FILMMAKEKRS' BIOS & FILM HISTORIES:


 

  

Bedwin Hacker by Nadia El fani (Tunisia/Morocco, 2002, 103 minutes, 35mm)

Nadia El Fani was born in Paris in 1960 to a Tunisian father and a French mother. She grew up in Tunis and moved often, shifting from one shore of the Mediterranean to the other. In 1990, she settled in Sidi Bou, a small village perched on a hill overlooking the bay of Carthage. After 22 years of odd jobs, mostly related to veterinary medicine and pet grooming, she finally got the opportunity to work in film by assisting director Jerry Schatzberg with the remake of The Misunderstood One of Cominici. Later on she worked as an assistant director for such filmmakers as Romain Goupil, Roman Polanski, Franco Zeffirelli, Nouri Bouzid, Alexandre Arcadi and Herbert Ross. Bedwin Hacker is her feature film debut as a director.

Festivals & Awards:

Carthage Film Festival, 2002
Rotterdam Film Festival, 2003
Mons Film Festival, 2003. Prix du meilleur film TV5
FESPACO, Burkina Faso, 2003
Cinema Africano de Milano, 2003
Vues d’Afrique Montreal, Canada, 2003. Special
Mention by the Grand Prize Jury
Ecrans Noirs, Cameroun, 2003
Rabat Film Festival, 2003
Zanzibar Film Festival, 2003
African Diaspora Film Festival, New York, 200

     
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  The Black Panthers (in Israel) Speak
by Eli Hamo and Sami Chetri (Israel, 2003, 53 minutes, BetaSP)

Sami Shalom Chetrit was born in 1960 in Ksar-Suk in Morocco and relocated to Israel with his Arab-Jewish family in 1963. He grew up in an immigrant working class neighborhood in the port city of Ashdod (former Palestinian village Asdud). He writes and publishes poetry, political essays and scholarly articles in many journals and papers. Sami is active in Mizrahi oppressed communities on alternative equal education and community empowerment. In 1993 he was among the founders of Kedma – the alternative educational organization for equality in education in Israel, and served as the school principle of Kedma High School in southern Tel-Aviv (see:http://www.kedma.co.il/Kedma/Kedma.htm). In 1996 he was among the founders of the social movement The Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition that has been struggling for economic and social justice in Israel. (see: http://www.hakeshet.org/). In 2001 he finished his Ph.D. dissertation on the Mizrahi struggle in Israel. It will be published in Hebrew in 2003. Today, Sami teaches critical studies and works on new publications. He is the editor of the alternative web portal: Kedma – Middle Eastern Gate to Israel (www.kedma.co.il). He is a Visiting Research Scholar at UCLA, for the 2003 academic year. The Black Panthers (in Israel) Speak is Sami’s first film.

Eli Hamo is filmmaker and social activist. He was born and raised in the Mizrahi immigrant neighborhood Katamonim in Jerusalem. Hamo was among the founders of the Community Theater in Jerusalem in mid ‘70s and the social movement The Tents. He has been teaching theater and cinema to youngsters throughout the years. In the mid ‘90s Hamo was among the founders group of the Mizrahi democratic movement The Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition, a social movement struggling for social justice and cultural freedom in Israel-Palestine. Eli Hamo is well known as the documenter of the social and cultural struggle of the Mizrahim in Israel for the last twenty-five years. He studied cinema in San Francisco and was the editor of many films.

Festivals & Awards:

Screening at the Tel Aviv Cinemateque, 2003
Screening at the Jerusalem Cinemateque, 2003
     
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  Crossing Kalandia by Sobhi al-Zobeidi (Palestine, 2002, 50 minutes, BetaSP)

After studying at New York University, Sobhi al-Zobeidi returned to Palestine where he created, in 1998, a production company, ReFugee Camp Productions. Since then, he has directed and produced several documentaries and "docu-fictions" dealing with Israeli-Palestinian realities, including My Very Private Map (1998), Ali, His Friend And Their Wishes (1999), and Light At The End Of The Tunnel (2000). In 1999 he also devised Deep Shit, a multimedia installation depicting a street in the camp in al-Jalazone. Crossing Kalandia came about from a vital need to film: "During the Israeli strikes, I was clinging onto my camera like a lifebelt. And most of the time it was not to film the big event, but my little world, the two people I love most, my wife and my child. I filmed to overcome my fear of losing them..."

