تانجرين

Tangerine

Editor’s note: 
Walid Zarrad is a Tunisian artist, anthropologist, person based in Cairo, whose film Tangerine I saw through a mutual friend of ours when I was in the early stages of Shoebox #2 looking fervently for submissions.

The film stuck with me, perhaps because the themes are so relatable - being far away from home, feelings about one’s family and what it’s like to be yourself in relation to your past. Walid dresses, so that someone can see him and realize that they too can expand and escape the confines of their past selves and what others expect of them.This is contrasted with the final two sentences about Walid’s mother:  
‘I want to show her this film. I still can’t do that.’

Tangerine is a very personal film which made me feel as though I was entering the inner workings of somoene’s mind. These are things so many people silently go around thinking about, and I asked him personally if he would like to participate.

For Shoebox we have decided to present both the English and Arabic transcript as a textual rendition of the film. Together with stills it acts as not only an afterlife but also a new life for the film, in a form you may call poetry or reflective writing. 

I’m Walid, 22 years old,
Tunisian
I write, I film, I dress
I dress differently than other people
So other people see me and know
they can also dress this way
I dress so that when I’m walking someone sees me and thinks
Okay, I can also do something like this,
I don’t need to stay in the shell I was put in
I can also grow, expand

I also dress for younger Walid
13-14 year-old Walid
Walid who used to run after life
trying to do something, anything.
Go out, stay outside, walk in the street late at night
Anything to feel alive
To not feel constrained in a house

I dress so I can tell that Walid It’s okay.
Sit down. Relax. Breathe.
There’s still time.
Take care of yourself.
I dress to be the person I needed when I was a kid.

I hope
any young person sees me and thinks
it’s okay.
Everything’s okay.
They can sit and they can rest they can breathe
and they can take care of themselves.

There’s still time.

I laugh like my mother
I get angry like my mother.
Even... I don’t know...
My mother
Now I feel like I smell like her
because I bought new deoderant.
Every time I use it I remember her.
I’m becoming my mother
little by little.
It’s something that honestly scares me and makes me happy.

It makes me happy because I love her
and I want to be like her.
And I want to, I don’t know, give her this.
Give her maybe the satisfaction
of seeing me and saying
My son is like me
although I don’t know if this would be a satisfaction
or something that scares her too.
I want to show her this film.
I still can’t do that.