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.

Reid's guest post

Never blogged before, always found it a tad silly. Look at me now.

First off I would like to personally thank everyone who has come out to either of our first two nights. The turnout has been really great to see, and when you consider that proceeds are to be donated for Gaza relief things get downright inspiring.

It was an honor to introduce this festival with Hena last night on the stage of the Michigan Theater. I regrettably forgot to thank three very important people.
These three are our graphic designer: Namira Islam, our webmaster: Toby Millman, and Kamal Abuarquob.

Namira did an absolutely fantastic job creating our wonderful logo, and designing the booklet.
Toby was great about updating the website and making it functional, including allowing for ticket purchases. She had to put up with some slow reaction time from us as organizers but was always incredibly prompt with updates.
Kamal took time out of his busy schedule to help us first at the January fundraiser (during which he was a great help), and next at spreading the word in Dearborn. Thanks Kamal, we'll see you Saturday.

Everything has gone smoothly to this point, and it feels as though the most trying times are over. Dare I say that the 6 of us (plus invaluable help from our volunteers!) know how to run a film festival.

Come out for Saturday's closing night!
Slingshot Hip-Hop is a phenomenal movie and I can't wait for it to wrap up this amazing first year.

THANK YOU!!

I couldn't grab anyone to do a guest posting, and Vandana is doing other work. So here I am again!

TONIGHT WAS FANTASTIC. We're really happy with the turnout - we got a few hundred people to attend! Everything worked out fine, things were definitely busy before the screening got underway but we had really wonderful volunteers so everything worked out well. Plus the Michigan Theatre took care of all the ticketing for tonight. We were also able to sell tickets for other screenings and festival passes.

Anyway, as I said yesterday, it was amazing again to see the marquee say 'Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival Opening Night'. The box office opened up at 7:30pm but people had already started coming in about 15 minutes before. There was definitely a constant queue of people streaming in and buying tickets. I really enjoyed seeing various familiar faces, including professors, friends, etc. Plus my parents came!!! Which made me reallly happy, but unfortunately I could only spend a few minutes with them. But I'm very happy they were able to come.

So around 8:15 Reid and I were dragged off to do the intro. We ran a bit late because the queue outside was still there, but we had to start. Backstage we went, and then onstage. I wasn't really nervous during the day actually, about making the introduction speech, because we had so many errands and things to take care of, right up until the last minute. Walking backstage though, I said 'I'm nervous. Reid are you nervous? Coz I'm nervous'. To which he replied 'Nah, I'm not nervous'. 'Of course you're not, you never are'. And then we were shooed on stage and the spotlight was in our face.

Having a riot right now. V is lip syncing to Aaliyah's 'One In A Million'. I'm sure her neighbours hate my laughter.

So we did the intro and then 'Make A Wish' came on, a really great short film by Cherien Dabis about a Palestinian girl wanting to get a cake for her father's birthday. And then we went right into 'Salt of This Sea', a feature by Annemarie Jacir, of which I've blogged about before.

Us organizers have all seen the film already (during the preview screening we had) so some of us watched the film while others stayed in the lobby at the tables. I went in and out. Let me just say that some of us were dancing while no one else was looking.

After the films ended people mingled in the lobby for about 20-30 minutes or so. I was so happy to see a singer from Three Generationz attend our screening, as well people from all sorts of communities: families, students, Arabs, non-Arabs, scholars, activists, artists, etc.

A shout out to Arab Detroit for all of their help and support, and to all of the volunteers.

Check out what the Michigan Daily wrote about us today!


That's it for now guys. We have 4 more screenings to go, and well its time I go to bed.

Thanks for reading!
Peace

----------------------
Update:
I have some time to breathe right now, and want to write more deeper reflections on last night. It was really wonderful to see the Arab community come out, with of course, many Palestinians, including families. After all the hard work all of us have put in, its completely worth it when you hear older Palestinian men and women coming up to you and telling you how happy they are to attend, how much they liked the film, but still, how sad and upset they are at the current situation, and their history, but how grateful they are to see this film festival. All of the work from the last 10 months was completely worth it, just for those moments. I think that was the best part of the night.

Another great thing about last night was that we were able to get in all sorts of audiences - and that's how we envisioned this festival. We really wanted people from the activist and Arab communities to come, but we also really wanted audiences who aren't familiar with Palestine to attend, and I think we definitely got all these audiences last night. It was really refreshing and rewarding to see so many people who we didn't know, attend the screening.