Festivals & Awards:

Locarno Film Festival, Best Asian Film, 2002
Palestinian Film Festival at Columbian University, New York, 2003
Göteborg Film Festival, 2002
6th Annual Arab Film Festival, San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, 2002
Copenhagen Film Festival, 2003
Singapore Film Festival, 2003
Sarajevo Film Festival, 2003
     
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  Drowning by Bullets by Philip Brooks and Alan Hayling (France, 1992, 52 minutes VHS

Philip Brooks was an innovative documentary filmmaker whose work explored the margins of politics, sex and culture. Arriving in Paris in the 1980s as a freelance reporter, Mr. Brooks went on to found the Paris Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. He produced such films as Dear Cheri (1999), A Day Reported Missing (1992), New York-Marseilles and An Account of Catastrophe Foretold (2002). His work was not, however, confined to gay issues. He also produced the investigative report In the Heart of the Poison Trade (1989) and Drowning by Bullets (1992). In 2000, he began work on Steps to the Future, a series of 30 films dealing with the AIDS crisis in the southern region of Africa. One of these films, The Ball by Orlando Mesquita, won the special Cannes Jury prize in 2002. Mr. Brooks died of an HIV related illness in at age 49 in January,2003.  

Alan Hayling is currently Head of Factual Development, Mentorn Barraclough Carey. Mr. Hayling joined the BBC as a graduate trainee and went on to direct such works as Tomorrow’s World and the Tuesday Documentary. After leaving the BBC, he founded Newsreel, an independent film making organization. In 1987, Mr. Hayling founded an independent production company called Voyager Films. He has produced numerous anthropological, social documentaries and current affairs programs.

Festivals & Awards:

Best Documentary, San Francisco Film Festival, 1993
Best Documentary, Angers Film Festival, 1993
Fipa d'Or, Documentaires de Création (France), 1993
Amnesty International Award, 1993
     
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Effaced by Nadine Shamounki (USA, 2001, 20 minutes, BetaSP)

Nadine Shamounki was born to Palestinian parents in Beirut, Lebanon and raised in Jordan, Europe and the USA. She acquired her two undergraduate degrees from The University of Maryland in Cultural Anthropology and Art Studio. She finished her M.A. at New School University in Media Studies. Her previous video work includes the short I Shot The Holy Land, addressing the feeling of being a visitor in one's own homeland and praised by the Washington Diplomat Magazine as "full of artfully placed freeze frames, high speed shots, with the medium used to convey a great deal of feeling in a very compressed time frame."

Festivals & Awards:

Winner, Best Personal Documentary, Mixed Messages Awards, 2002
2nd Chicago Palestinian Film Festival, 2003
     
     
     
  Exam by Nasser Rafaei (Iran, 2002, 80 minutes, 35mm)

Born in 1964, Nasser Refai is the winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 20th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran for his debut feature Exam. After taking courses in story and play writing, film direction and cinematography, Refai began his professional career as a first assistant director in a number of well-known Iranian films. Subsequently, he made several documentaries, educational and short fiction films and won two awards from Iranian national film festivals. Exam is his debut feature film.

Festivals & Awards:

59th Venice Film Festival, Critics’ Week, 2002
26th Toronto Film Festival, 2002
25th Mill Valley Film Festival, 2002
38th Chicago Film Festival, 2002
Iranian Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, 2002
15th Tokyo Film Festival-Wind of Asia, 2002
9th Iranian Film Festival at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2002
51st Mannheim Film Festival, Special Jury Award, 2002
Nantes 3 Continent Film Festival, Silver Balloon Prize and Special Mention for Ensemble Cast, 2002
Screening at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2003
Screening at UCLA Film & TV Archive, 2003
Screening at Stockholm Cinemateque, 2003
     
     
     
  Foreigner by Danielle Arbid (Lebanon/France 2002, 45 minutes, 35mm)

Born in Beirut in 1970, Danielle Arbid left Lebanon when she was 18 to study literature and journalism in Paris. She worked in the French press for six years covering news from the Arab world. For the last five years, Danielle Arbid directed fiction and documentary films related to Middle East events and political affairs and her work has met with much success with both audiences and the media. Danielle Arbid received the Albert Londres Award for her movie Alone with the War. She also received the Villa Medicis Out of the Walls Award for At the Borders, and the Grand Prize at the Vendome Film Festival, Pictures in Region (France) for her movie Foreigner.

