ΙSLAM’S SCISSORS OF WISDOM UNDER THE HOT MIDSUMMER SUN
The life, hopes, dreams and times of Islam Kazi, a painfully shy but infinitely likeable tailor from Bangladesh, as he himself confessed them to me on one scorchingly hot day in July, in his tiny but nonetheless unceasingly popular clothing repair shop called ‘’Scissors of Wisdom’’, where the mending never stops.
Creative Team:
Directed by: Xenofon Aggelopoulos
Editing: Alexandros Vogiatzakis
Sound: Ermis Pappas
Music: Matheos Dakoutros
Directing/Script consultant: Aggelos Kovotsos
Director's interview
It more or less happened coincidentally, as I was struggling to realize a more ambitious project, for which the circumstances never came through. Still I don’t regret it, since I ended up learning and taking away some very interesting things from this project as well, which reversed my previous point of view on how I should approach the matter in the most unexpected way. My previous acquaintance with the title character certainly played a role in selecting him, but it was simultaneously my interest in the ambience of his workplace, the detailed documentation of every aspect of the activities therein, and the inside look into a reality one all too frequently just passes by in daily life, without ever truly stopping to examine its substance or detail.
As I mentioned above, I already knew the title character, since his shop is just a couple of corners from my house and I have come in contact with him several times in the past. Still, the more detailed and in depth interaction we engaged in over this project, provided me with a far clearer and at times profoundly touching look into his character and qualities I had so far not really seen.
I find talking about such generalized abstracts like ‘the refugee experience’ on account of just one film, isn’t really appropriate. What I would like to say is that I did come in contact with a most interesting character, whose experience, thought and sensitivity in most matters made it more clear to me than ever how close we all are in the essential contents and problems of our existence irrespective of cultural or geographic background, as well as how lost we all are in a geopolitical continuum which transcends by far any individual’s understanding or will. At some point my character admits he no longer feels at home neither here, nor when he occasionally returns back to his homeland. Wherever he is, there is always a feeling of ‘here soul, there heart’ as he himself says. This feeling of fundamental dissonance is something I feel resonates in all of us these days and in it we can perhaps finally take away something fundamental about that ‘refugee experience’ we in some ways are all already acquainted with.
