FINI

the end the end the end the end the end the end the end

Last screening was on Saturday night. But should I backtrack a little? I probably should.

Friday night was our co-hosted night with Arab Xpressions. Arab Xpressions is an annual show that's been going on for a few years now, and its free and it always has tons of people. This year the show had...700 people show up - about 200 too many. Fire hazard for sure. But it was still entertaining, and people liked the short films that we showed throughout the night.

Saturday we had a day screening. People really liked the documentary Leila Khaled: Hijacker, and Hardball, a film about a football team (the Sakhnin team) and its fans. For a Saturday daytime screening when the weather outside has been nice for the first time in many many months, I'd say we had a really great turnout.

Saturday night was the 5th and final screening, and we showcased Slingshot Hip Hop. This is actually my first time watching the film and I thought it was great and well put-together. This screening was nearly sold out, and we had a short q&a session afterwards with Rumzi, a producer and cameraman for the film. People milled around for quite a while afterwards while us organizers chit-chatted with attendees, watched amusing videos of ourselves... and one of our friends fell over a row of seats trying to take a picture of us. Then we finally turned the lights off, gathered the remaining piles of program booklets (there's not that many left!!), and proceeded to Lauren's where we ended up telling ghost stories and talked about Palestine (two very unrelated subjects).

That's it folks for this year! Thank you Vandana for letting me take over your flat and withholding your keys from you, thank you Reid for putting up with me, thank you Ryah for all of your help, thank you Lauren for sticking by us lunatics, thank you Bana for spreading the word, thank you Namira for designing our stuff and I still think you shouldn't go to law school, thank you Toby for going through our pestering emails and doing the website, and thank you Kamal for your amazing support and for your wonderful presence, and thank you to all the volunteers for letting us boss you around, and thank you to everyone who attended.

We still have some paperwork to sort through which will take about 2 weeks - and then I personally am taking a break, for maybe up to 2 months. But probably not, because I already started thinking about next year a few weeks ago.

Stay tuned.