LIGHT UPON LIGHT

2022 | 78 min | VOSTA

Country of origin of director : Denmark
Countries of production : Egypt, Denmark
Country of recording : Egypt

SYNOPSIS :

A fieldtrip into the mystical traditions of Islam exploring people’s search for light at a time of darkness and political tension in post revolutionary Egypt. * * * Sonia sees light streaming into her heart from a person’s finger. Aya is lifted into a luminous space in the midst of a ritual. Maher travels to the shrine of a holy man to find out if the light and love that people are referring to is real. Meanwhile the film crew, Muhammad, Amira, and Christian tries to find out how they can film these experiences of light and how there can be so much light and darkness in this world and inside themselves. Light Upon Light is the first film in a planned trilogy with the Cairo-based film collective Hassala Films.

Selected at CPH : DOX (2022) and Cairo International Film Festival (2022).

BIOGRAPHY : 

Christian Suhr is a filmmaker and professor at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark. During fieldwork in Egypt, Denmark and Papua New Guinea, he has explored experiences of spirit possession, psychiatric illnesses, religious healing, and how film can be used to approach unseen dimensions of human life. He is the author and director of the award-winning film and book Descending with Angels about possession, psychiatry, and Islamic exorcism.