The film is directed by Majid Al-Romaihi (Doha Film Institute).
The Qatari film “Then They Burn the Sea” by Majid Al-Rumaihi qualified for the Oscar race, becoming the first Qatari film to be nominated for these international awards. The short documentary has been produced before Doha Film Institute.
The film is a poetic visual treatise on love and loss, as experienced by the film-maker through his mother’s gradual loss of her memory. It is the first Qatari film to be shown in festival Locarno Film Festival 2021. It also won the Best Short Film Award at the Vienna Short Film Festival and the Silver Tanit at the Carthage Film Festival, and was shortlisted for the IDA Documentary Awards.
Al-Rumaihi said: “Seven years ago, I began to feel a great gulf between my mother and me, as she was suffering from a disease Alzheimer’s Which made her lose her sense of existence. At 19, there was no definite way for me to live with this continuous and gradual loss, what you stole from me, and what you continue to steal from the future and the past that can’t be recovered. But cinema, and this film in particular, helped me to collect the ambiguous narratives and endless dialogues as a result of my need for signs of mourning and healing.”
He added, “I feel proud that my mother’s love letter is so appreciated because it is an important and essential part of my life, and it honors the many contributions of the trained experts and collaborators who have contributed to the completion of this work.”
Al-Rumaihi will attend the screening of the film as part of the “Competitors in Short Films” program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on November 14, 2022.
Al-Rumaihi left his film studies at Middlebury College in his final year to take care of his mother, and was trained and mentored by Oscar-nominated Cambodian filmmaker Reethi Pan.