Told with heartfelt humor by writer-director Cherien Dabis in her feature film debut, Amreeka is a universal journey into the lives of a family of immigrants and first-generation teenagers caught between their heritage and the new world in which they now live and the bittersweet search for a place to call home.

Amreeka recalls Dabis' family memories of their lives in rural America during the first Iraq War. The film stars Haifa-trained actress Nisreen Faour as Muna, and Melkar Muallen plays her 16-year-old son, Fadi. Also in the cast are Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Yussef Abu-Warda and Joseph Ziegler. Written and directed by Cherien Dabis Amreeka was produced by Christina Piovesan and Paul Barkin. Alicia Sams, Dabis and Gregory Keever were executive producers; Liz Jarvis and Al-Zain Al-Sabah were co-producers.

National Geographic Entertainment will release Amreeka in September 2009.Amreeka is a First Generation Films-Alcina Pictures-Buffalo Gal Pictures/Eagle Vision Media Group Production, presented by E1 Entertainment in association with Levantine Entertainment, Rotana Studios and Showtime Arabia.

Amreeka made its world premiere in dramatic competition at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and played as Opening Night of New Directors/New Films, a co-presentation of The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center. Amreeka made its debut internationally in Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

"'Cherien Dabis's "Amreeka" stands alongside "The Visitor" and "Maria Full of Grace" as one of the most accomplished recent films about a non·European immigrant coming to the United States."
— the New York Times
"The strength of "Amreeka" is its ability to take on a fraught situation and avoid both stridency and sentimentality..."
— the Los Angeles Times

Directed By: Cheren Dabis
Drama | 2009 | USA | 96 minutes
English & Arabic with English Subtitles

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Tribeca 09 screened two Arab features as part of its out of competition slate: Annemarie Jacir's Salt Of This Sea and Franco-Algerian director Lyès Salem's Masquerades.

Salem is the newest member of a vibrant, talented new generation of Algerian filmmakers (all of whom are under 45) that includes Tariq Teguia (Inland/Gabbla), Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche (Adhen/Dernier Maquis), and Malek Bensmaïl (La Chine Est Encore Loin).

Masquerades is a completely engaging satire. It won numerous first place awards last year on the Arab Film Fest circuit - Best First Film in Carthage, Best Arabic Film in Cairo, and the Muhr Arabic Feature Best Film in still purse-rich Dubai (despite the weakening of the Gulf emirate's real estate market), where the French-Algerian production also won that particular event's first ever FIPRESCI prize.

Previously, Salem had also scooped up awards for his two other films, both shorts: the 2001 Golden Star in Marrakesh, for Jean Farès, and the 2005 César, for Cousines.

Set in Aurès, a Berber village in the mountains of East Algeria, Masquerades is one sly dog of a movie.

Initially, it is apparently nothing but a delicious - and harmless - wedding farce. Salem at first seems intent on nothing more than puncturing Algerian machismo posturing, and the cultural values of a society that overvalues all things European.

The film revolves around the deeply insecure figure of Mounir (Salem), a puffed up gardener, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Ali G, is perpetually dressed in tracksuit, and prefers to refer to his lowly occupation as that of a “horticulture engineer”.

Mounir works for the richest man in town (an unseen Colonel), is married, and has a beautiful narcoleptic sister Rym (Sarah Reguieg), who suffers from a tendency to pass out, suddenly, in the most inappropriate circumstances. Because of her condition, Mounir endures much cruel mocking by the villagers regarding Rym's potential suitability as a wife.

Their incessant persiflage finally drives him over the edge. One night, he cannot take it any more, gets drunk, and grandly announces to the village her impending nuptials to a wealthy Frenchman, a certain William Van Cooten, whom he has seen briefly on TV. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, Rym is madly in love with Khliffen (Mohamed Bouchaïb), a neighbour, and Mounir's best friend.

As word spreads around town concerning this impending phantom marriage, Mounir suddenly becomes an honoured man in the village. People who once shunned or made fun of his station in life begin to shower him with gifts. Rym goes along with Mounir's slip of tongue in order to force Khliffen to propose, and the rest of the film revolves around Mounir's attempts to resolve his dilemma with honour.

Masquerades is in part a hilarious variant on the long-standing French vaudeville tradition of quiproquo (Salem's original screenplay was titled Les Trois Mensonges, or, The Three Lies), or the misunderstood word. Appreciating its deft sense of humour is only enhanced by knowing both Arabic and French, as there are some truly funny cross-language puns here; although by no means is this necessary to enjoying the film. It has affinities with Egyptian comedies of the Sixties, and recalls most directly veteran Algerian auteur Merzak Allouache's groundbreaking Omar Gatlato (1976).

But there is more to Masquerades than breezy social satire. What Salem has succeeded in doing is create a metaphor for Algeria - a country that many young people want to abandon in search for work and a better life in Europe, a country that is controlled by an aging oligarchy, a country that was racked in the Nineties by a long-running civil war that resulted in the death of 160,000 people, a country where broadcast media is strictly controlled, a place where cinemas are few and censorship rampant, a country where movie directors have faced death threats by radical Islamists.

If Algeria has fallen asleep from time to time, since its independence in 1962 from France, when will it wake up for good?

Salem's movie gently hints at one possible answer to that question.

Nisreen Faour as Muna and Melkar Muallem as Fadi in "Amreeka," directed by Cherien Dabis.

