Behind a Transparent Cement Barrier

At the beginning of the second week of Ramadan, I started filming from my balcony up until the end of the week-long Eid holiday. From the start, I was drawn to the assertive presence of a small tree in our street. Her branches had started, lightly and curiously, to creep into my balcony, and so, as the days of filming rolled on, that tree became the “protagonist” of the film. Everyday for three weeks, I would look through the camera, capture how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the street’s residents and the passersby and their movements, and await the moments in which the sunlight fell on “my” tree, amidst her back and forth with the other trees scattered throughout the street. Every once in a while, the spirit would lighten and find liberation in the pursuit of beauty. Until one morning- I woke up to noise.