Measures of a Distance. 1988. Directed by Mona HatoumGhost Tropic. 2019. Written and directed by Bas Devos

Measures of a Distance. 1988. Canada/UK. Directed by Mona Hatoum. DCP. In English, Arabic. 16 min. Ghost Tropic. 2019. Belgium. Written and directed by Bas Devos. With Saadia Bentaïeb, Maaike Neuville, Nora Dari, Stefan Gota, Cédric Luvuezo. DCP. In Dutch, French; English subtitles. 85 min. In Bas Devos’s wondrous Ghost Tropic, a middle-aged Maghrebi cleaning woman falls asleep on the Brussels subway after a long day of work, wakes up at the end of the line, and is forced to find her way back home on foot. Through nocturnal streets in the heart of Europe—and under Grimm Vandekerckhove’s tender cinematography—a series of encounters with strangers helps her find her footing. In Measures of a Distance, British Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum unveils her displacement and sense of loss as a war exile in London by overlaying footage of her mother with letters her mother sent from Beirut.