"The Children of Saba'a": Blurring the Lines Between Yemen’s Nostalgic Past, Dystopian Present and Imagined Future(s)

March 19th, 2019, marked the four-year anniversary of the war in Yemen. Throughout this time, the United States has positioned itself at the core of what is considered to be today’s worst humanitarian crisis, and is actively participating in the erasure of one of the world’s oldest civilizations. This presentation addresses my current project, “The Children of Saba’a,” an experimental film that probes historical erasure and cultural preservation in the context of both the crisis in Yemen and its diaspora.

By activating a futurist narrative anchored by interjections of real accounts, the film presents an alternative space which addresses painful political histories while simultaneously inventing different horizons for existence. The main narrator, a spider, presents a cartography of times by weaving together the stories of Queen Belquis, the Queen of Sheba; a young man in a cave; a migrant merchant who recently escaped the war and now lives in Dearborn, Michigan; a Hijabi Fashionista based in Brooklyn, New York; a Yemeni musician in Jerusalem; and a dragon blood tree rooted in the island of Socotra.

Engaging various forms of narratives including, oral, still photography, sound, documentary footage, archival footage and animation to explore contemporary issues within a different context of a radical new space, this project blurs the lines between the nostalgic past, the dystopian realities of the present and the possibilities of a radically imagined future, in worlds where solutions are met for Yemenis, on our terms.