Narratives: Soon to Feature Sakina Fakhri’s “Mistranslation in Images”
“Mistranslation in Images” is a decoupage of scenes intended to illuminate the cataclysmic dangers inherent in even the subtlest mistranslations, as well as the readiness for conflict that characterizes the foreign policy of many a nation. The narrative follows a somewhat disillusioned young man, Astor, who hand-translates wires for a faceless political conglomerate. In a moment of distraction Astor mistranslates one word, a small action resulting in a world war that he barely notices and is unable to stop.
Sakina Fakhri is a novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. She received her BA in literature from Northwestern University and completed her MA at NYU; subsequently, she was part-founder and teacher at a high school in Cairo, Egypt.
Committed to writing in all of its forms (except the factual!), she believes that, given enough time and enough creativity, nothing should ever have to be said in quite the same way twice. Her literary aesthetic tends towards theme-driven ornate prose, lyrical fiction, controlled absurdism, and political satire. Her first novel manuscript, “The Speech Of Flowers and Voiceless Things,” probes the idea of a web of globalized mistranslations against a backdrop of a personable philanthropic enterprise and a caricaturesque dictator. Her first short film, “The Word Trader,” debuted in 2013 at the Cannes Film Festival Court Metrage and was showcased at several film festivals in Manhattan. Her second short film, “Corner Piece,” won the 2015 Los Angeles Movie Award for Best Screenplay and the 2015 California International Shorts Festival Award for Best Short Script. She continues to develop television and feature film concepts as she writes her second novel, which intertwines motifs of micro-trading, blindness, particle physics, and ballet.
