World Premiere
ARABIAN SIGHTS

Chanting of the Dunes

MOKHLESS AL-HARIRI
USA, 2024
80 minutes, Color and Black & White

In Person: Director Mokhless Al-Hariri and Producer Maria Midani

Chanting of the Dunes is a narrative film about Wahbi al-Hariri-Rifai, who was an accomplished international artist, architect, archeologist, and author. Beautifully illustrated with meticulously restored archival photographs and original footage, the storyline takes viewers on a journey through multiple countries and momentous world changes that extend from the Levant in the 1920s to the United States and China in the 1990s. The film recounts al-Hariri's life through the intimate and lyrical perspective of his wife, Widad Marachi. The narrative is accompanied by a superb soundtrack. Chanting of the Dunes showcases al-Hariri's extensive work, including portraits, still lifes, and masterful on-site renderings of architectural monuments, from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to significant sites in China, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Washington, D.C. In 1984, al-Hariri became the first living artist to be honored with a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution.—Various sources