Honoring Palestinian History with Filmmaker Annemarie Jacir

When I Saw You, the second feature film by leading Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir (Salt of this Sea), centers on an 11-year-old boy who has been exiled to Jordan along with his mother in the wake of the 1967 War and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Rejecting the situation, young Tarek sets off from the refugee camp back to Palestine on his own, but is picked up and taken in by a group of fedayeen — the young, idealist fighters who were ready to sacrifice their lives to liberate Palestine in the ’60s and ’70s.

When I Saw You was screened during the sold-out opening night of the Chicago Palestine Film Festival earlier this month, where Jacir was present. I sat down with the director, who told me that she made a hopeful film despite her deep depression, how she put her actors through military training, and described the lengthy search to find the young star of her film. The following transcript was edited for length.

READ MORE AT The Electronic Intifada

Shahnameh of the Digital Age

In his small studio in Brooklyn Heights, New York, Hamid Rahmanian spent 10,000 hours in front of his computer cobbling together a new Shahnameh, the epic mythology of Iran.

In the 1,000 years since the Persian poet Ferdowsi put the oral tradition into verse, there have been many versions produced in lithograph, miniature and manuscript form. To create Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings, Rahmanian meticulously researched and scanned images and texts spanning the 14th through the 19th centuries, from the Indian subcontinent to the Levant and beyond.

“I work like a DJ,” said Rahmanian, 44, an award-winning graphic designer and filmmaker. “A DJ samples music that already exists and manipulates the song and creates their own original music.”

READ MORE AT Al-Monitor

*Photo Credit: Hamid Rahmanian, courtesy of Quantuck Lane Press: W.W. Norton

Street Artist Aakash Nihalani's Spatially Arresting Designs Go Indoors

When Aakash Nihalani walks through the streets of New York City, he notices interesting colors, shapes, and other objects as much as the next person. But instead of taking an Instagram photo or making a mental note, Nihalani outlines that interesting object or shape with using the neon tape that he carries on him at all times, boxed within square or cube patterns. It is an ongoing series of both street art and indoor installations, the latter of which can be seen at his current show “Islands” at Brooklyn’s Signal Gallery through May 14.

This street artist highlights and emphasizes space in a way that’s elegant in its simplicity and form.

READ MORE AT Blouin ArtInfo

*Photo Credit: Poster Boy NYC

The Butterfly Effect: An Interview with Louna Sbou

Launched in 2012, The Butterfly Effect event series has given Amman a breath of fresh air. When I first attended one of the events in March 2012, I forgot I was in Jordan as I listened to poets and musicians from all over – Palestine, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, and America. I was exposed to acoustic tunes, beat boxing, slam poetry, hip-hop and rock music. The vibe was right, the poetry was tight, and the music was off the chain!

READ MORE AT Kalimat Magazine

*Photo Credit: YouinJordan.com on Facebook

Farshad Farahat Shares His 'Argo' Experience

Hello, Backstage! My name is Farshad Farahat, and I want to share my experience in "Argo" as Azizi, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard interrogating the seven escaping Americans in the climactic airport scene.

After three years in the industry, my "Argo" journey started May 19, 2011 in the casting office of Lora Kennedy at Warner Brothers. Lora’s incredible warmth and poise instantly calmed my nerves and allowed me to settle into the subject matter, a topic that resonated with my Iranian-American background. At "Argo’s" second read, I met the director, Ben Affleck, and the producer, Grant Heslov. Once again their open casting environment allowed me to be calm and perform in front of such giants of film. In August 2011, I was cast as a Revolutionary ticket taker in the airport scene.

READ MORE AT Backstage.com

*Photo Credit: Bex.Walton

Cairo's Art Festivals Engulfed in Politics

A man holds a placard of former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi and faces a screen playing footage identical to the man’s surroundings, almost. On the screen, the sign he’s holding turns into a photo of Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shater. The other signs featuring non-Islamist leaders appear as either Islamist politicians or members of the Mubarak regime. Chants supporting President Mohamed Morsi echo through that Zamalek street.

Sameh El-Tawil was taking pictures and video footage. He said he’ll post the “fake” video online showcasing the distorted image of reality, his own commentary on the nation’s media and political scenes providing both a backdrop and inspiration to his and others’ digital installations that breezy March night.

READ MORE AT Al-Monitor

*Photo Credit: Cairo Digital Art Festival via Facebook

Palestinian Rappers Spark Debate With New Album

From Haifa to Ramallah, New York to San Francisco, the three Palestinian rappers from DAM have been busy promoting their new album Dabke on the Moon. But this time, more than a decade after first mesmerizing young Palestinians with political rhymes against Israeli oppression, the musicians have sparked criticism from an unlikely group — liberal Palestinian academics.

Their fans have been waiting six years for the release of their new album, which is full of danceable messages from the three wise men of Arabic hip hop. But the emcees have directed some of their new lyrical criticism to oppression in Palestinian society.

READ MORE AT Al-Monitor

*Photo Credit: Christopher Hazou 

Michael Moore: "How My Friend and Current Oscar Nominee Emad Burnat Was Held and Threatened with Deportation Last Night at LAX"

Last night was the Motion Picture Academy-sponsored dinner in Beverly Hills honoring the directors and producers of this year's five nominated films for Best Documentary. The dinner was an occasional tradition my wife and I started six years ago when we took our fellow nominees (we were nominated for Sicko) out for a meal to get to know each other. The Academy liked the idea, so this year it is holding dinners during Oscar Week for each of the separate branches' Oscar nominees.

Thus, last night, as an elected Governor of the Documentary Branch, I and my fellow Governors – Michael Apted and Rob Epstein – were co-hosting the nominee dinner for the documentary filmmakers. But one of the nominated directors was not there – Emad Burnat, the co-director of the Oscar-nominated 5 Broken Cameras.

READ MORE AT Huffington Post

*Photo Credit: New Wave Films

From Revolution to Resistance, New Book Tracks Egypt's Street Art Movement

With 430 color photographs, Mia Gröndahl’s “Revolution Graffiti: Street Art of the New Egypt” (American University in Cairo Press) offers a full and vibrant look at street art in Egypt. The photographer and author, who lives in Cairo, explains that graffiti was practically unknown before the revolution, with a few exceptions (Hajj paintings, for example, which might be put up on the walls of a household whose members made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and commercial slogans that were sometimes painted directly on walls). Then came January 25, 2011, and the street art scene in Egypt was born overnight in an incubator of popular unrest. It would be hard to imagine a more urgently political artistic movement: its locations, references, and iconography are all connected to the demands of revolution. Here are a few highlights...

READ MORE AT Blouin ArtInfo

*Photo Credit: Gigi Ibrahim

A Conversation with Director Mira Nair

On Friday, April 26, the Mira Nair-directed thriller “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” [opened] in theaters across the United States. The film, based on the novel by the Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, stars the British actor Riz Ahmed as a possible terrorist.

The film begins at an outdoor café in Lahore in 2011 with Mr. Ahmed as Changez, a young Pakistani, telling an American journalist called Bobby, played by Liev Schreiber, his life story and how he ended up back in his homeland. A Princeton graduate, he landed a job at a prestigious financial firm in New York, fell in love with Erica, played by Kate Hudson and was on his way to having it all when Sept. 11, 2001 intervened. He was strip searched and interrogated because of his Pakistani origin, which led him to start questioning who he really was.

READ MORE AT The New York Times India Ink

*Photo Credit: Image.net