Michel Shehadeh Brings Passion, Expertise to Arab Film Festival
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.
