Fellowships for Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute in European Studies, July 19 - July 30, 2010
The Heights Theatre, 3951 Central Ave, N.E.
Columbia Heights, MN, 55421
*MIZNA presents a wide-ranging and thought-provoking selection of feature-length and short films made about Arabs and Arab Americans. Originating in Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, among others, the films highlight the sixth edition of the Arab Film Festival.*
* *
*We are offering the highest standard of Arab films that give a fresh outlook on life via windows most people have not looked through. **Here are some festival highlights:*
* *
• On opening night, Thursday, March 11^th at 7:00pm, New York-based filmmaker Mai Iskander will introduce her highly acclaimed new documentary */Garbage Dreams/*, the story of the Zabbeleen or "garbage people" of Cairo who recycle trash in order to survive. /Garbage Dreams/ caught the attention of former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore, who honored the film with his REEL Current Award at this year's Nashville Film Festival. Iskander will participate in a panel discussion at The Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs about the Zabelleen, whose traditional methods of waste management reuse 0ver 80% of the garbage they collect, as compared to the approximately 25% in developed nations.
• Belgian director Nabil Ben Yadir makes his US premiere with */Les Barons/*, a coming-of-age comedy/drama set in Brussels about Hassan, Aziz and Mounir-buddies who call themselves "The Barons," who lead a life of pleasant apathy until life and love get in the way. It garnered the Jury Prize at the Marrakech Film Festival.Screening Friday, March 12^th at 6:30pm.
• Palestinian director Najwa Najjar's sensuous, first feature */Pomegranates and Myrrh/* overcame huge obstacles to production as her cast and crew negotiated filming across checkpoints throughout the Occupied Territories. The romantic love triangle plays out against a politically charged landscape. Screening Saturday, March 13^th at 8:oopm, with director in attendance.
• Paris-based, Lebanese filmmaker Shirin Abu Shaqra offers up */Hold On, My Glamorous/* an aesthetically evocative, poetic essay about a once famous Arab diva named Wadad, which premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival, as well as her animation short, */Walking Distance/*. Sunday, March 14^th at 12:00pm.
• Egyptian director Ibrahim El-Batout's */Ein Shams/Eye of the Sun/*. Ein Shams has become one of Cairo's poorest and most neglected neighborhoods. Through the eyes of Shams, an 11-year-old girl, an inhabitant of this shantytown, the film captures the sadness and magic that envelopes daily life in Egypt.Screening Saturday, March 14^th at 5:oopm.
• */Tea on the Axis of Evil/* is a Syrian-American documentary from director Jean Marie Offenbacher about everyday life in Syria--in part, aiming to counter the former Bush administration's politically motivated label of "terrorist" ascribed to the state, and by implication, to its people.Screening Saturday, March 13^th at 12:oopm, with director in attendance.
• Focus on The Filmmaker: Shorts by Local Lebanese filmmaker and University of Minnesota film professor *Hisham Bizri*. His abstract narratives and visual meditations often reflect themes of exile and melancholy, and are steeped in formalist film aesthetics and experimentation.
• On closing night, Sunday, March 14^th at 7:30pm, Mizna wraps up the 6^th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival with/ *Laila's Birthday*/, a New York Times Critic's Choice. Only 71 minutes in length, /Laila's Birthday/ is a "fleet, dark urban comedy that registers outrage in glancing jabs of absurdist observation." Written and directed by Rashid Masharawi, the movie features Mohammad Bakri who plays a judge earning a living as a driver in Ramallah.
*"Garbage Dreams: How One Community's *
*Zero Waste Practices Can Be Achieved Globally" *
March 11, 4:00-5:30pm, 180 Humphrey Center,
University of Minnesota Campus
Free - Registration required: http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/stpp/events_zero_waste.html
For film festival schedule, trailers and ticket information, go to: www.mizna.org Festival passes are $40 in advance and $55 at the door. Single tickets are $8 general admission and $5 for students/low income.
For more information, go to www.mizna.org/arabfilmfest10preview/index.html or contact: Marya Morstad, Festival Coordinator, 612-961-2528 mgm@bitstream.net or Mohannad Ghawanmeh, 612-963-7851, mohannadghawanmeh@yahoo.com , Festival Curator.
We need volunteers to be ushers and help out. Volunteers get in free! If you are available, please call the Mizna office.
Mizna, Inc., 2205 California Street NE, #109A, Minneapolis, MN 55418
(612) 788-6920 | mizna@mizna.org