“Amreeka,” which is set in 2003 at the outset of the American-led invasion of Iraq, is inspired by the experiences of Ms. Dabis, a Palestinian-Jordanian who grew up in Ohio and in Jordan and whose parents immigrated to the United States just before she was born. During the Persian Gulf war, she recalls in the production notes, her family faced the same kinds of persecution and ostracism that Muna and her sister’s family, the Halabys, suffer as the invasion continues.

The early scenes in the West Bank show Muna stoically enduring the daily humiliation of having to pass through two Israeli checkpoints on her grueling commute from Bethlehem to work in a bank. For all the hardships of life in the West Bank, in coming to America, she is forsaking a relatively comfortable existence to venture into the unknown with her 16-year-old son, Fadi (Melkar Muallem).

At the Chicago airport, where they are detained for three hours, mother and son endure the same sort of hostile interrogation they received at West Bank checkpoints. After finally passing through immigration, they are met by Muna’s severe sister, Raghda Halaby (Hiam Abbass), and her family, who live in a semi-rural suburb.

Raghda, who left the West Bank 15 years earlier but is still profoundly homesick, is married to a successful Palestinian doctor, Nabeel (Yussef Abu Warda). The couple have three daughters, the oldest of whom, Salma (Alia Shawkat), is Fadi’s age and becomes his guide to the treacherous jungle of American high school life. Horrified at Fadi’s pleated trousers, because they make him look “F.O.B.” (“fresh off the boat,” she explains), she supervises his wardrobe for his first day of school, and the two become fellow rebels from the social mainstream.

Muna’s first major setback is her discovery while unpacking that the sealed tin of cookies in which she had stashed all her money is missing, having been confiscated by the immigration authorities, along with the other food she had brought. Deeply ashamed, she is too proud to tell her sister.

Unlike other recent films about immigration, “Amreeka” maintains the buoyant mood of a serious sitcom. As Muna and Fadi confront hostility and prejudice, their misadventures, some of which augur disaster, are resolved without too much grief. The movie is peppered with little jokes. Scrutinizing the cover of a supermarket tabloid, Muna asks, “What does adopting an orangutan love child mean?” A roadside sign with missing letters advises, “Support our oops.”

The film’s upbeat tone reflects the resilience and sunny temperament of Muna, who as embodied by Ms. Faour is the kind of warm, lovable woman you want to hug. Desperate for work and unable to find it at a local bank, Muna takes a job at a White Castle next door but pretends to her family that the bank is her workplace.

At school, Fadi encounters ethnic slurs and bullying, and in the most serious incident is arrested after retaliating. At the same time, rising anti-Arab sentiment decimates Nabeel’s medical practice and strains the Halabys’ marriage. As his practice evaporates, Ms. Abbass, the great Palestinian actress who also appeared in “The Visitor,” imbues Raghda with a heavy weight of sorrow and anxiety.

Through it all, Muna perseveres. For every hostile person she encounters, there is a good Samaritan. Her co-workers at White Castle are understanding when she makes mistakes. Her most helpful ally is Mr. Novatski (Joseph Ziegler), the divorced Polish-Jewish principal at Fadi’s school, who comes to his rescue at a crucial turning point.

If, at moments, the film’s positive outlook verges on naïveté, it never strays over separating the possible from the preposterous. “Amreeka” believes in people, and its faith rubs off on you.

“Amreeka” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It includes some strong language.

AMREEKA

Opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.

Written and directed by Cherien Dabis; director of photography, Tobias Datum; edited by Keith Reamer; music by Kareem Roustom; production designer, Aidan Leroux; produced by Christina Piovesan and Paul Barkin; released by National Geographic Entertainment. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes.

WITH: Nisreen Faour (Muna Farah), Melkar Muallem (Fadi Farah), Hiam Abbass (Raghda Halaby), Alia Shawkat (Salma Halaby), Yussef Abu Warda (Nabeel Halaby) and Joseph Ziegler (Mr. Novatski).

Doha is making new strides in "reel life" as upcoming national filmmakers embark on an initiative to learn the art of filmmaking.

Using Doha as a backdrop, a team of Qatari nationals is learning the art of filmmaking, thanks to Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF).

"Nothing like this has ever happened in Qatar," said Amanda Palmer, DTFF's Executive Director.

"We have set out to find stories here, and the only way to draw those stories out is to engage people living here in filmmaking. The enthusiasm and creativity this activity has generated in just five days' time bodes well for the future of cinema in Qatar," she said.

Under the tutelage of award-winning filmmaker Scandar Copti, DTFF's Community Outreach Programmer, the group wrote, directed and produced original short films.

"To make a film, even for one minute, you need people, cameras, sound equipment, and most of all, a good story," said Copti.

The group was charged with creating a one-minute film based on their original story. To get the process started, Copti advised his students to draw on their own life experience. "Keep it simple and realistic," he told them. "Each piece needs to have a purpose."

One participating filmmaker created a brief but impactful horror feature. A second looked at the impact of technology and communication on Qatari life. A third created a vignette around a Qatari family at home.

Now comes the real work for these young directors – the final edit.

After writing their scripts and shooting their scenes, the workshop participants are sequestering themselves in editing suites to produce final, audience-worthy versions of their one-minute films. "Filmmaking requires total dedication," said Copti.

"You have to be very passionate about it."

"I will never look at a 90-minute movie the same way again," said Fatma Alremaihi, a participant. "Prior to this experience, I never thought I would make a movie. Now I have a greater understanding of everything from correct lighting to camera angles."

Alremaihi, who cast her five-year-old son Saeed in her brief film on family interaction, added: "Now my son wants to make movies, too."

Noora Almeadadi, a one-minute filmmaker, finished the experience eager to make more movies as well.

