Musa Syeed’s evocative short film “The Dispossessed,†premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year. The film shows how Mohammed Shafi Hazari, a traditional faith healer, exorcises patients who've been possessed. But in Kashmir, amidst the world’s longest running conflict, nothing is as it seems. A xerox technician by day, Hazari has a faith healing practice, looking for signs his patients might be possessed by a jinn. Bu more often than not, he finds what his patients call possession may actually be depression, triggered by a conflict that has dragged on for decades.
Syeed writes that, “As I filmed Mr. Hazari, I initially wanted to know after each treatment: exorcism or placebo? I wanted him to confirm something spectacular was happening. But as I watched patients eager to feel the healing in his breath, his hand, his dull knife, I bit my tongue. Here was a man who amid conflict and violence invites strangers to sit with him, to listen to their problems, to offer some hope that, together...
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