Toronto's doc days are upon us again, from last night's much lauded "(Moug) Waves“ by Ahmed Nour at Cinema Politica to Mor Loushy's international festival hit "Censored Voices“ coming up at the Hot Docs Festival. What combines the films, other than their look at the Middle East, is the composer. Here, Cologne's Markus Aust exclusively talks about his work on both films:
"I often find a starting point for my compositions in the
accidental recordings of a film's raw footage and research materials: a noise, a buzzing sound, a sentence in a language I don't speak but that touches a string. With these two films, it was the main characters' faces that got me started.
Time and time again, the cameras remain on these ordinary faces.
I try to read them and direct what I find into my music.
In "Waves/Moug“, Ahmed Nour talks about his personal hopes and disappointments of the Arab Spring. He afforded me an in-depth look into the basic framework and the inner lives of young, well-educated Egyptians.
In "Censored Voices“, Mor Loushy reframes the 1967 Arab–Israeli Six-Day War: By means of
original taped interviews with young soldiers, taken right after the war by Amos Oz and Avraham Shapira, the old fault lines become visible, fault lines that are still relevant to today's questions around Israel's concept of itself.
Both films reach well beyong the conflict in the Middle East and confront the viewers with their own historical images and world view. Both films leave room for the 'invisible', and it is this space I try to explore with my music."
Markus Aust is a Cologne-based composer of contemporary and experimental music, as well as music for film and television. He has won numerous awards for his work, including for the ZDF TV documentary format “Schicksale im Klinikum“ (Bavarian Film Award), the documentaries “Irgendwo gebettelt, irgendwo geklaut“ (World Television Award), “Waves/Moug“ (Dubai Film Festival), “Censored Voices“ (Sundance; Berlinale; Hot Docs), the feature films “Lowlights“ (Lithuanian Silver Crane), and another 40 films and documentaries.
As an audio engineer, sound director and performing member of the "1. Deutsches Stromorchester" (First German Current Orchestra) he researches and communicates in the vast field of sound.
image 1: Waves; image 2: Censored Voices, courtesy of the artist