She said, "The experience was challenging but enriching. I hope to have another chance to produce a longer length feature film in future, using the skills I have learnt with the DTFF team."

Following the success of the first one-minute film experiment, the team at DTFF are planning more seminars.

The next five-day workshop, covering screenplay writing, filming, producing and editing, is to follow soon. To participate in the next "1-Minute Film" workshop, candidates are being asked to submit their film ideas to nmdtff@gmail.com.

"Every film must be screened," said Palmer.

"Movies are made to be seen." The DTFF plans to host a private showing of the films later this month.

The "1-Minute Films" series will be an ongoing outreach programme by DTFF to encourage interest in cinema, and contribute to the development of a film industry in Qatar.

The DTFF will run from October 29 to November 1, 2009 and is being produced by the Qatar Museums Authority in collaboration with the Tribeca Film Festival.

It will include about 30 films as well as special events. In its four days in Doha, DTFF will showcase its events around the city's Museum of Islamic Art.

The festival is modelled on the success of Tribeca Film Festival's dedication to engage the community and promote filmmaking talent.

In its inaugural year, Doha's film festival will celebrate the best of Arabic and international cinema.

Onetime The L Word writer Cherien Dabis’s convictions far outweigh her fear of obstacles. Raised in the Midwest by a Jordanian mother and a Palestinian father, Dabis spent five years during the George W. Bush administration writing and pursuing funds for a film about racism and deracination in post-9/11 America. Amreeka recounts the travails of Muna, a perennially optimistic Palestinian single mother who flees the escalating violence of the West Bank for her sister’s middle-class life in Kewanee, Illinois, only to face another brand of discrimination. Dabis talked with Kera Bolonik.

Amreeka is a far cry from The L Word. Is this your family’s story?
It’s loosely based on things that happened to us during the first Gulf War. We lived in a small Ohio town, and my father, a physician like Muna’s brother-in-law, lost a lot of patients because people didn’t want to see an Arab doctor. We got daily death threats, and the Secret Service came to my school because there was a rumor that my 17-year-old sister had threatened to kill the president. I was 14 and became obsessed with the media’s portrayal of Arabs. No one was depicting what we were going through in that climate. It propelled me to become a filmmaker.

You were doing prep work in March 2008 when Israel bombed Gaza. That must have been terrifying.
There were riots in the streets. At one point we were stuck in border traffic, directly in the line of fire. And while we were casting at a refugee camp, a boy was telling me about Israelis teargassing his house when gunfire erupted. He looked at me not like he was scared, but like he was sorry. I thought, If he’s not scared, I’m not scared. People shouldn’t be able to adapt to certain things, but we can. That’s part of the problem.

Is that where you found Muna’s teenage son?
No. Melkar [Muallem] is the son of a Palestinian woman who helped cast the film. He wanted nothing to do with acting—both parents are actors, and he’s only interested in computer science. I begged him to audition, and after he did, he wanted the part.

How did you get the film produced during this tumultuous period in our history?
I started writing the screenplay in 2003, when everyone wanted movies with American heroes. I’m a first-time filmmaker, with a no-name cast, shopping around a family dramedy that I was told was too light, too culturally specific. It was through programs like Sundance Labs and the Arab-American community that the movie got made.

And that took you to Sundance and Cannes.
Cannes was the first time my mom saw it. We got a six-minute standing ovation, during which she hugged me so tight she accidentally unclasped the back of my dress. It almost fell off!

Last Updated: July 28. 2009 2:20PM UAE / July 28. 2009 10:20AM GMT

Dar Films is an unassuming studio tucked away in a subterranean apartment on the outskirts of Ramallah’s sprawling urban landscape.

It is also where one of the Occupied Palestinian Territories’ most ambitious cultural endeavours has just been produced, in the form of a 3D animated film entitled Fatenah.

Saed Andoni, 37, produced and edited the movie with the assistance of Ahmad Habash, 33, the project’s director and animator. It tells the story of Fatenah, a woman from Gaza who discovers she has breast cancer. Her struggle for survival brings the audience into the painful and humiliating journey of those who suffer from terminal illnesses in the context of Israel’s debilitating siege.

“We didn’t want to deal with slogans and we didn’t want to address the ‘Palestinian cause,’” notes Andoni, as he rolls a cigarette before split-screen computer-editing equipment. “What we care about is the individual, her life and her story.”

During a simple dinner scene, the electricity suddenly shuts off – a regular occurrence in Gaza due to Israel’s policy of preventing much-needed fuel from entering the strip. The staccato sound of machine-gun fire pierces the conversation of another scene, acting as a reminder of Gaza’s perpetual instability and danger, but also of how Gazans have simply become accustomed to such conditions. Politics indelibly colours Fatenah’s setting, but it is deliberately muffled to bring out a more personal and humanising account.

Instead viewers witness the lead character’s love for a colleague in the small sewing workshop where she is employed and the tormenting nightmares she has of her illness. The engaging personal storyline pulls the viewer through the film’s 30 minutes, building a sense of injustice and cruelty, and climaxing in a final wrenching scene at an Israeli checkpoint.

Fatenah is based upon the true-life story of a Gazan woman whose identity Andoni and his colleagues have chosen to keep secret. (Fatenah is not her real name.) He became aware of her case in November 2007 when exploring ways to cover the medical crisis resulting from Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip with his friend and script co-author Ambrogio Manenti, the former director of the World Health Organization in Jerusalem. The duo, who had worked together on documentary film projects, came upon a report by Physicians for Human Rights, an Israeli organisation that focuses on trying to assist Palestinians in securing adequate health care.

