We all know the world is in a very dark place right now. In the last two weeks alone, we heard that the U.S. was considering cutting arts funding to fund their border wall, the U.K. will trigger Article 50 to begin the start of Brexit negotiations, and that the Syrian Civil war, which has triggered the biggest refugee crisis since WWII, began six years ago earlier this month.
All of these issues are, in some way, related to walls and the boundaries they create. The above short film, titled WALLS, explores our relationship with walls — both physical and those that exist in our minds.
The film follows three men — Aram R Sabbah, Hamisi Mwangume, and Lovre Krnčević — as they each discuss the barriers they have encountered in their lives. As Krnčević heartbreakingly explains, “they say sky’s the limit, but my limits somewhere down here."
As the film progresses, each story reaches a climatic point with all three men in some way overcoming their barriers. The emotional video is soundtracked by French producer Phazz and directed by Maik Schuster, Fatmir Dolci, Max Paschke, part of a collective of filmmakers called I AM HERE.
Producing the film broke down barriers in its own way too, people from Germany, Palestine, Croatia, France, Ghana and Israel came together to make this work.
Schuster spoke to Highsnobiety over email and told us the idea for the short film came from a trip to Palestine in 2015. There, he “started to think about walls in general as they give shelter in everyday’s life and divide people worldwide at the same time.”
Watch the film above, and then take a look inside Bankys's art-filled West Bank hotel.