Festivals & Awards:

Locarno Film Festival, 2002
Grand Prize, Vendome Film Festival, Pictures in Region, 2002
Biennial of Arab Cinemas, Arab World Institute, Paris, 2002, in competition
Trieste Eastern European, 2003
     
     
     
 

Khmissa by Molka Mahdaoui (Tunisia/France 2000, 14 minutes, 35 mm)

Molka Mahdaoui began her film career as an assistant director on the TV movie Desert of Fire by E.G. Castellari in 1996. Throughout the late 1990’s she worked as an editor on such films as First Christmas by Kamel Cherif and the documentary A Season by Brigitte Coscas. She has also worked as an assistant director on several films including two documentaries for Beaubourg, Grand Canal and Terra Luna Production. Molka Mahdaoui has written screenplays for the cartoon series Viva Carthago and the short film Intra-muros. Her short film Khmissa has won major success at international film festivals and garnered many awards. She is currently completing her latest film The Spirit and the Heart.

Festivals & Awards:

Tunisian premiere - Le Mondial, Tunis, 2000
French premiere - Le Cinéma des Cinéastes, Paris, 2000
Film From the South, Oslo, 2000
MIFF, Milan, 2000, in competition
La Boca Del Lobo Madrid, 2000, in competition
Carthage Film Festival, Tunis, 2000, Panorama Section, Canal + Prize
International Film Festival of Bilbao, 2000, in competition
Brest Film festival, 2000, film market
Three Continent Film Festival, Nantes, 2000, special screening
Short-film Festival of Clermont-Ferrand, film market, 2000
Rotterdam Film Festival, 2001
International Festival of Women’s Films, Créteil, 2001, in competition
International Festival of Mediterranean Cinema, Tetouan, Morocco, 2001, in competition
International Short-film Festival of Tunis 2001, in competition, Don Quichotte Prize
The Desert Rain Independent Film Festival, Avezzano, Italy, 2001, in competition, Best S.M. prize
Arabian Sights, Washington DC, 2001
Ismalia International Film Festival, Ismalia, Egypt, 2001, in competition, Special Mention
Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival, International panorama, 2001
International Women’s Film Festival, Turin, Italy, 2002, in competition, Third Prize
Mediterranean Short-film Festival, Tangier, Morocco, 2002, in competition,Best first work prize
Biennial of Arab Cinemas, Arab World Institute, Paris, 2002, in competition
Arab Film Festival of Beirut "Ayam Beirut Al Cinema'iya," 2002
Arab Film Festival of Fameck, France, 2002

     
     
     
  Low Heights by Ebrahim Hatamikia (Iran, 2002, 115 minutes, 35mm)

Born in Tehran in 1961, Ebrahim Hatamikia is one of the internationally recognized Iranian filmmakers who has devoted a considerable part of his work to the effects of war on Iranian society. After graduating with a degree in screenwriting from The College of Cinema and Theater Arts University, Hatamikia began his film career as a cinematographer in The Chronicle of Victory group.
His breakthrough films were The Scout and The Immigrant as two different works in Iranian war movies. Preoccupied with the theme of the consequences of war, he has won many awards in national film festivals and presented his recent works in prestigious international cinematic events-notably The Glass Agency in Berlin and The Red Ribbon in San Sebastian.

Festivals & Awards:

Fajr Film Festival, Audience Award, 2002
Iranian Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, 2002
The 9th Iranian Film Festival of at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 2002
Goteborg Film Festival, 2003
Mar Del Plata Film Festival, 2003
Moscow Film Festival, 2003
     
     
     
  Meantime in Beirut by Merdad Hage (Lebanon, 2002, 29 minutes, BetaSP)

Born in Beirut in 1966, Merdad Antoine Hage earned a degree in Architecture from the American University of Beirut in 1989. While practicing as an architect in New York, he became seriously interested in filmmaking following a summer course at NYU. In 1991, he immigrated to Montreal where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Film production. Since then, Merdad Hage has worked in numerous productions as producer, scriptwriter or assistant director. His filmography includes Spliced`n Spiced (1996), Shh... SIDA (1998) and Baghdad Vitrine (2000). Meantime in Beirut is his fourth short.

Festivals & Awards:

World Film Festival, Montreal, 2002
Beirut Film Festival, 2002
Rendez-vous du cinema Quebecois, Montreal, 2003
7eme Regard sur le court metrage au Saguenay, Festival de courts metrages quebecois et etrangers, Chicoutimi, Canada, 2003
Film Exchange: NSI'S Canadian Film Festival, Winnipeg, 2003
Arab Film Festival, San Francisco, 2003
The 23rd Atlantic Film Festival, Halifax, 2003
     
     
     
  My Lost Home by Kamal El Mahouti (France/Morocco, 2001, 19 minutes, BetaSP)

Kamal El Mahouti is a French writer and director of Moroccan descent. Born in Casablanca in 1963, Kamal moved to France at the age of six. He studied film at the University of Paris VIII where he completed the 16 mm short, Once Upon A Time on the 14th of July 1945 as part of the "Memoirs of the City" series commissioned by the city of Saint-Denis. In 2001 he received a Brouillon d'un Reve (Dream Scribbling) production grant from the Société Civile des Auteurs du Multimédia (S.C.A.M.) to direct the documentary My Lost Home. In addition to making films, Kamal has directed six original stage productions in and around Paris. He has also conducted many acting workshops for adults and children. Kamal’s most recent projects include directing the DV short The Locals Have Talent, produced for the city of Saint-Denis and writing the feature screenplay Bladi.

