Sat, Nov 10, 1 p.m.

Political Activism, Bloggers and New Uses of Digital and Mobile-Phone Videos
Film screenings and discussion with Wael Omar, Hossam el-Hamalawy and Karim Tartoussieh; moderated by Khaled Fahmy

The Kevorkian Center, NYU
50 Washington Square South @ Sullivan Street

Early in 2007, on a blank exterior wall in downtown Cairo, activist bloggers projected mobile-phone videos that clearly documented incidents of torture in police stations. Until then, these clips had circulated surreptitiously, only online—their appearance in public caused a stir, in both the government and the public sphere. A few months later, an independent street-theater troupe organized the region’s first mobile-phone film festival; styles and subjects varied, but nearly all addressed the subversive, forbidden or censored in Egypt today. At the same time, police and law enforcement have also begun to appropriate the technology, using it to intimidate detainees in various ways. Join Egyptian filmmaker Wael Omar, blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy and researcher Karim Tartoussieh to discuss how mobile-phone videos are emerging as a popular medium for expression for artists and activists—many without any other resources for producing film—as well as a new means of fighting with and within Mubarak’s police state.

The Nakba Archive Project: The video archive of the testimonies of the 1948 generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
A special presentation by Diana Allan, co-director, the Nakba Archive Project

IFC Center

As the ranks of first-generation Palestinian refugees continue to thin and hope of return appears increasingly remote, the symbolic value placed on 1948 as the key date in Palestinian history continues to rise. This period has come to be known in Arabic as al-nakba—literally, “the catastrophe.” The Nakba Archive, a grassroots oral history collective based in Lebanon, has recorded more than 450 eyewitness testimonies that reconstruct, through personal memories, the social, cultural and political life in Palestine prior to 1948 and the events that led to the expulsion. In collaboration with ArteEast, the Nakba Archive will be screening a selection of interview excerpts, accompanied by an informal presentation with one of the archive’s directors.

Tue, Nov 13, 12:30 p.m.

Tuesday, November 13 at 12:30 at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
721 Broadway @ Waverly Place. Room 006 (Film, Television, and New Media)

The IFTC, AIF and ESAV Marrakesh are dedicated to training young filmmakers and energizing film culture. Established in 2004, the IFTC gives voice to ordinary Iraqis through free intensive short courses in film technique, theory and production, with a particular emphasis on documentaries and television production. Students’ work has been screened at international festivals and on Al-Jazeera. The AIF has been operating since 2005, both training filmmakers and building a Middle Eastern film archive; it will be fully operational by 2008, supporting three filmmakers annually in developing their work. Affiliated to Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakesh, the ESAVM is the first film school in Morocco, inaugurated in 2006, it provides professional training and bachelor degrees in film, the audio-visual fields, and multimedia communications.

“Film and television can be powerful tools in the reconstruction of a shattered society and contribute to the re-defining and renewal of a national culture. They provide a way for a society to look at itself, to question its history and to consider its future. And they also provide a way for one section of society to talk to another.” –from the Mission Statement of IFTC.

 “The interplay and contradictions between the images and the realities of the Arab World continue to raise concerns both of representation and cultural dialogues. Arguably, one of the most misrepresented and least understood areas in the world, the Arab world is a region whose historical, cultural, and geographical sweep is vast, diverse, and complex. From Morocco to Iraq, the Arab World has been a cradle for world traditions, which have contributed to and shaped global civilizations. In addition to being one of the great historical cosmopolitan centers, the Arab world has been the home for some of the earliest and most dynamic film productions in the world.” –from the Mission Statement of the Arab Institute for Film.

“With the reign of Mohamed VI, Morocco has been witnessing an important moment in its history, where the transition to democracy is mediated through freedom of the press and the curtailing of the government’s monopole over the audio-visual field and industries. The development of a Moroccan cinema occupies a central role in this new process. Funding for short and feature length films has increased by seven-fold, enabling the production of some twenty feature films and some fifty per year. On the other hand, a pro-active promotional campaign has attracted a number of foreign productions. The ESAV Marrakesh has seen the light in this context, identifying talents, providing high-standards of education and training, contributiong significantly to the transformation of the country’s film industry and more over-arching changes.” –Vincent Melilli, founding member of the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels Marrakesh.

Maysoon Pachachi is an Iraqi/British filmmaker. Educated in Iraq, the USA and Britain, she graduated from the London Film School and worked as a film editor in London, before turning to directing and producing. She has directed eight documentary films, including the prize-winning Iranian Journey, Bitter Water (about a Palestinian camp in Beirut) and Return to the Land of Wonders about her return to Iraq in 2004. She has taught film directing and editing in Jerusalem and Gaza for the Jerusalem Film Institute, European Union and at Birzeit University in Ramallah. In 2004, she co-founded the Independent Film and Televsion College, a tuition-free film-training centre in Baghdad. She is currently developing documentary and fiction film projects.

Omar Amiralay is a Syrian documentary filmmaker who studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques, or IDHEC (now known as FEMIS) in 1967. A veteran independent filmmaker in Syria, he has directed more than fifteen films, to worldwide critical acclaim, earning several international awards. Titles include Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (1974), a scathing critique of the government's failure to provide basic amenities to the poor; The Misfortunes of Some… (1982) considered one of the most compelling documentary films about the Lebanese civil war; A Scent of Paradise, (1982) on Palestinian refugees during the Israeli siege of Beirut; The Intimate Enemy (1985) on the rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism amongst immigrants of Arab origin in France. His most recent film A Flood in Baath Country (2003), marks the filmmaker’s return to engaging with Syria’s contemporary social and political issues. Since 2005 he has been a driving force in the establishment of the Arab Film Institute, a venture that seeks to establish a film school for young Arab to filmmakers.

Vincent Melilli was born in Morocco, after he graduated with degrees in literature and cinema, he worked as the administrator of movie theaters in Paris (Escurial and Max Linder). From 1998 to 2000, he was in charge of audio-visual programs at the French Institute in London, and later worked as the institute’s director. Since 2004, he has been involved in the establishment of an academic institution that specializes in the visual arts in Marrakesh, the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels Marrakesh. It opened its doors officially in October 2007.