ArteEast announces the first annual CinemaEast Film Festival at the Quad Cinema, November 4-10, 2005, showcasing the best and most innovative film on offer from today’s filmmakers of the Middle East.

Culled from over 270 entries, the program showcases 10 features, 28 shorts, and 17 documentaries from throughout the region, presenting an unparalleled vista of outstanding cinematic production from the most talked about region of the world with 12 New York premières and 29 US premières.

CinemaEast Film Festival is programmed first and foremost according to quality and with the recent outpouring of new works and voices from the region. These works represent the best of both established and young talents whose works burst with insight, intelligence and creativity while interrogating their complex worlds and social, political and creative interrelations.

“This Festival represents a necessary and long overdue step in opening up a dialogue with this often misunderstood region” says Festival Director Rasha Salti. “ArteEast is now coming through with an important window for a broad audience to discover the richness and intelligence of Middle East cinema.”

Opening Night Film:

Critically acclaimed box office hit I Love Cinema, by Egyptian filmmaker Oussama Fawzi kicks off the festival as The Opening Night film. I Love Cinema is a comedic tour de force that presents a courageous critique of rigid religious mores while revisiting Egypt's moment of “loss of innocence.” Filmmaker, Oussama Fawzi and acclaimed Egyptian superstar Leila Alawi will be on hand for a conversation with the audience after the screening.

Click here for a pdf version of the Opening Night press release

Highlights of the Festval:

Cannes Film Festival acclaimed Bitter Dream (Khab e Talkh) by emergent Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Amiryoussefi. Mordant, whimsical and simple, Bitter Dream (Khab e Talkh) is a dark comedic meditation on mortality and the cult of death in post-revolutionary Iran.

Two features from Morocco present radically different approaches to reflecting on what has come to be known as “The Leaden Years”: Hassan Benjelloun's The Black Chamber (Darb Moulay Cherif) mounts a powerful reconstitution of and reflection on the horror endured during those years, while veteran filmmaker Jilali Ferhati's Memory in Detention (Dhakirah Moatakalah) privileges a poetic approach for reflecting on the trauma of a society recovering from years of violence and torture, but also from betrayal and shame.

As in as his previous uproarious box office hit, The Lizard (Marmoulak), renowned Iranian filmmaker Kamal Tabrizi's A Piece of Bread (Yek Teke Nan) promises a curious take on “Islam from the inside.” A mystical fable, religious in spirit but non-sectarian, A Piece of Bread captures the state of grace behind everyday life.

Kamal Dehane's The Suspects (al-Mushtabah Feehom) revisits the moment of outbreak of civil war in Algeria, where the sweep of history, individual choice, and political mores interweave.

In aggressive cinema vérité style, Ügür Yucel's Toss-Up (Yazi Tura) delivers an intense heartfelt analysis of human weakness, both in battle and on the home front.

Yesim Ustaoglu's Waiting for the Clouds (Bulutlari Beklerken), cowritten by Petros Markaris (who penned Theo Angelopoulos’s Eleni), is a moving examination of Turkish ethnic identity and the circuitous route “home.”

Kianoush Ayari's newest feature, Wake Up, Arezoo! (Bidar Show, Arezoo!) is a moving tribute to the heartache that followed the earthquake in Bam in 2003.

Eleven special programs round out the Festival, highlighting short fiction, experimental and documentary films that capture the amazing diversity of cinematic approaches pioneered by emerging and young filmmakers over the past few years. Interlaced with several motifs – love, music, art, violence, resistance, immigration, estrangement, schizophrenia, political repression, death, memory, and writing the personal into the collective – the short fiction and experimental films program includes 28 films; the documentary program offers 17 films, in both short and feature length. By and large, these compelling and inventive works have never been screened in the US.

In addition, the Festival will present a program in collaboration with The Margaret Mead Film Festival (at the Museum of Natural History), a special screening program entitled “Gender, Desire and Citizenship: Vignettes from Egypt” with Columbia University.

Closing Night Film:

The Festival Closing Night will screen Clay Dolls (Araïs al-Teïn) by acclaimed Tunisian filmmaker Nouri Bouzid, a provocative and searing film that continues the filmmaker's exploration of despair and desire framed in social degradation and political exploitation. The filmmaker will be present for a conversation with the audience.

Festival Attendees:

At press time, expected attendees include directors, actors, producers and film critics; confirmed already are Oussama Fawzi (director, Egypt), Laila Alawi, (actress, Egypt) Jillali Ferhati (director, Morocco), Bahman Kiarostami (director, Iran), Hammadi Gueroum (film critic, Morocco), Fatih Özgüven (film critic, Turkey), Marjaneh Moghimi (producer, USA/Iran), Berke Bas (director, Turkey), Hicham Falah (director, Morocco), Chrif Tribak (director, Morocco), Azza el-Hassan (Palestine), and Rachid Kasmi (producer and director, Morocco).

Roundtable Discussions:

CinemaEast Film Festival is also proud to present a program of roundtable discussions on the themes of “Independent Documentary Film Production” and “Cinema and Trauma” in association with The Kevorkian Center and the Office of Student Affairs and Student Life at NYU and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC).

The first panel, Independent Documentary Film Production, brings together filmmakers, producers and programmers from Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Algeria and Iran, to examine the challenges of independent documentary film production, an emerging genre of in the region and across its diasporas, and the site for exploration in form as well as social and political contestation.

The second roundtable interrogates the theme of Cinema and Trauma that pervades the screening program and engages the participation of film critics, scholars and filmmakers.

Members of the Press:

Online Press Office– Complete materials and images for all CinemaEast Film Festival events will be available for download from our online press office beginning October 15th at http://www.arteeast.org/cinemaeast/filmfest_05/filmfest05-press.html

Press/Industry Screenings will on October 20th and 21st, at 11 a.m at the Quad Cinema. Only accredited journalists, distributors, and exhibitors will be admitted.

For accreditation, please email or fax your press accreditation by October 19th to zsaed@arteeast.org, or 718.832.6564

Contacts:

To obtain screeners and press passes or to schedule interviews with guest filmmakers, please contact Zohra Saed at zsaed@arteeast.org, or 917.255-1505

To contact festival director (available for interviews in English, Arabic and French), please email Rasha Salti at: rasalti@aol.com, or call: + 1 212 505 55 08.