“The story was incredible because when you read it, it read like a movie,” recalls Andoni.

He soon contacted Habash, who had recently returned from completing his master’s degree in 3D animation at Bournemouth University in the UK, recruiting him to the project. The team set about writing the script, incorporating fictional elements to even out the storyline and characters.

From the outset, the team faced complicated challenges related to a shoestring budget ($60,000), insufficient manpower and the never distant political situation. These constraints characterise and often cause the underdevelopment of Palestinian cultural production, forcing the team to creatively adapt or quite simply overwork themselves.

“For a year and a half I worked 15 hours a day, seven days a week,” recalls Habash, the film’s sole animator, with a half-shaven look that still bears the marks of fatigue. “I definitely overdid it, but it was the only way it was going to get done.”

Neither Andoni nor Habash had set foot in Gaza for more than 10 years and both were prevented from entering due to Israeli military orders that restrict movement of people between the West Bank and Gaza. Their answer was to use the existing resources at their disposal. Andoni commissioned a local photographer by phone to shoot images of some of the film’s most distinctly Gazan imagery – its refugee camps, its sea, its streets. The team also shot images in the West Bank of more generic settings, such as those inside hospitals. To complete the aesthetic, Andoni spent “hundreds of hours” mining the internet for additional shots of everything from the Israeli army insignia to basic office furniture.

“We didn’t just want the film to bring the viewer into a virtual reality,” notes Andoni. “We wanted to ground it on earth.” The team experimented by taking their collection of still images from Gaza and using them as two-dimensional backgrounds upon which the three-dimensional animation was superimposed. The effect is a blend of reality and fiction.

“Animation gives you another freedom,” says Andoni. “You can still speak about reality, but you can also create another reality related to this reality, and play with both, coming up with something original and new.”

The imprints of his documentary film roots and the influence of his favourite school of documentary filmmaking – cinema vérité, or direct cinema, where directors employ a fly-on-the-wall minimalist approach – are all over Andoni’s shot selection. But because of time constraints and the desire for a simplistic visual feel, almost all 700 shots in the film’s 56 scenes are taken from a fixed camera position, as though from a tripod.

“We tried not to be hyper-realistic in their form, because 3D tends to build alienated characters that no one can believe if you try to be too lifelike,” notes Habash. He credits the Palestinian artists Suleiman Mansour and Ismail Shamout for influencing his portrayal of the characters, particularly women.

Once the characters were fully developed, the next stage involved placing them in make-believe settings and animating them so that they act out the script. All the indoor scenes are composed of 3D virtual environments Habash created, while the outdoor scenes are compound-two-dimensional stills collected during the team’s research.

Finally the director assigns the placement of virtual cameras that are inserted inside each virtual scene, commanding them to film the action. The entire process needs to be well thought out in advance as animation is too costly and time-consuming to produce extra footage and scenery that will only later be cut.

The flow of the film’s storyboard – the shot by shot breakdown of the film, with each shot’s accompanying script – is key to the aesthetic credibility of character movement. In the case of Fatenah, the storyboard was vital to Habash.

“When you are working on animation, after a few shots, the characters start acting by themselves. Now I believe that Fatenah exists somewhere.”

When the film was finally composed, Andoni took the initiative to contact the family whom the character of Fatenah was based on.

“We told them, ‘Listen. Watch this film and tell us what you think. This is not your daughter in the film but it is inspired from her story’.”

After initial hesitancy, the family watched the film, then called Andoni back.

“‘It’s brilliant,’” Andoni recalls the father telling him. “I would like to thank you for this film.”

The compliment “almost made me cry on the phone”, relates Andoni. “I told him, ‘These words mean the world to me.’”

On July 1, Andoni, Habash and the small crew of volunteers who assisted with sound, music and voiceovers, gathered at the Kasaba theatre in Ramallah for the film’s premiere. Andoni was shocked at the outpouring of interest. All 380 seats in the theatre were full, and dozens more members of the audience were seated in the aisles. Advertising had been restricted to a few select invitations to close friends and the posting of the event on Facebook.

Dima Murad, 26, an architect from Jerusalem, attended the Ramallah premiere and appreciated Fatenah’s personalisation of the Palestinian condition.

“Palestinians are generally considered as numbers, as sheep,” she said.

“If hundreds of us die, it’s not a problem. But behind each one of us is a big story and a big hassle.” For Murad, the film addressed “everyday issues, that anyone might have to deal with – love, cancer, family. Through a personal story it gave the message about the whole situation here.”

Others in attendance noted the merits of animation that allowed the film to address issues harder to tackle in live action.

The premiere’s reception was a welcome rejoinder to the long and lonesome hours the filmmakers spent putting Fatenah together. Andoni hopes it is a good omen for the film, which has now been submitted to major international film festivals, including Toronto and Venice. If accepted by either, he believes it will put Palestine on the map in the animation world. The success of recent Middle Eastern-themed animation films such as the Israeli hit Waltz with Bashir, and the French-Iranian film Persepolis, will no doubt help open the door for more international attention to be given to the small but budding Palestinian animation sector.

The co-production market, which opened for 2009 submissions in May, champions directors of Levant, Maghreb, Gulf or North African origin, from Mauritania to Sudan and Syria to Om

After winning 27 international awards, including Sundance, Captain Abu Raed continues to prove that the power of word-of-mouth can carry a film to survive the brutal competitive field of theatrical distribution. American and Arab audiences alike love the film, and critics from around the country have rated it 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Please see the following link to read reviews: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_abu_raed/

The Arab Fund Documentary Film Program

Call for Proposals

The Arab Fund Documentary Film Program is a partnership between the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP). This program is dedicated to supporting contemporary nonfiction films produced by filmmakers targeting the audience in the Arab World.

