The Pit - A Witness Tale

Aisha Nasser (name changed for privacy) was twelve years old when she saw her neighbor disappear into an open sinkhole on a dusty street in front of her aunt's house in her Palestinian village within the borders of Israel.

This film's starting point is a real story from legal transcripts. At first glance, it appears to be a minor case of little significance, shrouded in dry courtroom jargon. A closer look reveals layers of gender issues, psychography, malingering, and surveillance.

The Pit - A Witness Tale seeks to illuminate the unfathomable phenomenon of disappearance. How might mental disappearance function as a possible way out of an impossible situation, whether intentional or not? And how might the architecture of disappearance be manifested through a film?

Mrs. M fell into an open sewer hole while holding her two-year-old daughter. Although she was not physically injured, she developed severe psychological problems, while the village council argued that she was an impostor. There was only one eyewitness to Mrs. M's fall: a young neighbor named Aisha Nasser.

Years later, far from her village and childhood, living in a rented flat in the city of Haifa, Aisha receives her own forgotten testimony, which compels her to investigate and uncover this pit. In the film, Aisha's visual memory is reconstructed and superimposed on her present through audio-visual, archive footage, video compositing, animation, and rear projection.

What remains hidden? Who has disappeared? What does it mean to be a witness to an event? 

To see The Pit, one must have safe ground beneath one's feet. But it has vanished. This story suggestsively echoes in our own time, when communication and access have become impossible, and voices echo through a screen.

Visual Abstract Artistic Research: