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Egypt’s entry for the 2004 Oscar for Best Foreign Language
Film and the country’s greatest box-office hit in a decade,
Sleepless Nights has been a runaway hit with Egyptian audiences
and critics alike. Starring a Who’s Who of Egyptian cinema’s
younger generation, the film explores four young, well-to-do couples
and their marital problems, including adultery and sexual frustration.
The film’s candid portrayal of sexual relations and its
rare criticism of the institution of marriage created a stir throughout
the Middle East. |
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After
his original project is disrupted on September 11th, a filmmaker turns
his camera on himself and fellow Egyptians in New York City. Whether
in front of the news tickers and chaotic bustle of Times Square or
relaxing in suburban Queens, these writers, teachers, reporters and
street vendors talk hopefully, critically and openly about Arabs’
status in the U.S., media manipulation and why they love (or hate)
New York. Featuring NYU professor Khaled Fahmy. In English & Arabic with English subtitles. |
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Universal
Games manipulates footage from one week of New York network TV news
in October 2000, when the two top stories were the “Subway Series”
between the Yankees and the Mets and the escalation of the Al-Aqsa
Intifada, exposing an unnerving similarity in the media’s reporting
on stories of wildly varying gravity. Post-screening panel discussion with Ali Bâli (ADC-New York Chapter). Nelly Alorabi (Deputy Consul, of Egypt in New York) and Khaled Fahmy (NYU) This program was made possible through the NYU Film Department’s Directors’ Series. |
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From veteran director Tahmineh
Milani, long a pioneer in women's issues, comes The Fifth Reaction,
the most controversial film in Tehran's 2003 Fajr Film Festival. Fereshteh,
played by celebrated Iranian actress Niki Karimi, is a recently widowed
schoolteacher who finds herself pitted against her father-in-law,
a powerful Tehran businessman, for custody of her two sons. Aided
by her female friends, she plots to escape with her children, leading
to a suspenseful drama reminiscent of Thelma & Louise. In Farsi with English subtitles. Post-screening panel discussion with Rabeah Ghaffari (Filmmaker, NYC) and Kamran Rastegar (Columbia University) Program co-presented by the Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, NYU |
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In the early autumn of 2002,
seven young Palestinian artists gather in Ramallah to present their
work in a group exhibition for the A.M. Qattan Young Artist of the
Year 2002 Award. Others, unable to attend because of the total closure
of the Gaza Strip where they live, send their work through foreign
diplomatic pouches. This poignant video diary recounts the events
surrounding the exhibition and explores art’s relationship to
resistance, politics and violence. In English & Arabic with English subtitles. |
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with Paint! No Matter What (Naghashi Kon!) by Maziar Bahari (Iran, 2001, 26 min., Beta SP)
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The traumatic experience
of war and the accompanying realization that death may come at any
moment convince Khosrow Hassanzadeh to make painting his top priority.
Taking a job in a grocery to support his work as a painter, he gains
inspiration from the day-to-day struggles of his fellow Iranians.
Though his family is less than supportive and no one will exhibit
his work, Khosrow persists in creating paintings in stark contrast
to popular works, which represent the official version of Iranian
society. In Farsi with English subtitles. |
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Ali Essafi’s bitingly
comic documentary is a portrait of a small Moroccan town whose economy
is driven by the many movie crews drawn by its exotic desert scenery.
Turning his camera on crabby casting directors for an Italian biblical
epic, would-be extras in Astérix et Obélix and an old
local hand who once carried Pasolini’s bags, Essafi cannily
skewers the international film industry and the disparity between
movie magic and economic reality. In French, English and Arabic with English subtitles. Post-screening panel discussion with Shiva Balaghi (NYU) and Maysoun Freij (Emerson University) |
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March 27: Sacrifices (Sunduq al-Dunya) by Oussama Mohammad (Syria/France, 2002, 113 min., 35 mm) |
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In a remote Syrian village,
an aging patriarch seeks to pass on his name to one of his grandsons
before he dies. Unfortunately, he can no longer tell the growing number
of grandchildren apart. Three of his descendants wander nameless through
a fantastical world, searching for pleasure and salvation. The first
finds it in self-effacement and submission, the second in love and
the third in power, violence and cruelty. As an eternal witness of
life, a village tree is witness to their quest as it has unfolded
time and time again over the last 2,000 years. In Arabic with English subtitles. Post-screening panel discussion with Souheil Shadoud (Columbia University) and Rasha Salti (ArteEast, NYC & Ashkal-Alwan, Beirut) |
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April 3: Kasaba (The Small Town) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey, 1997, 82 min., 35 mm) |
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Film director Nuri Bilge
Ceylan recently came to international attention when his latest film
Uzak won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. His first feature film, Kasaba,
marks the emergence of Ceylan’s unique talent and offers a poetic
contemplation of the division between city and village animating Turkish
society. Told from the perspective of two children, Kasaba is a nuanced
and reflective film following three generations of a family in a small
town and a desire for cities as sites of the modern and new. Meditating
on natural objects and human expressions, Ceylan’s stunning
visual vocabulary provides a lens with which to examine Turkish culture
and identity. In Turkish with English subtitles. |
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by Jagadakeer…Between the Near and East
by Tina
Bastajian (USA, 2001, 19 min., Beta SP) |
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"Jagadakeer" is
an Armenian term meaning fate, destiny or, literally,"what is
written on the forehead." The filmmaker's fate was to find in
film, a space in which to explore issues of memory, erasure, nostalgia,
absence and reconnection, using the Armenian genocide as point of
departure. A collage of stylized tableaus, found footage and home
movies, this personal meditation is not just about her grandmother,
great-aunts or the Turks; it is about Bastajian herself and her efforts
to articulate and transcend the residue of the original trauma into
film language. In English, Armenian, Turkish and Arabic with English Subtitles. Post-screening panel discussion with Sibel Erol (NYU) and Anahid Kassabian (Fordham University) Program co-presented by the Moon and Stars Project |
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May 1: Dancing in the Dust (Raghs Dar Ghobar) by Asghar Farhadi (Iran, 2003, 95 min., 35 mm) |
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Dark and intense, Dancing
in the Dust continues Iranian cinema’s post-revolutionary style
of ethics of social life, yet marks the emergence of a new generation
of Iranian films. Nazar, torn by his love for a woman deemed inappropriate
by social standards, tries to fulfill his obligation to the law and
the community by paying off the bride-price, only to find himself
in desperate straits. His entanglement with a solitary snake catcher
in the desert brings physical and emotional distress to both, but
hope and love are not lost in this stunning, lyrical tale. In Farsi with English subtitles. |
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with The Axe by Ahmad Arbani (Iran, 1981, 9 min., 35 mm)
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film, a malicious axe that starts hacking trees, bushes and flowers
threatens the existence of a happily thriving forest. The individual
efforts of the plants to stop the axe fail. But when the entire forest
discovers the power of unified action, the axe is doomed. No dialog. |
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and Viewpoints by Farshid Mesghali (Iran, 1978, 11 min., 35 mm)
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from different aspects. A man as subject is viewed differently by
the various people in his life according to their relationship. No dialog. Post-screening panel discussion with Bilge Ebiri (New York Magazine) and Richard Pena (Film Society of Lincoln Center) |
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