Individuals and organizations working in filmmaking are invited to send in their proposals for development, production and post-production nonfiction films. A committee of independent international and regional experts will assess the received proposals and will make recommendations from projects submitted by filmmakers.

About AFAC

The Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC) is a nonprofit organization providing direct financial assistance to independent artists and cultural institutions across the Arab World. AFAC aims at stimulating and supporting artistic creativity and freedom of cultural expression in the Arab World.

About DFP

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program provides year-round support to nonfiction contemporary-issue filmmakers internationally. The program encourages the exploration of innovative nonfiction storytelling, and promotes the exhibition of documentary films to a broader audience. It supports independent artists both domestically and internationally.

How to Apply: To apply, you are required to

1. Fill in the application form in English. Applications will be evaluated by an international jury including members who are non-Arabic speakers. Application form and guidelines are available of the “how to apply” page on our website www.arabculturefund.org

2. Email the filled in application to documentaryfilm@arabculturefund.org. In addition, you might send a hard copy of your proposal (optional) to: P.O. Box 1402 Amman 11118 – Jordan. Proposals and all supporting visual materials should be submitted before the deadline. Incomplete proposals will not be reviewed.

Program Schedule:

July 16, 2009: Call for proposal.

Sep 30, 2009: Proposals submission deadline.

Jan 31, 2010: Winners announcement.

برنامج الصندوق العربي لدعم الأفلام الوثائقية

دعوة لتقديم طلبات الدعم

برنامج الصندوق العربي لدعم الأفلام الوثائقية هو شراكة بين الصندوق العربي للثقافة والفنون وبرنامج معهد سندانس للأفلام الوثائقية، وهذا البرنامج مخصص لدعم الأفلام الوثائقية المعاصرة التي تستهدف الجمهور في العالم العربي.

يدعو الصندوق العربي الأفراد والمؤسسات العاملين في صناعة الأفلام والذين يتوجهون بأفلامهم إلى الجمهور في المنطقة العربية، لطلب الدعم لمشاريعهم الخاصة بإنتاج الأفلام الوثائقية في كافة مراحلها، من تطوير للنصوص إلى الانتاج وما بعد الإنتاج، وستقوم لجنة مؤلفة من خبراء مستقلين دوليين وعرب بتقييم العروض المُستلَمة وتقديم توصيات بشأن المشاريع التي سيدعمها الصندوق العربي.

الصندوق العربي للثقافة والفنون

الصندوق العربي مؤسسة عربية مستقلة غير ربحية ومهمته دعم الإبداع الفني وحرية التعبير الثقافي في العالم العربي عبر ترسيخ دعم استراتيجي للثقافة والسعي إلى توفير آلية تمويل مستدام للفنانين كما للمؤسسات الثقافية والفنية والمساهمة في تيسير التبادل الثقافي عبر المنطقة العربية وزيادة وتعزيز الإنتاج والبحث الثقافيين والتعرف على قنوات لتوزيع الفنون العربية والمساهمة في تطويرها.

برنامج معهد سندانس للأفلام الوثائقية

برنامج معهد سندانس للأفلام الوثائقية يقدِّم دعماً على مدار السنة لمخرجي الأفلام التي تدور حول قضايا وثائقية معاصرة في كافة أنحاء العالم ويشجع على استكشاف طرق مبتكرة لرواية ما هو وثائقي، ويعززعرض الأفلام الوثائقية على نطاق أوسع ويدعم الفنانين المستقلين على الصعيدين المحلي والدولي.

كيفية تقديم الطلبات: لتقديم طلبك يتعين عليك:

1. ملء نموذج الطلب باللغة الإنجليزية. لجنة المحكّمين تتألف من خبراء بعضهم غير ناطق باللغة العربية. نموذج الطلب ودليل المِنح موجودان بثلاث لغات في صفحة "كيف تقدم الطلبات" على موقعنا الإلكتروني www.arabculturefund.org.

2. إرسال النموذج المُستكمَل بالبريد الإلكتروني إلى documentaryfilm@arabculturefund.org كما يمكنك إرسال نسخة مطبوعة من عرضك (اختياري) إلى: ص.ب 1402 عمّان 11118 – الأردن. ينبغي تسليم الطلب وجميع المواد المرئية المدّعِمة له قبل انتهاء موعد تقديم الطلبات. ولن يتم النظر في العروض الناقصة.

الجدول الزمني للبرنامج:

· 16 تموز/يوليو، 2009: بدء استقبال طلبات الدعم

· 30 أيلول/سبتمبر، 2009: الموعد النهائي لتقديم طلبات الدعم.

· 31 كانون الثاني/يناير، 2010: إعلان النتائج.

الصندوق العربي للثقافة والفنون

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Matthai Kuruvila, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, July 25, 2009

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• State agencies close for third furlough day 07.26.09

Whether Corrie naively put herself in harm's way in support of terrorists or was intentionally killed by the Israeli military is the nexus of the controversy.

by Amanda Georges
AFF Staff

Two short films have been recently completed as part of the innovative Imagine: 2018 project by grassroots organization One Voice in an effort to share the messages of peace from Israeli and Palestinian youth.

Imagine: 2018 first asked youth last year from both sides of the border to write a story imagining life in the Middle East after 10 years of peace. Fifty of the best essays were published in two books, one in Arabic and one in Hebrew, and now One Voice plans to turn the top 10 essays into short films.

