An immersive cinematic poem of a 7 year journey of return, "Kitâb al-Isfâr: Book of the Journey" weaves together stories of near-death and mystical experience in Andalucia. According to the director: “When I was 19 I set out, hoping I could learn the meaning of life by ‘experiencing everything’. I bought a car for 20 marks in a cafe in Ulm. I spray painted it yellow and green and drove it from Holland to Romania to Spain, sleeping in the back seat in a red blanket. Driving down to Málaga, at the crest of the mountains, the brakes went out. As the car sped down the mountain then crashed, I lost consciousness, followed by three days and nights of visions. What did I see, what did I understand? The Shaykh al-Akbar, Sufi mystic and philosopher Ibn 'Arabî , writes that the journey only has true meaning if it brings a new beginning. In traveling, the heart becomes the goal of the journey".
Baba Hillman
Baba Hillman is an artist and filmmaker who grew up in Japan, Venezuela and Panama and works between France and the U.S.. Her films and performance works explore memory, history, perception and the poetics and politics of place, language, and the body. Her films have screened at festivals and museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, FIDMarseille, Edinburgh Film Festival, Rencontres Paris/Berlin, Ann Arbor Film Festival, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Anthology Film Archives, ICAIC Havana, Africa World Documentary Festival, among others. She has received awards and grants from the French Ministry of Culture, the Whiting Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the Italian city governments of Florence, Lecce and Certaldo.