People told us afterwards how happy they were that this festival is happening, and what they thought of the films. I've already gotten feedback that the films made people think - which is the point of the whole film festival. We want people to attend, enjoy themselves, but to also think about what the films are saying.

I really want to give a sincere thank you to everyone who attended, and helped out in any sort of way. Last night was extremely powerful, engaging, and I hope that people found it inspiring.

Twas the night before...

the premiere of the 1st ever Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival!!

What else is left to say? We premiere tomorrow (or really, today). We are nervous, anxious, but also extremely excited. I love my team, I really do, and I'm so grateful for everyone who has pitched in whatever way they have.

I also love seeing this written on the Michigan Theatre marquee:
'Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival Opening Night'

I have been imagining these moments for months now - its crazy that its now all finally happening. Seeing that sign really floored me for a couple of minutes. I'm taking 20 photos of it tomorrow - 10 during daytime, 10 at night.

Anyway its time for bed. Its great to be back in Ann Arbor but also a little bit strange. Things have changed and moved on, but its still the same too.

Anyway, our publicity chair is asleep and her hand hurts. I'm not letting her flyer tomorrow. Thanks V for letting me crash here.

Guest blogs will hopefully start tomorrow night, if I can convince someone to do so.

That's it for now and OMG WE PREMIERE TONIGHT!!!

Today's...Monday?

I could have gone to bed earlier and woken up a lot earlier. But I didn't. And so I suffered.

Flyers. flyers. flyers.
booklets booklets booklets booklets booklets
emails
tickets

That was my day today. Plus lots of driving. Which isn't good for someone who loathes driving, like me. Lots of reverses, a couple of u-turns, etc. But I'm able to get around with no navigation system, I'm proud to say. Though my friend Komal is someone I frequently call to get addresses or directions, so that's kind of cheating. Anyway, later, it was cool to go to Dearborn (for flyering purposes) - I haven't been there in a few months and it was nice to see some of the places and roads I used to haunt in the past. The place still seems very familiar to me.

Anyway, today was all about booklets and flyers. Thank you United Sonz, our printing company, for dealing with all our emails and frantic phone calls. These poor guys got so confused because we have multiple orders going at once, and all are last minute. But they are really great, and very patient with a realll quick turnaround time.

I wanna also give a HUGE THANK YOU to our designer Namira who has put up with all our requests and changes. Thanks Namz for helping us out and doing such an amazing job. Many people have said they like what you've done. Namira designed all our posters/flyers, the upcoming program booklet, as well as the logo.

Today I was on Samir Haddad's radio show (see post below). He's a really cool guy (who looks like the Arab version of my uncle in Wales) whose show is all about bringing the arts to the Arab communities. His show was in fusha Arabic and I could catch a word here or there, but that was it unfortunately. Our segment on the film festival was in English and hopefully I was coherent and clear enough for people to understand. But half the time no one can understand me anyway.

Shifting to Ann Arbor tomorrow for the rest of the week. Unlike the other organizers I don't have classes or work to deal with at the same time as the film festival, so I'm lucky compared to them.

Once the festival starts I'll try to get the other organizers to do guest postings so that you, dear reader, aren't just reading the rubbish that I write. There's a whole group of people behind this film festival and I want you guys to see what they have to say as well.

That's it for now. Here's another Pali tune:

The Meadow Smiled - El-Funoun

Live blogging or something

I had been debating a little bit in my head back and forth of whether I should do 'live blogging' for the film festival. Basically, writing every night about the film fest in this good ol' blog of mine, with the main reason to get people more pumped up somehow about the whole thing, and also for everyone who can't come but wishes they could be around, to be in the know. I was easily convinced to do this after a brief chat with African Arab. fanks mate.

Ok so we premiere on Wednesday - THIS WEDNESDAY! And yes I am extremely nervous but also excited but also anxious for all of it to be over. I think I'm a little bit nervous of speaking in front of everyone at the Michigan Theatre - its best for me to not think about it so that I won't get nervous. I'm sure Reid and I will figure out what we're saying about a half hour before we have to go up there and present ourselves. My main worry right now about Wednesday is...what to wear. No joke.

Today was one of those days where a whole bunch of us are putting our heads together trying to get all the ends put together. Flyers, emails, booklets, tickets, the whole lot. I came back to Michigan on Friday night and its been chaos since then, especially because some members of my family are leaving the country for 4 months, and well tonight was a day of packing/moving stuff around, as well as a hyper 4-year-old running around wanting to play with everyone, but we were all too busy to do so. During this whole time I was working with our awesome graphic designer Namira, to help put the finishing touches on our booklet.

So that was today. Tomorrow will be more flyering/phone calls/frantic emails. I'll be on a radio show that's gonna be from 3-4pm, called Arabian Candles. If anyone wants to listen online, click here and click on WNZK 680/690am Detroit.

Stay tuned.

Watchmen = waste of time

Allow me to clarify, the only reason I saw this piece of rubbish was to hang out with my brother, who for some reason decided that this film was a must-see and worthy of buying tickets for beforehand.

So I went and watched it, not knowing anything about it before today. The only thing I had seen about the film were the film posters pasted up around town - everywhere. I'm not a filmmaker who's a film buff and cares to make the effort about what films are coming out, nor do I care to be. Especially when it comes to stuff from Hollywood.

So today I spared a minute to watch the trailer and really wasn't impressed. There were lots of explosions, flying things, and blue and green. That's the thing I remember the most about this film - all the blue (and the green? or maybe the yellow).

Speaking of trailers how about this: three trailers back to back in the cinema, before The Watchmen, and they were all the same - flying things, explosions, blood, guns, robots/superheroes/some other shit. Aaah, so typical! Just the same, mindless, brainwashing rubbish.

As was the Watchmen film. Oh I'm sure people love it because of the graphic novel and the 'big themes' the film is trying to touch upon - but I don't care. I see it as basically 2 and a half hours of blood, guts, guns, a creepy blue man who needs some clothes, stupid costumes, and people beating each other up or getting shot. Speaking of which, its not ok to show protesters getting shot and then just say, the killer understands how messed up the world is and that's why he kills innocent people, because its a joke. What the hell was that??

So that part and some other parts of the film were extremely disturbing and hegemonic. All the more reason why I hate Hollywood and the films that come out of that awful industry. Hollywood is so good at churning out the same rubbish again and again, repackaging it, selling it, and making tons of money off of it. Just how many comic book films have been made in the last decade? Probably a couple dozen, and I've seen maybe about 3 or 4, and the only ones that I like are the Batman films (respect to Christopher Nolan). I know the rest aren't worth my time, as well as most of the films that come out from those giant studios.

On top of that - this film is definitely not for kids. Its an R rating, and I can't remember the last time I saw an R-rated film like this. I was able to get into R-rated films as a teenager but they weren't anything like this. I really wonder why that guy who bought tons of popcorn would bring his kids to this film. I diverted my eyes during the cheesy and unnecessarily graphic love scenes by texting. I'm not asking for censorship or anything, but don't let kids watch the film. But of course, why would the cinemas or studios care? They make more money by letting kids watch it.

The only good thing I liked about the film was Matthew Goode. I like his previous work. But the blonde hair definitely didn't work for him.

The Watchmen gets a big 'booo' from me.

Peace

Press Release for...

Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival
March 11, 2009 - March 14, 2009

On March 11, 2009 at 8 pm, the Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival will make its debut at the world renowned Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As one of the few Palestine film festivals to take place in the Midwest, the Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival will surely bring attention to the growing number of films made about and by Palestinians.

The Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival brings you an array of comedy, drama, fiction, non-fiction, features, shorts, and experimental films, which all showcase the diversity and strength of Palestinian cinema. These films represent the true nature of Palestinians and the Palestinian narrative, in stark contrast to the bias and stereotypes that mainstream news and media present. The breadth of the stories and the emotions expressed in these films know no bounds.

The opening night feature film, Salt of This Sea (Dir. Annemarie Jacir), starring acclaimed spoken word poet Suheir Hammad, screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, and was Palestine’s official submission to the 81st Academy Awards. It is also known to be the first feature-length fictional film to be written and directed by a Palestinian woman.

Other films in this year’s line-up include Laila’s Birthday (Dir. Rashid Masharawi), Driving to Zigzigland (Dir. Nicole Ballivian), Carried by the Wind (Dir. Adam Sebire), Hardball (Dir. Suha Arraf), Make A Wish (Dir. Cherian Dabis) and Slingshot Hip Hop (Dir. Jackie Salloum), which was an official selection at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

In light of the recent tragic events that took place in Gaza, the Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival will be donating part of the proceeds from ticket sales to the established charity United Palestinian Appeal.

The Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival debuts on March 11, 2009 at 8pm and runs until March 14, 2009. For more information on film schedules and tickets, please visit: www.a2palestinefilmfest.org