“The essay contest portion of the project was designed to inspire and empower Israeli and Palestinian youth to visualize the concrete benefits of peace – and by turning the short stories into films, One Voice hopes to inspire and empower people worldwide,” said Erin Pineda from One Voice.

The project marks a new endeavor for One Voice in using film as a medium to spread the group’s message of cooperation and peace from moderates who seek a two-state solution to the ongoing conflict.

Israeli directors Rani Blair and Eran Riklis directed the first two films and recruited the help of some top Israeli actors. Directors from Israel, Palestine and Hollywood will be participating in the project.

Blair directed Tel Aviv-Damascus Express about an Israeli boy and a Palestinian girl traveling together on a train from Tel Aviv to Damascus when romance ensues.

A Soldier and a Boy was directed by Riklis and tells the story of an Israeli soldier and Palestinian boy who are chasing one another and both holding guns. When each fires their weapon, water comes out of the guns and a picnic water fight begins.

When all the films are completed, One Voice will make them available on their official website (www.onevoicemovement.org) and on video-sharing website YouTube.

“Film is an incredibly powerful medium – especially for helping people to visualize things that seem unimaginable, and for disseminating the dream or vision of a single individual to millions of people around the globe,” said Pineda.

Jury members at this year’s Cannes Film Festival do not have an enviable task, having to judge a strong competition stacked with some of the most prominent names working in film today. But cinephiles around the world do have reason to rejoice as they are facing the prospect of future theatrical releases for new films by the likes of Ang Lee, Pedro Almodóvar, Quentin Tarantino, Alain Resnais, Lars Von Trier, Jane Campion, Ken Loach, Michael Haneke and Gaspar Noé.

Judging from the official line-up for the 62nd edition at Cannes, which opened on Wednesday and runs until May 25, this is going to be a good year for film in general and for auteur cinema in particular, for it is the directors who reign over the French Riviera this week.

The festival is the oldest and most prestigious event of its kind in the world. It is also, arguably, the most international. Founded as Le Festival International de Cannes, it dropped the worldwide qualifier in 1947, although that year saw the screening of films from 16 different countries.

These days, Cannes is a credible barometer for registering the fluctuations of world cinema. However vexing the term has become, one can use Cannes to gauge the rise and fall of various regional and national cinemas. So, in addition to fielding a list of established and uncompromising directors, this year’s festival also includes a notably strong selection of films from Southeast Asia – China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines.

Almost entirely absent from the glitz and glamour, however, are films from the Arab world.

True, Elia Suleiman, the Palestinian director, is competing at Cannes for the first time in seven years. In 2002, his last feature, Divine Intervention, snagged both the Jury Prize and the Fipresci prize, awarded by the international federation of film critics. This year, his latest film, The Time That Remains – about four episodes in the life of Palestinian family who remained on their land from the creation of Israel in 1948 until the present day – is in the running for the Palm d’Or.

But before anyone considers Suleiman’s presence a triumph for Arab cinema, or even a mark of representation for the Arab world, consider the director’s comments in an interview published six years ago in Beirut: “I do not feel a particular affiliation with Arab cinema,” he said. “It has not influenced my approach to filmmaking, and this is not said in jest with provocation. Rather I have been influenced by Asian cinema, particularly cinema from Japan and Taiwan. I absorbed it like a sponge, ironically because it felt so Arab.”

The past five years have seen a smattering of Arab and Middle Eastern films at Cannes, most of them out of competition and relegated to the Directors’ Fortnight or the section entitled Un Certain Regard.

Last year, there was the Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir with Salt of This Seaand the Lebanese directing duo Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. The year before, there was Nadine Labaki’s successful but insipid Caramel and Danielle Arbid’s less successful but far more challenging Un Homme Perdu.

But while Bollywood is booming and achieving international crossover appeal, and Southeast Asian cinema is nearly outstripping European art-house and American independent film in terms of critical acclaim and narrative innovation, Arab cinema remains in a serious state of stagnation.

Little has changed in the decade since John Malkovich, however obnoxiously, presided over the jury at the Cairo film festival and declared two-thirds of the largely Egyptian and Syrian films selected so terribly boring that he splayed himself out and slept on the screening room floor.

It would be too easy to conclude that the Cannes film festival is blind to Arab cinema or politically disposed to ignore it. And it would be wrong. Cinema in the Arab world is plagued with its own problems.

The first is censorship, which is exercised on every level of film production, from the writing of scripts to the screening in theatres. There is nothing more infuriating than going to a movie theatre in Beirut, for example, to find that the first 15 minutes of The Insider, where Al Pacino’s character pays a visit to a political leader who may or may not resemble a figure in the Hizbollah hierarchy, have been cut.

There is nothing more discouraging to future generations of producers and directors than seeing a Lebanese filmmaker such as the late Randa Chahal Sabbag fighting with a censorship board that wanted to cut 40 minutes from her feature Civilisées, which ended up being screened exactly once in Beirut; or seeing Danielle Arbid skip the local market entirely for Un Homme Perdu; or seeing Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige financing the local theatrical release of Je Veux Voir themselves when no Lebanese distributor was willing to pick up the bill; or hearing Ziad Doueiri complain that he has, to date, never received a penny from the official DVD sales of his feature film West Beyrouth, one of the highest grossing Arab films in years. And Beirut is one of the more tolerant cities in the region, a place with enough business savvy to make the film industry pay.

