When the filmmaker found a 1967 concert ticket in Vienna, this set her on a musico-historical journey in Austria that eventually led her back home to Scotland. Whilst she traced the information on the ticket and the history behind it, a letter arrived from her father that prompted a grander investigation into the sociopolitical backdrop of the music played that night. Together in conversation with her father, they explore a number of eras in Austria, spanning from the Strauss family’s waltz era to the rise of fascism and the stain it left on contemporary politics. The ticket and his letter become ‘ready-mades with interest’ which spark a contemplation on how past and present day intertwine, and upon the tension between the beauty of the waltz and the realities of the time that the waltz persists in. Whilst reflecting upon the ticket, the film becomes a touching portrait of her father as he shares his knowledge and, sometimes light-hearted, memories with her.

In the process of moving house with his family, Anri Sala, an Albanian art student, discovered a twenty-year-old 16mm newsreel film, containing images of a congress of the Albanian Communist Party. In the film a young woman is seen making a speech, and later giving an interview. But Sala could not make out what she was saying, because the sound had been lost. With the passing of years this woman had left behind the hopes and fears, ideals and disappointments, deceptions and rebellions of her youth. She was his mother, Valdet. Intent on learning the contents of the speech and interview, which Valdet cannot remember, Sala takes the film to a school for the deaf in Tirana, and with the help of lip readers, his mother’s words are deciphered. Intervista dramatically captures the moment when Sala shows his mother a video of the film again. This time, with her words recovered and subtitled on the screen, she confronts her younger self, offering a moving opportunity for reflection on the country’s — and one woman’s — history and present state.

“Dear Grandma, you’ll be surprised to hear my voice in your language...” These are the first words in a recorded, spoken letter that was never sent, but was instead played aloud in real time by the Brussels filmmaker to her elderly grandmother in Mahdia, Tunisia. In the company of the camera, the lines easily turn into a voiceover that, as one listens and looks attentively, gradually transforms into a dialogue that spans languages, cultures and generations.

Arabic spoken, English subtitles