Scattered Sea

Lia Sáile / Morocco, Malta, Germany / 2025 / European Premiere / 13 min.

synopsis

This visual-performative essay weaves an associative network of images between the symbolic resonances of pomegranates and the image of grains of sand carried by the wind from the sea and settling in the dunes. A group of young performers scatter sand in urban gardens and ruins, their slow, deliberate movements alternating with surreal images of hands floating above the sea and an island emerging from the sand. Filmed in Morocco, Malta, and Germany, the film opens an imaginative crack in the fissures of real geographies.

“Integrating theories by philosophers such as Édouard Glissant and Hannah Arendt, the work weaves together cultural memory, decolonial inquiry, and historiographic critique, offering counter-narratives that resist linear temporality and binary world orders. It opens hybrid spaces for the reimagining of social and aesthetic imaginaries attuned to plural futures.” — from the accompanying material to the film

biography

Lia Sáile (b. 1985) is a conceptual and media artist who explores boundaries, transitions, and thresholds in media, social, and political contexts. Her work touches on the construction of individual and collective identity while examining systems of belonging and differentiation. She studied theatre, film, and media studies in Vienna and Malta, and media art in Cologne. She has presented her projects in a number of solo exhibitions and public interventions in an international context. She lives and works in Cologne and Munich.

film details

director:	Lia Sáile
cast:	Siham El Habab, Abir Talibi, Fatima Joudairi, Yassine El Atlassi, Fatima Zahrae, Mehdi Mzaher, Aymane Fares, Nehad Bensalem, Mehdi El Essaadi, Wissal Mrabet, Wiam Baba, Lisa Domin-Alouane, Hannah Wetterich, Laura Engelhardt, Lia Sáile, Katja Rivas Pinzon, Michael Reder
producer:	Ute Dilger
photography:	Katja Rivas Pinzon
editing:	Lisa Domin-Alouane, Lia Sáile
music:	Phanton (Michael Springer, Bettina Wolff)
sound:	Laura Engelhardt, Florian Dedek
sound design:	Jeesoo Hong
Consultant:	Richard Bevan, Adriana Lemus