Arab, Iranian & Asian Video Festival

3rd I NY and Alwan present CROSSING OutLINES: Arab, Iranian & Asian Video Festival. 3rd I NY is a monthly film and music salon showcasing independent filmmakers and dj’s/musicians of South Asia and South Asian descent. 3rd I NY is affiliated with 3rd I, a national network with chapters in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. 3rd I is committed to promoting diverse images of South Asians through
independent film. Alwan seeks to promote the arts and culture of Iran and the Arab World. Alwan has chapters in New York, Washington, D.C. and Houston.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12

6 PM: Shorts I

The Interrogation: Hesham Issawi, Egypt/USA, 2002, 19 min.

A military camp in unknown country. A colonel is obsessed with old images; images he has retained since childhood. He interrogates a judge he is convinced is his parents’ killer. Best Short, New York Independent Film & Video Festival.

Something Like Me: Mona Zahed, Iran, 2001, 45 min.

The director takes her camera to Afghanistan at the beginning of the war.

A Number Zero (Ala Sefr): Saed Andoni, Palestine, 2002, 27 min.

The filmmaker returns to his hometown of Bethlehem during the Israeli army invasion of the city in April 2001. He goes to a barber to cut his hair and finds that the barbershop is a microcosm of the community, which comes to the shop in order to seek refuge from the warring world outside. The regular patrons strive for a measure of normalcy in their conversations and the enactment of their usual rhythms of life.

8 PM: Osama: Siddiq Barmak, 2003, 82 min.

The first film made fully in Afghanistan since 1996. Told through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl who is forced to disguise herself as a boy in order to try and earn a living under the Taliban regime. Director Siddiq Barmal was head of the Afghan Film Organisation until he was forced to flee by the Taliban. Afghanistan’s official entry to the 2004 Oscar awards, the film was winner of the prestigious Sutherland Award at the London Film Festival.

10 PM: AFTERPARTY

As a DJ, producer, filmmaker, and co-founder of the Mutiny club night, Vivek Bald aka DJ Siraiki is one of the major forces behind the rise of new South Asian music in NYC. He has built ties across the South Asian second generation, with British Asian artists such as Asian Dub Foundation, Talvin Singh, State of Bengal, Fun Da Mental and others, documenting the British Asian music scene in his film Mutiny: Asians Storm British Music. Vivek also directed the acclaimed documentary, Taxi-Vala: Auto-Biography.
DJ Abu Jorjj (damar-wa-fawda)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13

1 PM, 3 PM, 5 PM: ROAD 181 (Part 1, 2, 3): Michel Khleifi, Eyal Sivan, Palestine, 270 min. (Three 90 min. segments)

The filmmakers use the 1947 demarcation line as a physical metaphor for all the walls that have since been built to separate the two peoples. New borders have emerged, above all inside the heads of both Israelis and Palestinians. Nevertheless, bridges still exist. The three parts are titled The Center, The South and The North.

7 PM: SHORTS II

Seven Hours To Burn: Shanti Thakur, Canada/USA, 1999, 9 min.

Filmmaker Thakur mixes richly abstract filmmaking with disturbing archival war footage to narrate the story of her Danish mother’s and Indian father’s experiences. Her mother survives Nazi-occupied Denmark while her father experiences the devastating Partition riots in India between Hindus and Muslims. Both emigres to Canada, they meet and marry, linking two parallel genocides.

Turbans: Erika Surat Anderson, USA, 2000, 30 min.

Based on the memoirs of the filmmaker’s grandmother, “Turbans” explores the inner struggles of an Asian Indian immigrant family torn between their cultural traditions and the desire for social acceptance in America. Although born in the United States, the Singh boys are attacked for being different. The turbans they wear, a tradition sacred to their Sikh ancestors, serve only to identify them as outsiders in the prejudiced landscape of Astoria, Oregon circa 1918.

My Mother India: Safina Oberoi, Australia, 2001, 52 min.

A passionate documentary told by the child of a mixed marriage, Safina Oberoi’s film tells the story of her Australian mother, Patricia, who married an Indian Professor and went to live with him in India in the 1960s. Although the film starts off as a humorous and lighthearted documentary about an eccentric, multicultural family, it unfolds into a complex commentary on the social, political and religious events of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.

9:30 PM: ARAB MUSICIANS

Naser Musa (Oud, Vocalist) and Karim Nagi Mohammed (Drummer)

Mesmerizing precessions and dancing rhythms from the depth of Arabia with vocalist and virtuoso oud musician Naser Musa and drummer Karim Nagi Mohamed. Followed by a reception.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14

4 PM: Osama

6 PM: SHORTS III

Like Twenty Impossible: Annemarie Jacir, Palestine, 2003, 17 min.

When a Palestinian film crew decides to avert a closed checkpoint by taking a remote side road, the political landscape unravels, and the passengers are slowly taken apart by the mundane brutality of military occupation.

Souha: Surviving Hell: Randa Sabbagh, Lebanon, 2001, 57 min.

The story of Souha Buchara, who tried to assassinate General Antoine Lahad, a collaborator with the Israeli Army in the South of Lebanon.

8 PM: SHORTS IV

Voices of The Morning: Meena Nanji, 1992, 15 min.

Inspired byNawal El Sadaawi’s The Hidden Face of Eve, this is a poetic exploration of Muslim women’s lives. It follows the socialization process of young woman living under Orthodox Islamic Sharia law. Resisting traditional definitions of a woman’s role in society as only a dutiful daughter or wife, she struggles to find a space for her existence amidst the web of conditions imposed upon her by restrictive familial and societal conventions. Starring Sarita Choudhury (Mississippi Masala).

Home: Raeshma Razvi, USA, 2002, 56 min.

Home is the story of two Indian-American families grappling with major life changes when they each decide to forego a place called home. Shot in an observational style, the film examines the nature of “home” as the two families work to define it in Chicago, Illinois, and Hyderabad, India. Raeshma Razvi was a 2001 Open Society Institute fellow.

And The Carpet Wrapped The Globe: Pranaya Chulet, USA, 2003, 18 min.

A mother and son escape the violence in Kashmir and open a carpet store in New York. The son, suffering from a mental condition, views scenes of violence in the Middle East on TV and has a negative reaction…