The routines of two women fuse together as their similar gestures get repeated over time. Their hands intersect through their shared memory one movement at a time. The daily routine of Hayat in her absolute loneliness builds as she tries to recollect memories of her grandmother. We observe both their lives separately, the gestures of both women seem to be in an ongoing, subtle dialogue. The rhythm of the events slowly forms itself as their days go by. Eventually, the bond between them unravels the motherly love that unites them.

Director Biography - Dhiaa Biya

Dhiaa is a Moroccan photographer and filmmaker based in Brussels. After obtaining her bachelor's in image techniques at L’Institut supérieur des métiers de l’audiovisuel et du Cinema in Rabat, she pursued her master's in filmmaking at LUCA school of Arts.

In her work, Dhiaa is inspired by the normality of day-to-day life and the underlying beauty of human (inter)actions. These simple stories are what make the subject of her works. She enjoys telling stories within a precise lens and concise framing and composition.

To make anything at all, Dhiaa relays on visual materials, poetry, and a lot of observation.

Director's Statement:

I find repetition to be very comforting. I am constantly looking for the

smallest gestures that get repeated enough to be familiar to the eye and

mind. I believe that if one looks long enough, those little acts get more

interesting, more complex and therefore more valuable on many levels.

In my remembrance, the gestures of my grandmother shaped a lot of my

own reflexes. Through my childhood until now, she kept the same rituals that

I observed time and time again. I never knew how sensitive I was to it until

recently. Now that I’m away, I can see her in what I do: in the hands that she

gave me and in the manners I unintentionally follow. When I look back, the

images engraved in my head are those of her hands by my side, above my

head or holding my own.

It is fascinating how transmissible and tangible something as delicate as

gestures is. Through generations, hands can keep track of actions and

reactions, hold meanings and symbolises the continuity of a family history.

By pointing my camera at these little details, I want to emphasize on the

poetry that I see in this simple theme.

In this film, I will work on the parallelism of two women and their daily

gestures. The ongoing similarities lead to the link that bonds them and the

love that they have for each other as grandmother and granddaughter.

While their hands are the main character and idea of my film, I want to also

implement elements of loneliness, repetitive routines and longing for the

past. Through the characters and within the chosen spaces, I will keep a

certain void-both within and around them, to feel the solitude and pair it with the ongoing

nostalgia. Those simple universal feelings will remain in the background and not overtake the film. I want to keep the focus on the hands in function of what they do,

how they feel and the things they touch, and the smallest details of their normal, usual movement.

Through this film I desire to archive the patterns of the hands I grew up

seeing. It’s a way to gather the memories I have and reshape them in the

most honest way possible. In a personal yet “made-up” environment, I want

to give the images I have of these moments a concrete medium to be

potentially understood. To do so, I intend to work with a strong visual

trajectory. The images will unfold little by little in a steady rhythm. The

actions, sewed together by their parallelism, will be tightly framed and

constructed in an almost metaphorical way. And yet, the movements will be

natural enough to not be a choreography. I want to put together the

uncertainty of the moment-memory, and the structure of my visual style. It is

also important to me as a maker of this work to explore the emotion behind it

and implement the nostalgia- and every other feeling I have in me for that

matter- in every step of my decision making.

The idea of this film lives in me for a while now. It is a an emotional state I

experience daily while longing for times and spaces that I’ve lived in and

through. Holding onto it all means a lot to me and to my work. And as a

person who enjoys telling stories, I want to share those unexplainable

feelings through this film, hoping it’d resonate with the receiver at

the other end.