From the film-maker:

Ameena is a story of a little Palestinian girl who wants to dance. Ballet dancers drawn by Edgar Degas are the painting that inspires my story. I am touched by the colors and the content of the painting. I am very interested in Degas’ representation of the out of the ordinary and irregular human moments using a very stylized abstract impressionist techniques using unusual brush strokes. The painting is representing a ballet dancer who chooses to have her human moment in the middle of what seems to be a ballet dance. The Ballet dancer is fixing her Shoe, which is very important to the dance. She is doing that while everybody is busy dancing and busy following a system. It is the ballet dancing system.

That ballet dancer reminds me of the Palestinian little girl who is trying to dance but because of the system that she is surrounded by she chooses to dance somewhere else. She decides to go away from the system where she can express herself without the judgment of others. The story tends to illustrate the contrast between ballet dancers whose environment allows her to have her own monument to fix her shoe. Where as the Palestinian girls can’t dance because of the cultural, political as well as the religious aspects. That leads Ameena to choose to dance in the dark. Ameena is an Arabic name. It is an adjective that describes some one who is loyal. Ameena is the little girl who is loyal to her family’s rules and practice. She decides to break from her loyalty in the dark when everyone is a sleep including her little sister who she prohibited from dancing in public.

Fatma Almoghunni

A piece inspired by Degas, Ballet Dancers,about 1890-1900