Khadija al-Salami

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Khadija Al-Salami (2016).

Khadija al-Salami ( Arabic خديجة السلامي Hadidscha as-Salami , DMG Ḫadīǧa as-Salāmī ; * 1966 in Sanaa ) is a Yemeni director. She is considered to be the first female Yemeni filmmaker . With her works, she is primarily committed to promoting equality for women in Muslim cultures.

Life

In her hometown of Sanaa , Khadija al-Salami was confronted with cultural constraints that shaped her later work

Khadija al-Salami was born in Sanaa , the capital of Yemen , in 1966 at the time of the Yemeni civil war . She grew up in a poor Muslim family and was confronted with the constraints of the tradition and culture of her country at an early age.

At the age of eleven, her uncle Ali al-Salami had a forced marriage . She was raped by her husband. These experiences were decisive for their future. She decided to take up the fight against oppression "by all means" and win. Soon she felt that she had no chance to fight back and a suicide attempt was made . From then on, she received support from her mother who also helped to divorce after just three weeks. The girl got the impression that only education could lead to freedom, which is why in the following years she attended school with high motivation and at the same time worked. First she worked in a telephone exchange in the afternoon , later she hosted a children's program for a television station in Sanaa.

After finishing elementary school , she decided to study English in lower school, for which she went to Cambridge for a month . She later won a scholarship with which she was able to continue her English studies from 1983 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC . During her four-year stay in Washington DC, she met the Yemeni ambassador to the US, Yahya al Mutawakil, with whom she soon became friends. He became a father figure and opened up new possibilities for her. She got to know numerous Yemeni politicians, with whom she subsequently dealt with in several texts. Their reports are an important source of political events in modern Yemen.

After graduating from Mount Vernon College for Women , she returned to her home country in 1986. There she was confronted with a family situation that she no longer wanted to endure - her brother Hamud had taken on the role of family protector. Because of these circumstances, she left Yemen in the same year to settle in France . Before she got a job with the press in 1993, she worked for the radio station Radio Orient . In 1990 she married the American Charles Hoot.

Khadija al-Salami's workplace in the Yemeni embassy in Paris

Today she works in the Yemeni embassy in Paris , where she is responsible for communication and cultural advice, and directs documentaries on Yemeni women, democracy and archeology for French and Yemeni television channels. She also wrote her autobiography The Tears of Sheba with her husband , which was published in English in 2003.

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Khadija al-Salami's documentaries, like her book The Tears of Sheba, deal with sensitive topics that are mostly related to freedom of expression and the emancipation of women in Yemeni-Muslim culture. Her work is interpreted as a sign of upheaval, with which she demonstrates the successes oppressed women can achieve with willpower and commitment.

Her films have been represented at numerous film festivals and have already received several awards.

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Khadija al-Salami and Charles Hoot: Tears of Sheba. Tales of Survival and Intrigue in Arabia . Wiley, 2004, ISBN 0-4708-6726-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sphinx Art Productions - cinémaarab
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Chris Kutschera - Yemen: A Yemeni woman's fight for freedom
  3. ↑ a b Wholphin - Wholphin No. 3 , interview with Khadija al-Salami
  4. ↑ France diplomacy - French who are successful: Khadija, Elias Sanbar
  5. ^ Tiburon International Film Festival
personal data
SURNAME Khadija al-Salami
ALTERNATIVE NAMES خديجة السلامي (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yemeni director
DATE OF BIRTH 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Sanaa