The Aleppo Room
"The Aleppo Room" takes place in Berlin, Germany and focuses on a group of museum guides who have been displaced by the ravages of war. The three Syrian women and one Iraqi man featured in the film are part of an organization called "Multaka", which provides Arabic-language museum tours free of charge to recently arrived refugees.
For this short film, each of the guides narrates a poetic meditation on an art object with which they are well-acquainted from their experience as guides. The Aleppo Room is one such object: an entrance room conserved in the Museum of Islamic Art that is composed of painted wooden panels with motifs from Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This interior was commissioned by a fourteenth-century Christian broker who resided in Aleppo, Syria. As we follow each guide through the film, we learn how their relationship to these art objects is echoed in their own situation of making a new home in a foreign country.
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Viktor WitkowskiDirectorRefuge (2016)
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Self-ProducedProducer
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Zoya MasoudKey Cast
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Hussam Zahim MohammedKey Cast
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Rita AlbahriKey Cast
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Salma JreigeKey Cast
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LJ KruzerMusic
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Project Type:Documentary, Experimental, Short
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Genres:History, War, Art, Refugees
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Runtime:14 minutes 30 seconds
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Completion Date:August 30, 2017
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Production Budget:5,000 USD
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:Germany
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Language:Arabic, English, German
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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Lisbon Film RendezvousLisbon
Portugal
October 4, 2019
Portuguese Premiere
Official Selection -
Spartanburg Art MuseumSpartanburg
United States
August 15, 2019
South Carolina Premiere -
Ethnografilm Paris 2019Paris
France
April 18, 2019
French Premiere
Official Selection -
2018 Amarcord Arthouse Film and Video FestChicago
United States
Official Selection -
Pergamon MuseumBerlin
Germany
January 24, 2018
European Premiere -
Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition, York Art GalleryYork
United Kingdom
May 18, 2018
UK Premiere -
The MespiesMinneapolis
United States
March 24, 2018
North American Premiere
Born in Poland, Viktor Witkowski is a visual artist and filmmaker who lives and works in Vermont (USA) and Leipzig (Germany).
Viktor earned a Master's Degree in Art Education, Art History and Studio Art from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig (HBK Braunschweig, Germany) in 2006 and a MFA in Visual Arts from Rutgers University in 2010.
"The Aleppo Room" is Viktor Witkowski's second experimental short film.