The Future is Written in Stone
The Future is Written in Stone is a feature length documentary chronicling the lives of Yemeni women as they work to save the threatened cultural heritage of Yemen.
The extraordinary cultural heritage of Yemen includes five UNESCO World Heritage sites, hundreds of ancient archaeological sites, sprawling temples, museums, and manuscript libraries. Yemen is home is incredible world heritage including the Kingdom of Saba where the Queen of Shiba reigned, mountain caves home to ancient mummies as well preserved as those from Egypt, and libraries containing the oldest Islamic writing ever discovered. And many of these ancient sites remain only partially discovered, their mysteries still buried in the sand.
Tragically, this cultural heritage is threatened by a terrible perfect storm of factors happening simultaneously: looting, climate change, and an ongoing civil war that began in 2014. This war has displaced over 2 million people and killed nearly 100,000. It has also done immeasurable damage to the country’s cultural heritage, the cultural identity of a people.
The Future is Written in Stone is a cinema verité style documentary that profiles the stories of four women living in three major cities in Yemen: Marib, Sanaa, and Taiz. The focus of the documentary will be pioneering women who are taking the lead in a conservative patriarchal society to preserve, protect, and reconstruct this threatened heritage. These women are also leading an effort to change the status quo by educating young people about their country’s heritage as well as instilling a love of history at an early age.
The Future is Written in Stone will culminate in an international cultural heritage conference in the ancient city of Taiz where each of the main subjects will share their knowledge and findings with an audience of Yemeni experts, politicians, NGOs, as well as Yemeni people and youth.
No documentary film has ever been made before about threatened cultural heritage in Yemen and the effort to save it. The Future is Written in Stone will be the first film to highlight this incredible heritage, educate audiences about its significance, and document the incredibly difficult process of saving culture.
The Future is Written in Stone will further Professor Brent E. Huffman’s documentary focus into the work to save threatened heritage sites beginning with his film Saving Mes Aynak (2016) which he directed, produced, shot, and edited for Netflix. The documentary is about the fight to save a 5,000-year-old ancient city in Afghanistan threatened by a Chinese government-owned copper mine. Saving Mes Aynak has won over 30 major awards and has been broadcast on television in over seventy countries. The Future is Written in Stone will continue Huffman’s examination of indigenous people, in this case Yemeni women, fighting against all odds to save the threatened heritage of their country.
“The Future is Written in Stone” is Funded by