Festivals & Awards:

EXODES Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent in 2002 at le Cinema l'Ecran à Saint-Denis
Arab Cinemas Biennial, Arab World Institute, Paris, 2002, in competition
Havana Biennial, 2003
     
     
     
  Piano, Piano Kid by Tunc Basaran (Turkey, 1990, 130 minutes, 35mm)

Tunç Basaran was born in Istanbul in 1938. He spent four years working as an assistant and dialogue writer for renown Turkish director Memduh Un and assisted other important directors such as O. Lutfi Akad, Atif Yilmaz, Ertem Gorec and Halit Refig. He made his first film Life Struggle in 1964 and by 1972 had directed almost 40 films – mostly quick, unremarkable productions, with the exceptions of Cognac (1965), Murtaza (1965), and Ten Fearless Men (1964). Like his contemporaries, Bilge Olgac and Erdogan Tokatli, he then left "Yesilcam" (the Turkish Hollywood) and switched to making commercials. In 1987, he returned to commercial cinema with One and the Others, which won the Best Turkish Film award at the Istanbul International Film Festival. He repeated the same success with Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite, which also won the Best Turkish Film award at the 8th international Istanbul Film Festival in 1988 and became the first Turkish film to be nominated for an Academy Award (Best Foreign Film).

His next efforts, Piano Piano Kid (1990), Please Don't Go (1996), and Graduate of Insanity (1998) have won awards at many national and international film festivals. Basaran also directed the television series Come On! (1993) and Azmi (1995). His latest film is Abuzer Kadayif/ Abuzer Baklava (2000).

Festivals & Awards:

Piano Piano Kid won prizes at film festivals in Istanbul, Adana, Frankfurt and in Iran. It won the Best Film Award at the Canadian International Children’s Film Festival.
     
     
     
  Terra Incognita by Ghassam Salhab (Lebanon/France, 2002, 120 minutes, 35mm)

Ghassan Salhab was born in Dakar in 1958. He grew up in Senegal, and settled down with his family in Lebanon in 1970. In 1975, he went to Paris to study and since then has lived in between Paris and Beirut. He is a collaborator in the Arabic Art and Literature Magazine al-Adab, and wrote and directed many short films, including The Other (1989), After Death (1991), African Ghost (1994), and Of Seduction (1999). In 1998, he directed his first feature film, Beirut Ghost. Terra Incognita is Salhab’s second feature length film.

Festivals & Awards:

Official Selection, A Certain Regard, Cannes 2002
Best Soundtrack Award, Three Continents Festival, Nantes 2002
Biennial of Arabic Cinemas, Arab World Institute, Paris, 2002, in competition
La Rochelle Festival, 2002
Carthage Film Festival, 2002
Göteborg Film Festival, 2003
Teheran Film Festival, 2003
San Francisco Arab Film Festival, 2003
     
     
     
    The Way Out by Samia Maskaldji (Algeria/France 37 minnutes, 35mm)

Samia Meskaldji emerged as a writer/director with the debut of her play Lord Jim, Anywhere Out Of The World in Orleans, France in 1996. Since that time, she has written screenplays for such films as Us, the Others, the feature film The Moon’s Wood and a documentary about international adoption. She has written and directed a number of films, including The Way Out (2000) and the documentary The Other Questionnaire (1998). Samia Meskaldji’s work has received numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the Cinematographic Encounters of Digne in France for The Way Out.

Festivals & Awards:

Digne-Les-Bains Festival, Jury And Public audience prize, 2000
Odysséedocs, Marseille Museum of Contemporary Art, 2002
Sainte-Affrique, Venice, 2002
Saint-Paul les Trois Châteaux, 2002
Mediterranean Cinema Festival of Montpellier, France, 2002
Cinéma en Régions -Vendôme, Aix-en-Provence, France 2002
Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, 2002
Biennial of Arabic Cinema, Arab World Institute, Paris, 2002, in competition
Arab Film Festival of Fameck, 2002
Carthage Film Festival, 2002
Namur Film Festival, 2002
Tanger Film Festival, Morocco, 2002
Angers Film Festival, 2001
Lille Film Festival, 2001
French-speaking films in Vienna, 2001