The Uprising shows us the Arab revolutions from the inside. It is a multi-camera, first-person account of that fragile, irreplaceable moment when life ceases to be a prison, and everything becomes possible again.
'Eastern Maidan through the eyes of Europeans' award, Kiev IFF, Ukraine, 2014
Special mention, international competition, Forum Doc Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2014
First prize, Streams European Online Film Festival, 2014
This feature-length documentary is composed entirely of videos made by citizens and long-term residents of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen. The film uses this footage, not to recount the actual chronology of events or analyse their causes, but to create an imaginary pan-Arab uprising that exists (for the moment) only on the screen.
The Uprising was made in even closer collaboration than usual with Bruno Tracq, and the sound design and music are by Olivier Touche. This is the seventh time I have worked with Bruno, and the fifth time I have worked with Olivier.
Since its début at the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, The Uprising has been screened at more than 20 international film festivals, including Turin, Edinburgh, and the Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight, as well as in countless other contexts (art museums, university campuses, squats, squares...). Continuing interest in the film today testifies, I believe, to the fact that the events of 2011-12, and the images they generated, belong as much to the future, as they do to the past.
I have collected some of the interviews I gave when the film was released, and some of the things people have written about the film since, here.
A film by Peter Snowdon, written and edited by Bruno Tracq & Peter Snowdon
produced by Rien à Voir in association with Third Films
Belgium/UK, 78 minutes, 2013, DCP, 16:9, 5.1
Arabic and English spoken, English and French subtitles
To view the film online, go to: theuprising.be.
Bonus track: It’s a ghost town.