original title:
The Little Lantern
directed by:
editing:
producer:
production:
Mario Rizzi, supported by Ministero della Cultura
country:
Italy
year:
2019
film run:
61'
format:
colour
status:
Ready (27/09/2019)
The last movie of a trilogy portraying three women from Syria, Tunisia and Lebanon, The Little Lantern tells the story of Anni Høver Kanafani, a 85-year-old Danish woman, who moved to Lebanon in the 1960s for the love of the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. Following the death of her husband, Anni Kanafani pursued his dream of justice and integration, continuing to live and work in Palestinian camps, creating kindergartens dedicated to education and childcare. The film is titled after a fairy tale Ghassan Kanafani had written for his niece Lamis, a metaphorical narration of the development of a bottom-up democracy, envisioning a “Palestinian spring” that will break the barriers of refugee camps and overcome indifference through non-violence, dialogue, and culture. The narrative frame of the film consists of a laboratory, conceived and coordinated by the artist, in the kindergarten created by Anni Kanafani in the Burj el Barajneh refugee camp, which ended with the staging of the theatrical adaptation of the Ghassan Kanafani’s fairy tale – an adaptation by the artist himself – in two theaters in Beirut. The documentary style and that of the fictional story alternate as do the two narrative times, that of a painful past and a present where this pain finds its meaning.