“A major source of inspiration for the film was Maya’s questions about the world, starting with questions to do with her perceptions of the physical world, and as she got older, questions more to do with social behaviour. These ‘innocent’ questions (apart from being almost impossible to answer) seemed to me to be of a philosophical order that challenged long-established ‘truths’ about the world. They made it clear to me that ‘knowledge’ which is hidden and acquired, supplants raw perception in many areas of our understanding (we learn to ‘see’ the table as square, not trapezoid).” — Guy Sherwin

Sherwin made this film over a 3 year period during his daughter’s discovery of language, when she was first learning to talk and write, and was partly inspired by the book The Child’s Conception of the World (1929) by child psychologist Jean Piaget.

A Tongue Called Mother depicts the relationship between language, gestures and affiliation. It slowly captures the actions and words of three generations of women in the same family and children learning to read, meditating on words learnt and forgotten through the body.

The Script is born out of the artist’s research into online content connected with the Arab world. Exploring YouTube using relatively neutral search terms such as ‘father and son’, Zaatari discovered multiple videos depicting fathers praying. Despite being produced by different men from different regions in the Middle East, Zaatari observed telling similarities in content which depicted men fulfilling the duty of salah — the ritual of five daily prayers undertaken by practicing Muslims — within a domestic setting. As breaking off from prayer is often frowned upon, the fathers continue praying despite their children’s mischievous attempts to distract them. In The Script, Zaatari presents a filmed re-enactment of these touching moments, paying homage to dual commitment to faith and fatherhood.