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.

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.

a film by Peter Snowdon,

Belgium/UK, 78 minutes, 2013, documentary, DCP, 16:9, 5.1, Arabic and English spoken, English and French subtitles

directed by Peter Snowdon

written and edited by Bruno Tracq & Peter Snowdon

produced by Bruno Tracq
co-produced by Samm Haillay, Duane Hopkins, Andrew McVicar, Jean-Frédéric de Hasque


Director's statement
THE UPRISING was inspired by the 18 days I spent in early 2011 watching the Egyptian revolution unfold'live' over Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, on a minute-by-minute basis. Beyond the feeling that I was trapped in the wrong place - that I should have been with my friends in Cairo, where I had lived and worked for many years, rather than stuck in a grey anonymous office in northern Europe - I was overwhelmed by the raw energy and emotion which these videos conveyed. Rather than being alienated by the distance between us, I felt myself pummeled by the same wave of energy that was overturning the country and its people's assumptions. These films were not just reportage or witness, but a form of action in their own right.

Following the fall of Mubarak, as I explored more widely the videos that were being produced across the region, I saw how they would often echo one another, as if they were part of an ongoing conversation, in which symbols, actions, slogans and their images became the vectors through which the collective energy circulated and grew stronger. I also discovered in many of them a layer of spontaneous reflection on the act of filming, its power and its limitations, whose sophistication made their dismissal by many intellectuals as merely raw testimony or naive emotionalism difficult to comprehend.
To find the appropriate form for this material took me over two years, during which I not only watched hundreds of hours of YouTube videos, but also shuttled back and forward between Belgium and Egypt, screening work-in-progress prints to friends and strangers who had taken part in the Jan25 revolution, and gauging if not my success, then at least my more obvious failures, against their ability to recognise their own experience in the idiosyncratic mirror that I held up to them. Over this time, the structure of the film evolved radically. Eschewing both chronological history and political analysis, the final version proposes instead the linear narrative of an imaginary revolution that makes free with time and space - in which a stone thrown in a street in Syria may land in a square in Libya, while the call to revolt in Cairo is answered by a crowd in Tunis or in Sana'a.

The Uprising is based, not on a naive belief in the power of spontaneous rebellion to usher in a perfect and just world, but on the incontrovertible evidence that video works. That it communicates an energy that can break down walls of isolation and fear, and transform people's lives. That it can preserve the individual voice without which the largest crowd is worth nothing. And that this call to refuse the humiliation and ridicule that governments heap upon those they govern, and to try and live instead with honour and with dignity, can speak directly not only to the people of these six Arab nations, but to all of us, everywhere.

Peter Snowdon

written by Peter Snowdon and Bruno Tracq
edited by Bruno Tracq and Peter Snowdon
sound design and original music by Olivier Touche
research by Peter Snowdon
additional research by Rasha Sadeq, Aymen Amri, Sara Ishaq and Saraa Saleh
sound mix by Philippe Charbonnel
grading by Olivier Ogneux

auditorium Studio l'Equipe
grading & dcp mastering Cinelab Brussel

produced by Rien à Voir
in association with Third Films

with the support of the Centre du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles et de Voo (TV-Tel-Net)

Screenings
- May 21, 2015 : Collectif Jeune Cinéma, Cinéma la Clef - Paris
with Peter Snowdon

- November 7-14, 2014 : IFF Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
official selection

- October 14-23, 2014 : Muestra Doc de Bogota, Bogota, Colombia
official selection

- September 27, 2014 : Other Cinema, San Francisco (CA), USA
street fightin' program

- September 26-30, 2014 : Kiev IFF, Kiev, Ukraine
'Eastern Maidan through the eyes of Europeans' award

- September 11-21, 2014 : Arkipel Festival, Jakarta, Indonesia
in'electoral risk' section

- September 19, 2014 : Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Berwick-upon-Tweed, UK
with Peter Snowdon

- August 21, 2014 : Etats Généraux du Documentaire de Lussas, Lussas, France
with Peter Snowdon, followed by a talk with Ulrike Lune Riboni

- August 17, 2014 : Dokufest, Prizren, Kosovo
in International Dox section

- June 26-29, 2014 : Edinburgh Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK
in competition

- June 15, 2014 : Forum des Images, Paris, France
mashup festival closing night, followed by a talk with Bruno Tracq and Olivier Touche

- June 12, 2014 : Alwan for the Arts, New-York (NY), USA
followed by a discussion

- June 3-8, 2014 : Distrital Film Festival, Mexico, Mexico
in competition as part of "topografias"

- June 3, 2014 : Ateliers Varan, Paris, France
part of the EHESS seminary "Corps, villes, pouvoirs"

- May 10, 2014 : Other Cinema, San Francisco (CA), USA
west coast theatrical debut

- May 10, 2014 : Museum M, Leuven, Belgium
part of the conference "Performing Protest". Followed by a discussion with Peter Snowdon

- April 12, 2014 : Documentary Film Week, Hamburg, Germany
"Direkt" competition for best political film: in the presence of Peter Snowdon

- April 7, 2014 : Kino Svetozor, Prague, Czech Republic
in Documentary Mondays

- March 27, 2014 : Université Populaire, Brussels
followed by a talk with Bruno Tracq

- March 5, 2014 : The Center for Middle East Studies, New Brunswick (NJ), USA
followed by a Q&A with Peter Snowdon

- March 4, 2014 : Duke University (Nasher Museum), Durham, (NC), USA
hosted by the "Arts of Revolution" programme, Duke Middle East Studies Center

- March 3, 2014 : University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (NC), USA
followed by a Q&A with Peter Snowdon

- February 26, 2014 : Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center, New Orleans (LA), USA
followed by a Q&A with Peter Snowdon

- February 25, 2014 : Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (LA), USA
followed by a Q&A with Peter Snowdon

- February 23, 2014 : Images Cinema, Williamstown (MA), USA
followed by a Q&A with Peter Snowdon

- February 20, 2014 : Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (NY), USA
talk + Q&A with Peter Snowdon and Bruno Tracq

- February 18-19, 2014 : MoMa, New-York (NY), USA
US premiere at the Documentary Fortnight, with Peter Snowdon and Bruno Tracq

- February 14, 2014 : Rits School of Arts, Brussels
in Wouter Hessels's course, with Peter Snowdon

- February 7, 2014 : Cinema Nova, Brussels
in Echoes of Jilhava, followed by a Q&A with Peter Snowdon and Bruno Tracq

- January 30, 2014 : Bozar, Brussels
in erg (école de recherche graphique) annual seminar, followed by a Q&A with Peter Snowdon

- November 25, 27 & 29, 2013 :, Torino Film Festival, Italy
Official Selection, International Documentary

- October 26, 2013 : Jilhava Film Festival, Czech Republic
Winner Best World Documentary Film