Yemen Travelogue – Days at Shibam and Seiyun

The Austrian director Michael Pilz followed his friend Nikolaus Scholz when he went to record music in Shibam, a town in Yemen, famous for its clay ‘skyscrapers’. In a personal and impressionistic report, Pilz films animals (wandering goats, birds at dawn), people (men in the market, children playing in the street), streets and houses. In the background, we regularly hear the call to prayers in this strict Islamic country, where the few women who appear on screen are cloaked in burkas. There is however no commentary or voice-over, just as subtitling has also been deliberately left out. It’s not about the contents of the conversations, but about impressions of the light that hangs early in the morning over the silent city or radiates into the houses. The documentary focuses on the open-air recording of several pieces of music performed by the Ensemble for Music and Traditional Arts of the Shibam District.

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