Opening Night Film: Waiting for Pasolini by Daoud Aoulad-Syad

Following the Awards ceremony, AFF presents the Bay Area premiere of Waiting for Pasolini, the latest feature by Moroccan director Daoud Aoulad-Syad.

Thursday, October 16th, 2008
Castro Theater, San Francisco
6:00pm Reception (by invitation only)
8:00pm Awards Ceremony and Opening Film Waiting for Pasolini

Noor Awards on Opening Night

Join us for a very special evening at the historic Castro Theater for the 2nd annual Noor Awards Ceremony to take place Opening Night, October 16th 2008.
All nominated competition films will be judged by our distinguished local jury members. As part of the Noor Award, a cash prize to the director of the winning film will be given as follows:
Best Long Fiction 2000 USD
Best Long Non-Fiction 2000 USD
Best Short Fiction 500 USD
Best Short Non-Fiction 500 USD

The Arab Film Festival will also present a Life Achievement Award honoring the work, talent, and creativity of the late Egyptian film director Youssef Chahine.

Sept 25th co-presentation of KINO21 with ARAB FILM FESTIVAL

HOW WE FIGHT: CONSCRIPTS, MERCENARIES, TERRORISTS, AND PEACEKEEPERS

This series presents international documentaries that explore soldiering and depict the experience of war from the point of view of those on the ground. From Argentina, Russia, Iraq, Germany, France, Holland and the U.S., several of these films are US premieres. On Thursday, September 25 we begin with Iraqi Short Films, a brand new compilation of videos shot in battle by soldiers and militia members in Iraq. Subsequent programs include video diaries of the battlefield and pre- or post-combat rumination, extended observational portraits and interview-based works. There are depictions of Russian conscripts in Chechnya, PKK rebels in the mountains of Iraq, American veterans returned from Vietnam, and mercenaries and peacekeepers stationed across the globe, from Bosnia to Rwanda, from the Middle East to the USA.
All screenings take place at ATA, 992 Valencia Street on Thursday or Sunday evenings at 8 pm.
Please see below or go to www.kino21.org for program descriptions.

How We Fight: Conscripts, Mercenaries, Terrorists and generous support of the Potrero Nuevo Fund of the Tides Foundation, the LEF Foundation, the Arab Film Festival and Goethe Institut San Francisco.

“Methodological, well-targeted propaganda or unbridled outbursts, these images, in their own myopic, implacable, rough ways, relate the conflict. [...]The daily life of a warrior captured in the harsh brutality of a visor made into a lens, without the relief of a counter shot.”-Jean-Pierre Rehm, FID Marseille

Kino21′s series “How We Fight: Conscripts, Mercenaries, Terrorists and Peacekeepers” begins with Iraqi Short Films by Argentine director Mauro Andrizzi, a compilation of short videos shot in the midst of war, whether by US or British soldiers, Iraqi militia members, or corporate workers. These are not “films” per se. They are a mix of slices of life recorded on video (many shot while firing on the enemy or being fired upon), pithy propaganda pieces, and soldiers’ visions of war as music video. They are crudely shot fragments, some rife with raw fear, some gloating over momentary victory. Filmed mainly as records, for friends, family, or fellow fighters, and at one point or another put on the web or on local television, the pieces were culled by Andrizzi over several months. Ranging from the banal to the intense, from the shocking to the darkly humorous, Andrizzi’s compilation depicts war as experienced, articulated, and vividly imagined by those actually fighting and dying in it. His addition of a handful of texts, from Mark Twain to C. Wright Mills to Dick Cheney, and sporadic manipulation of a few images suggests a bleak vision of this war’s inexorable chaos and horror. But it is a vision that combines the responsibility to LOOK with critical empathy, analysis, and the desire to comprehend some of its impact.