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Shorts 2: Boreas- North Wind/ Cocoon/ Call Center/ The Day I Became my Mother/ All I Want for Christmas/ Everywhere was the Same
Tue, Nov 13, 2:00 P.M. Q&A with directors Sama Alshaibi, Faysal Soysal and Basma Al-Sharif
Synopsis
Boreas–North Wind (Poyraz), by Belma Bas. Turkey, 2006, 13 min, 35mm, NY Premiere
Set in Turkey’s Black Sea region, Poyraz is a poetic tale capturing the fragility and insularity of childhood. In a misty mountain village, a young girl does her daily chores, some of which she escapes through daydreams. But in the midst of this, a white-bearded ferryman makes a mysterious intrusion on the life of her isolated family.
Cocoon by Bahman Shahravan. Iran, 2006, 21 min, MiniDV, U.S. Premiere
A man living in a kiosk is haunted by the images of his deceased beloved and struggles to accept the cause of her death.
Call Center (Centrale), by Mohammed Hammad. Egypt, 2006, 18 minutes, miniDV, U.S. Premiere
A veiled single woman working at a call center eavesdrops on customers’ conversations in order to relieve the boredom she experiences on the job. Her unflinching response to the dark, duplicitous and occasionally depraved actions of the seemingly innocuous callers furnishes the material for a grim look at contemporary Egyptian society.
The Day I Became My Mother (Annem Oldugum Gün), by Faysal Soysal. Iran/Turkey, 2006, 12 min, DVCam, U.S. Premiere
In the Kurdish villages at Turkey’s border with Iraq, a little girl crayons her dreams and sails paper boats on a brook with a doting boy, while her mother, cutting firewood with the other women, worries about gunfire nearby. When shots ring out, the daughter’s consciousness seems to meld with the mother’s, but cold fact prevails in this fable of disenchantment.
All I Want for Christmas by Sama Alshaibi. Palestine/USA, 2007, 7 min, MiniDV, NY Premiere
During the Christmas season in the West Bank, Palestinians apply for permission papers to enter Israel. Their wish is to see the sea: the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, all under Israeli control.
Everywhere Was the Same by Basma al-Sharif. Palestine/USA, 2007, 12 min, DVCam, World Premiere
The sound of clicking slides, together with extracts from a speech by Palestinian leader Haidar Abdel-Shafi and a heart-wrenching song by Fairuz, frame still pictures of houses long abandoned, cities that have grown and changed in the absence of their original inhabitants, and a beautifully embroidered Palestinian gown.
Filmmaker's Biography
Belma Bas was born in 1969 in Ordu, Turkey. She received her B.A. in English literature from Istanbul University in 1992. A literary translator since 1990, she also worked full-time for Turkish film institutions as an international relations and festival manager from 1991 to 1998. As her debut short film, Poyraz premiered in the official competition of the 59th Festival de Cannes.
Bahman Shahravan was born in Tehran in 1980 and has been directing and producing various TV series, programs, commercials and music videos since 1993. He has written and directed five short films, including Acetaminophen (2005), That Cop’s Chasing You (2001), Dark Sleepers (2003) and Angles on the Asphalt (2005).
Born in 1981 in Cairo, Mohammed Hammad graduated with a degree in literature from Helwan University. He is an independent screenwriter and filmmaker. He authored the scripts for The Fifth Pound (El-Geneih el-Khames, 2005), directed by Ahmed Khaled, and Mersal al-Marasil (2005), directed by Hilmi Abdel-Magid, and he also directed a short experimental film, Tawaf (2004), and several documentaries, including Mulid al-Sayeda Nafisa (2004). He is presently working on his first feature.
Faysal Soysal was born in 1979 in Batman, Turkey. He has a master’s degree in cinema from Tehran Art University, where he studied Iranian cinema, and one in modern Turkish literature from Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, in Turkey. He has published a book of poetry in Turkish, and his poems and articles on film and literary criticism have appeared in several magazines. He now resides in Istanbul.
Sama Alshaibi is Assistant Professor of Art in the Photography Department at the University of Arizona, Tucson, as well as cofounder of the 6+ women’s art collective. Born in Basra, Iraq, to an Iraqi father and Palestinian mother and now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Alshaibi’s recent work investigates “borderlands,” including her own hyphenated identity, as critical sites in both physical and psychological terms. A multimedia artist, Alshaibi’s photography, video and installations have been widely exhibited internationally, including in South Africa, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Israel, Ireland, China, Jordan, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia and the United States. Her art and essays have recently appeared in Refuge & Rejection, Nueva Luz, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Alshaibi received her M.F.A. from University of Colorado (Boulder) in photography, video and media arts (2005).
Born in Kuwait of Palestinian origin, Basma Al-Sharif received her M.F.A. from the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a concentration in photography, film and video. In 2004, she was a guest student at the Art Academy of Malmö, Sweden, and recently spent two weeks in Shatana, Jordan, as part of the Triangle Arts Workshop for International Artists. Currently, Al-Sharif is active in the Chicago art scene and is an adjunct instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work deals with the problematics of diaspora, transience, displacement and nostalgia, incorporating the political turmoil in Palestine as it pertains to her own subjective experience. Playing with the relationship of text to image, Al-Sharif employs language to communicate these ideas.
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