More glaring even than censorship is the fact that Arab cinema suffers from institutional and educational neglect. Only Egypt boasts a credible film industry, but it has been in steep decline since its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. Only Morocco has made itself an appealing destination for location shoots and foreign productions. But while Maghrebi cinema is generally more advanced than elsewhere in the region, it still does not have real international presence – intriguingly, one of the best places to catch new Moroccan films is the Fespaco, the biannual pan-African film festival in Burkina Faso.

In many cases, national film bodies – where they exist – have become decrepit bureaucracies. No country has followed the French model of taxing cinema tickets and using the revenues to fund local productions. Rasha Salti, the film festival programmer and curator, once wrote of Syrian cinema: “Film production is almost entirely controlled by the state, resources are scarce, and the output is as humble as one or two films per year. Efforts at international and regional distribution for exhibition and dissemination at best are dismal and mostly non-existent, the local network of theatres … is gravely dysfunctional.”

Virtually all of the Arab films aired at Cannes have been co-produced by France, or Belgium, or the Netherlands, or Britain. None is made with local money; European co-productions often try to assuage some colonial guilt.

The Middle Eastern film industry would benefit by a more philanthropic approach by local investors. Ghassan Salhab, the Lebanese filmmaker, an auteur who should be up there with Suleiman, once described the education of would-be filmmakers in the region as catastrophic. The film scholar Lina Khatib likewise points out the dramatically poor quality of scriptwriting as a severe limitation on the potential of Arab cinema.

All the film festivals in the world – the new ones in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha; the old ones in Cairo, Damascus and Marrakesh – will do nothing to improve Arab cinema unless serious attention is paid to conditions in which filmmakers work.

Festivals, after all, do not address education standards, intellectual property rights, fair wages and labour rights guaranteed for film crews, sources of funding, or the freedom to realise the stories, images and sounds that occupy a filmmaker’s imagination.

This year’s Circle Conference at the Middle East International Film Festival is Abu Dhabi in October will at least attempt to correct that deficit by discussing the financing of filmmaking.

Festivals may book plane tickets and hotel rooms and restaurants. They may even brand cities and help them weather the credit crisis. But in terms of enduring cultural product, all of this is beside the point. Cannes’s reputation is built on years of great film, and unfortunately, few of the building blocks are coming from this part of the world.

Kaelen Wilson-Goldie is an arts writer for The National

Habre's 'Village' wins top prize

North America's largest annual nonfiction fest, confab and meet, which ended Sunday, handed out 10 awards and over $52,000.

El Habre's doc focuses on his uncle, Semaan El Habre, who is the only person living in Ain El Halazoun, in the mountains above Beirut. After being besieged by Christian and Druze militias during the 1975-1990 civil war, the village became a ghost town as the inhabitants moved away and the buildings were destroyed or fell into disrepair.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- When the 10th London Palestine Film Festival opens this week, Londoners will have greater access to films made in the Palestinian territories than many people living in the region.

Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir's first feature film, "Salt of This Sea," premiered at Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

Today, there is only one movie theater operating in the West Bank. Gaza has none.

The "Al Kasaba" theater in Ramallah is the only formal film venue for a population of nearly 2.5 million in the West Bank. Due to travel restrictions it is virtually inaccessible to the one and one half million Palestinians residing in Gaza.

It is estimated that about 80 percent of Palestinian children have never been to a movie theater, according to a report in The Christian Science Monitor.

With this lack of distribution, and hardly any formal funding available, producing a film within the Palestinian territories is a tremendous challenge.

Against the odds, the region's filmmakers completed three feature films and an estimated eight shorts in 2008 -- more than ever before. Local directors are determined to tell their stories and have adapted to cope with the region's difficult circumstances.

Lack of cinematic infrastructure

One of the greatest obstacles filmmakers face is a lack of equipment and crews. According to industry experts, directors in the Palestinian territories have little hope of competing with international news media over the limited resources.

"Crews who can work for international news organizations at very high salaries don't want to work for independent film makers," says director and coordinator of the Shashat's Women's Film Festival, Alia Arasoughly.

"They don't want to rent their equipment out for a 10-hour shooting day, when they can rent it out for just two hours and triple the price to an international crew."

As a consequence of this, filmmakers are looking to local residents for production assistance.

Annemarie Jacir's first feature film,"Salt of This Sea," which premiered last year at Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of an American woman who travels to Israel to visit the land where her grandfather lived before Palestinians were ejected in 1948.

The film was shot with a crew consisting largely of novices assembled by the director, including a former ambulance driver, a jeweler and a radio DJ.

"There were always discussions with my producers, who preferred bringing more experienced professional people from Europe in, and I insisted that I'd rather have locals even if they're less experienced," Jacir told CNN.

"We're trying to build something in [the Palestinian territories], and when things got tough, because they believed in what we were doing, they stayed."

During the shoot Jacir's team also received unexpected support from members of the local community, who brought them food and drinks in between takes.

"We even had the entire Palestinian police force blocking traffic; going out of their way to help us," remembers Jacir.

Restricted Mobility

A further complication faced by Jacir and her colleagues is the limitation on movement and access in the Palestinian territories.

Since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israeli authorities have imposed varying degrees of restriction on the movement of people in and out of the territories, according to human rights group, Amnesty International.

In 2007, the year in which Jacir shot the majority of her film, Amnesty reported 84 manned checkpoints and 465 unmanned blockades within the West Bank alone.

As a result of these security measures, which the Israelis say are necessary to secure their country from Palestinian attacks, the production of "Salt of This Sea," a movie with over 80 shooting locations was logistically very complex.

