THE DESTRUCTION OF MEMORY
Official trailer
The war against culture, and the battle to save it.
Over the past century, cultural destruction has wrought catastrophic results across the globe. This war against culture is not over - it's been steadily increasing.
In Syria and Iraq, the ‘cradle of civilization’, millennia of culture are being destroyed. The push to protect, salvage and rebuild has moved in step with the destruction. Heroic individuals have fought back, risking and losing their lives to protect not just other human beings, but our cultural identity - to save the record of who we are.
Narrated by Oscar®, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated actress Sophie Okonedo, and based on the book by Robert Bevan, The Destruction of Memory tells the whole story - looking not just at the ongoing actions of Daesh (ISIS) and at other contemporary situations, but revealing the decisions of the past that allowed the issue to remain hidden in the shadows for so many years.
DOCUMENTARY, 85 MINS, 2016
DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, WRITER · Tim Slade
FUNDING · Screen Australia and Screen NSW (development), Henry Luce Foundation, the Rothschild Foundation, WMF, GHF, private. Presale broadcasters - SVT Sweden, TVO Canada, Al Jazeera Balkans.
SCREENINGS · 4 film festival awards, 21 festivals and 19 broadcast territories to date.
WORLD SALES · Autlook, Vienna
TEAM · DP: Derek Wiesehahn. EDITOR: Lindi Harrison ACE. MUSIC: Ezio Bosso. NARRATOR: Sophie Okonedo.
'a blisteringly uncompromising documentary'
Veronica Simpson, Studio International
'a poignant film...sobering but necessary viewing...I once tasked myself and failed to name a work of architecture that moved me to tears. After watching this film, I realised that it's not a building's physical beauty that might cause me to cry, but its physical absence.' Jan-Carlos Kucharek,
RIBA Journal
'powerful...humane, poignant...a tough but compelling film'
Blueprint
'Your film is very beautiful, important, and, as you conclude it, "a sign of hope". It needs to be widely seen.'
Karima Bennoune, UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights