. The film places Detroit's history in visual dialogue with its present through a set of Zoom interviews with activists and organizers across generations, as well as archival footage and present-day protest footage. As a work of collaboration and coalition-building, DETROIT, THE INTERSECTION invites audience members to think through complicated questions about identity politics, systematic racism, colonial legacies, and global anti-Blackness as they play out across Metro-Detroit.
Blurred Canvases
"Blurred Canvases" is a short film documentary directed by Colin Lucero-Dixon and Basil AlSubee about displaced students at the University of Michigan. Through interviews conducted with Israa Ali, Dim Mang, and Emilio Gutierrez, the film explores the diverse life experiences and emotional baggages associated with leaving one's hometown in search of a safe life in the US.