(Photos: www.sawanimages.com)

On Opening Night, Thursday October 16th, the 2008 Arab Film Festival Jury announced the recipients of the Noor Awards:

Noor Award for Best Feature Fiction
PALOMA DELIGHT (Algeria) — Nadir Mokneche

Special Mention for Best Feature Fiction
THE YELLOW HOUSE (Algeria) — Amor Hakkar

Noor Award for Best Short Fiction
CLEAN HANDS, DIRTY SOAP (Egypt) — Karim Fanous

Special Mention for Best Short Fiction
TENBAK (UAE) — Abdullah Hassan Ahmed

Noor Award for Best Feature Documentary
LIFE AFTER THE FALL (Iraq) — Kasim Abid

Noor Award for Best Short Documentary
OUT OF THE FRAME (Iraq) — Nizar Annadawi

Michel Shehadeh presents a Lifetime Achievement award, on behalf of the Board of Directors, honoring the work of the late Egyptian film director Youssef Chahine.
(Photo: www.sawanimages.com)

2008 Jury Members:

Nezar AlSayyad is an architect, a planner, an urban designer and an urban historian. He is also a returning member of the Noor Awards Jury. He is a professor of Architecture and Planning at UC Berkeley where he serves as the Associate Dean for the College of Environmental Design and Chairs the University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Jamal Dajani is the Senior Director of Middle East Programming for LinkTV where he produces the Peabody Award winning news show, Mosaic: World News from the Middle East. He is also host of the TV news program Mosaic Intelligence Report and co-host of the radio news show Arab Talk with Jess and Jamal. He also serves as Chair of the Immigrant Rights Commission of the City and County of San Francisco.

Dr. Jess Ghannam is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Global Health Sciences at UCSF. He is also the President of the San Francisco Arab Cultural and Community Center and former President of the SF Chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He can also be heard on KPOO co-hosting the talk radio show Arab Talk with Jess and Jamal.

Irina Leimbacher is a filmmaker and co-programmer of Kino 21, which showcases independent films in San Francisco Cinemas. She is also a professor in the Anthropology Department at UC Berkeley where she has taught the Ethnographic Filmmaking. She has also worked as a curator for film institutions such as the San Francisco Cinematheque, for which she also served as Artistic Director, and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.

Simone Nelson is an artist, producer and entertainment industry consultant. She has worked for many local and international arts agencies including: Film Arts Foundation, the Mill Valley Film Festival and the Global Film Initiative. She is also the President of the Board of Director’s for BAWIFT (Bay Area Women in Film & Television).

Torange Yeghiazarian, a playwright, director and actor, is the founding Artist Director of Golden Thread Theatre. Through her position at Golden Thread Theatre she has devoted her professional life to exploring Middle Eastern culture and identity through theatre arts. She also teaches playwriting to at risk youth as a part of the program Each One Reach One.

(from Left to right) Nezar AlSayyad, Jamal Dajani, Torange Yeghiazarian, Simone Nelson, Dr. Jess Ghannam.
(Photo: www.sawanimages.com)

Slingshot Hip Hop won the Audience Award at the Beirut International Film Festival that took place Oct. 1 – 8, 2008. In addition, Jackie Salloum won the award for Best Film Director. This director award is for all films, documentary and feature, in competition at the festival.

Captain Abu Raed won the award for Best Screenplay.

For more details, visit: Beirut International Film Festival

Disney expands into Middle East

Studio in talks to fund, produce ‘Storytellers’

By ALI JAAFAR

The Mouse has landed in the Middle East.

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.

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Arab Film Festival Reveals Surprising New Stories
by Roger Rose

The 12th Arab Film Festival opens at the Castro Theatre this month, offering Arab storytelling and cinematography to a widespread audience: San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, and Los Angeles. From October 16 through 28, the festival will present the innovative programming vision of AFF Artistic Director Sonia El Feki, who sought out new film productions throughout the Middle East and North Africa, in concert with the selection committee. A passionate El Feki says, “This is an exciting moment to witness a renaissance in Arab filmmaking.”

El Feki’s artistic ideas take form under the administrative guidance of new Executive Director Michel Shehadeh, who joined the AFF in February of this year. The pair worked together to develop new ways to reveal to American audiences fresh trends in Arab film.
Shehadeh spoke without hesitation: “We want to portray the new narratives that help break down the old, one-dimensional, very na•ve and very stereotypical way of portraying Arabs. So the new narratives are not just for the Western audience, but also for the Arab community here, which is learning about its different personalities.”

The contributions of 15 countries deliver a number of international film firsts, notably Jordan’s Foreign Language Oscar bid with its first-ever locally-made feature film, Captain Abu Raed (directed by Amin Matalqa). Also included are the first feature films ever to come out of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Bahrain. Also screening will be Amina, a potent documentary by Yemen’s first woman filmmaker, the fascinating Khadija Al-Salami.

Shehadeh, a Palestinian, mused about a cultural expansion he feels with his day-to-day work at the AFF office. “I’m learning about the Maghreb, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, for example, through their films. It’s a whole new world for me in North Africa.” This year, El Feki and her program committee were able to shine a light on the work of Maghrebi films and directors, beginning with festival opener, Waiting For Pasolini, winner of the 31st Cairo International Film Festival. Directed by Morocco’s Daoud Oulad Syad, the film tells the story of Thami, a movie extra who becomes a friend of Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini during the shooting of an early film in Thami’s village.

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

New York, Seattle, Toronto and even Minneapolis have all started their own Arab Film Festivals in recent years. But the fact remains that the first, the biggest and-dare I say-the best North American festival of films from the Arab-speaking world and its Diaspora remains right here in the Bay Area. Now in its 12th year, the 2008 Arab Film Festival (“AFF”) begins this Thursday, October 16 and continues at various venues in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose through October 28. More than 70 features and shorts from 15 countries will be screened, including works from such rarely heard from countries as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Yemen.
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