In order to shoot the road movie lawfully, Jacir and her crew had to apply for permission to leave Ramallah.

"Every single crew member was rejected. So, just purely getting through the checkpoints and the logistics of keeping a film crew together was an obstacle."

Obtaining shooting permission was equally problematic. Permits for various locations including Jaffa were refused repeatedly -- a hindrance which did not deter Jacir.

"In some cases we just filmed anyway. We put the actors in a real situation and we just did it guerrilla-style. That's how most Palestinian filmmakers are managing to do their work," she told CNN.

A bright future?

While drawbacks such as a lack of funding, a lack of resources, and restrictions of movement would dissuade directors in many other countries, members of the growing film community in the Palestinian territories are forging bonds over the difficulties.

While Arasoughly and Jacir agree that it would be going too far to speak of a "national cinema" at this stage, they look to the future with great optimism.

The novice crew members Jacir recruited to work on "Salt of This Sea" have continued to find work in filmmaking -- a fact Jacir believes indicates an industry is gradually starting to emerge.

"I think there's a wave coming -- a lot of new filmmakers, a lot of people making documentaries and more experimental films, working together," Jacir told CNN.

Arasoughly, whose Shashat festival will enter its fifth year this fall, is equally hopeful.

"The fact that we, under the harshest of conditions in the Arab world, have been able to hold an annual women's film festival, and that hundreds of students come to our screenings means that people want their worlds to be expanded," she said.

Disney expands into Middle East

Studio in talks to fund, produce 'Storytellers'

By ALI JAAFAR

Disney is in advanced negotiations with Lebanese helmer Chadi Zeneddine to finance and produce "The Last of the Storytellers."

The Mouse House's first feature in Arabic will mark the start of an expansion drive by Disney execs into the region.

Pic, which will also be produced by Rachel Gandin, will draw on the Arab world's rich folkloric traditions. "The Last of the Storytellers" should go into production by the end of 2009.

Disney has big plans for the Middle East. The Arab world has a population of some 300 million people, and with two-thirds under age 30, the market is a natural for family-friendly Disney fare. Disney expects to announce two more Arabic-language features in time for the fifth edition of the Dubai Film Festival, which unspools in December.

"There’s a lot of opportunity for us in the Middle East," said a Disney exec, who insisted on anonymity. "There’s a lot of room for growth for us. It’s the international territory that we’re most excited about expanding into."

Disney may be the first of the majors to announce its Middle Eastern plans, but the other studios are also seriously eyeing the region.

Read Full Article

The Evening Class: Michael Hawley's Preview of the Arab Film Festival

BEIRUT: Tripoli-born filmmaker Randa Chahal Sabag died in Paris on Monday after a years-long struggle with breast cancer. At a mere 55 years of age, Sabag's passing is nothing if not premature.

Like many filmmakers from Lebanon and the wider Middle East, where the film industry is either non-existent or financially proscribed, Sabag's is a small oeuvre. With a half-dozen international film festival prizes under her belt, it is also a critically significant one.

Sabag began her career with documentary film but she'd started to turn her attention to feature films by the 1990s, though she retained a documentary-maker's nose for contentious subject matter.

Her 1997 drama "Les Infideles" is a case in point. It tells a story of the relationship between a French diplomat and a former Islamist who agrees to turn over the names of his erstwhile colleagues if the French government will release an imprisoned friend. Made for French television, the movie dwells on the passionate attraction between the former militant and the (married) diplomat, and the ensuing seduction of one by the other. (...)

Her greatest commercial and critical success came in 2003 and the release of "The Kite," which was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2003 Venice Film Festival and won three other prizes - the Grand Special Jury Prize, the Cinema for Peace Award and the Laterna Magica Prize.
Set in an anonymous Qunaytra-like South Lebanese village, the film recounts the story of an arranged marriage between Lamia, a 15-year-old Lebanese Druze girl, and her Israeli Druze cousin. The drama unfolds under the watchful eyes of a pair of Israeli Arab border guards, one of whom is played by Lebanese composer-actor-playwright Ziad Rahbani.

By Elaine Pasquini

Michel Shehadeh (Staff photo P. Pasquini.)

"I'm definitely going to put everything I can into this project," Michel Shehadeh told the Washington Report in a recent interview. "I want to make the Arab Film Festival not just an Arab-American cultural event, but an American cultural event and an integral part of the art and culture scene as seen through Arab lenses and eyes."

Sitting in the film festival's office in San Francisco's hip South Park district, the new AFF executive director spoke excitedly about his goals and ideas for the United States' oldest independent Arab film festival. "I want to institutionalize and stabilize the film festival in terms of revenue and financial resources and make it the focal point of Arab films," he explained. "It is our job to bring quality and award-winning films to American audiences, and we need more than the Arab-American community to attend. Our aim is to reach the general public."

Shehadeh served six years as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's western regional director, but the Palestinian from the West Bank town of Birzeit is perhaps best known for his 20-year persecution by the U.S. government which ended last year, when the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed all charges against him (see Jan./Feb. 2008 Washington Report, p. 45).

More than 100 films from Arab countries, as well as Europe, the United States and Canada, have been submitted for the 12th annual festival, which will run Oct. 16-31 in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose and Los Angeles. "This overwhelming response from so many countries contributes to the diversity of the festival," Shehadeh noted. "There is a renaissance in Arab filmmaking with the first independent Jordanian film, first Saudi and first Bahraini. People are becoming more interested in seeing films and stories coming from the Arab world made by Arabs in both the U.S. and Europe. It's happening and it is an exciting time for us."

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.