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The Canadian/Lebanese video maker Jayce Salloum continues to achieve surprising results by re-using 'found material'. Rearrangement and re-editing of diverse television images in his montage produce powerful political statements. In his most recent productions, Salloum concentrates increasingly on the Middle East problem, particularly the idiosyncratic and often downright hostile Western view of the Arab world. 'Once you've shot the gun, you can't stop the bullet' (1988, shown at the WWVF 1989) already contained a foretaste of the exhausting collage which 'Mugaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the end of an argument)' would later offer. Salloum made this production, subtitled 'Speaking for oneself, speaking for others' together with the Palestinian film maker Elia Suleiman. 'Introduction ...' was seen in September 1990 at the World Wide Video Festival but was only discovered by a wider public at a showing some months later at the Rotterdam Film Festival. The changed political circumstances (the Gulf War had already made a violent start) played an important role in this. The media took a sudden interest in the Arab view of the situation and Salloum was a much invited speaker. Whether this was a passing interest or not will be seen from the presentation of Salloum's new documentary project 'Articles of faith'. For a six month period starting at the end of January, Salloum collects video letters from various ethnic and religious groups in Lebanon, from Hizbollah to Druze and from Baath to Greek Orthodox. The aim is not so much to describe the history of the Lebanese conflict, but more to illustrate the rich cultural background of this much plagued area. Salloum: ''I plan to focus on the issues involved in the depiction of an evolving culture, an ancient culture, a culture in contention with itself and in contention with the images and realities inflicted by conflicting forces.'' The first 'Articles of faith' (2 x 20 minutes) can be seen at the World Wide Video Festival, if everything works out as planned, because: ''Communications here are erratic to say the least, there is a fax shop down the street.'' But Salloum feels confident: ''...arrived safely, the project(s) have already started to move along at an amazing pace. We are meeting with a broad range of people and Beirut itself is incredibly energetic and diverse, full of transformations of the wildest conjunctions of traditional and contemporary influences.''
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André Nientied
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