Film: The Valley of Salt (La Vallée du Sel), dir. Christophe M. Saber

2016 | 62 minutes
Country of Production: Switzerland
Countries Featured: Switzerland, Egypt

In the wake of the Arab Spring and Egypt’s political turmoil, the young filmmaker Christophe Saber returns to his childhood home in Cairo. While his camera rolls, a typical reunion and family holiday turns into a dramatic and unnerving ordeal as his Christian parents receive death threats from the newly empowered Muslim Brotherhood.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Siberian Love, dir. Olga Delane

2016 | 82 minutes
Countries of Production: Germany, Russia
Country Featured: Russia

How do we reconcile who we are with where we came from? At age 16, Olga Delane moved from her family’s small Siberian village to Berlin. Twenty years later, she returns home as a single woman and is forced to confront the cultural differences between her upbringing and those of her current Western community. Back home, age-old attitudes toward love and marriage run deep. Despite her initial distaste for these values, Olga calls into question her own preconceptions about love.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Paa Joe & the Lion, dir. Benjamin Wigley

2016 | 72 minutes
Country of Production: United Kingdom
Countries Featured: United Kingdom, Ghana

A fisherman is buried in a fish-shaped tomb. A heavy drinker is buried in a beer bottle. For the Ga tribe of coastal Ghana, funerals are colorful and impressive affairs, with custom-made, stylish coffins for the departed. Ghana Master coffin craftsman Paa Joe and his son work together to keep this tradition alive, and a big commission gives them a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win international recognition for their art.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Honey, Rain & Dust, dir. Nujoom Alghanem

2016 | 86 minutes
Country of Production: United Arab Emirates
Country Featured: United Arab Emirates

Aisha, Fatima, and Ghareeb are three of the United Arab Emirates’ leading experts on honey. Follow their work in the mountains against the backdrop of a rising honey crisis as bee colonies cope with climate change and the ensuing survival challenges. Unwittingly, the lives of these three people have become predicated on a very fragile species, and they begin to wonder how long they will be able to continue their work.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Gulîstan, Land of Roses, dir. Zaynê Akyol

2016 | 86 minutes
Country of Production: Canada
Country/Culture Featured: Iraqi Kurdistan

Witness a depiction of modern warfare told through the eyes of women soldiers. In the mountains of Kurdistan, a left-wing military force works to keep its territory safe from the aggressive Islamic State. Remarkably, one of the army’s greatest assets is an all-female regiment, made more legendary and fearsome by ISIS’s belief that men killed by women on the battlefield are denied eternal paradise.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Brimstone & Glory, dir. Viktor Jakovleski

2017 | 67 minutes
Country of Production: USA
Country Featured: Mexico

Once a year, an annual pyrotechnics festival erupts through the small city of Tultepec, Mexico, transforming it into a blaze of sparks and flames. In the climactic "burning of the bulls," the bravest participants run amid toritos, bull-shaped floats rigged with fireworks that rain burning ash and light on the city.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Almost Heaven, dir. Carol Salter

2017 | 75 minutes
Country of Production: United Kingdom
Country Featured: China
US Premiere | Director in Attendance

This heartfelt coming-of-age story follows the life of Ying Ling, a 17-year-old trainee at a funeral parlor in Changsha, China. With a combination of humor and tenderness, the film captures Ying’s universal struggle to adapt to her new life: she calls her parents often, spends a night at the mall, and tries to stave off the boredom of daily work.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Lust for Sight (La fureur de voir), dir. Manuel von Stürler

2017 | 86 minutes
Countries of Production: France, Switzerland
Countries Featured: France, Switzerland, Micronesia

What happens when a filmmaker loses his eyesight? Over the last five years award-winning documentarian Manuel von Sturler's vision has gradually faded and the reality of encroaching blindness has set in. Now, von Sturler turns the camera on himself and grapples with the loss of his most essential sense.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Brothers (Bracia), dir. Wojciech Staroń (2016)

2016 | 68 minutes
Country of Production: Poland

In 1994, Wojciech Staroń (who was studying cinematography at the film school in Łódź at the time) and his girlfriend Małgosia (now his wife and also the soundwoman and producer of his films) went to Kazakhstan. On this trip they met two brothers, Alfons and Mieczysław Kułakowski, Polish emigrants who were taken by the winds of history first to Siberia and then to Kazakhstan. The former was a painter, the latter, a cartographer who for decades travelled around the furthest corners of the Soviet Union. Ten years after their meeting with Staroń, the Kułakowscy brothers returned to Poland. As repatriates they moved to a small village in the north of Poland. Alfons painted and Mieczysław accompanied him in his everyday duties.  -- http://culture.pl/en/work/brothers-wojciech-staron

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Dick Verdult: It Is True But Not Here (2017), dir. Luuk Bouwman

The career of Eindhoven-based artist and musician Dick Verdult spans decades. He is seen as an outsider, as 'the last Dada-ist'. But what we experience as elusiveness turns out to be quite controlled and firstly funded on very personal experiences from his childhood as a 'Philips child' in Latin America. Rather than experiencing globalism as a problem, Verdult is like a cheerful, transcultural mutant. We see how, at the age of 60, he has become a cult musician in South America, Russia and Japan and is increasingly recognised internationally as a visual artist. This documentary explores Verdult's multidisciplinary, international art practice. We see Verdult at work in his studios in Bergeijk (The Netherlands) and Calanda (Spain) and on tour in Peru, Colombia and Argentina.

AMNH 2017 Mead Film Festival

Film: Lucky, dir. John Carroll Lynch, 2017

LUCKY follows the spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off the map desert town. Having out lived and out smoked all of his contemporaries, the fiercely independent Lucky finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self exploration, leading towards that which is so often unattainable: enlightenment. Acclaimed character actor John Carroll Lynch's directorial debut, "Lucky", is at once a love letter to the life and career of Harry Dean Stanton as well as a meditation on mortality, loneliness, spirituality, and human connection.

Why Harry Dean Stanton Is The G.O.A.T. Character Actor: https://youtu.be/HfFyoNdgwn4

Theater: 'No Longer Without You' by Adelheid Roosen, FIAF NYC 2017

'No Longer Without You' by Adelheid Roosen

This fall Le Skyroom is hosting the US Premiere of "No Longer Without You" as part of Crossing the Line Festival. The theatre show is a searing, outrageous, hilarious conversation between a real-life mother and daughter. Havva Oral is a traditional Muslim immigrant living in the Netherlands; her westernized daughter Nazmiye Oral is a journalist and modern Dutch woman. In the intimate circle of a staged living room, they confront each other’s faith, sexuality, and values, with both love and anger. Directed by Adelheid Roosen and set to live music by Seval Okyay, No Longer Without You is a theatrical look at an important rite.

Out of love for her progressive daughter Nazmiye, the Islamic, traditional, headscarf-wearing mother Havva Oral (68) goes on stage week after week to talk through, in the presence of the audience, everything they haven’t spoken about with each other for years: the hymen, marriage, sex, children, faith and homosexuality. “My mother is prepared to risk the condemnation of the Dutch Islamic community to fight with me, her daughter, in public. There is nothing I wouldn’t dare tell my mother anymore. Saying everything to each other on stage has become a kind of experiment, the exploration on no two nights the same. To me, this is a majestic act of her love”, says Nazmiye.

Theater: Inanimate, at the Flea Theater 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/theater/review-inanimate-flea-theater.html?_r=0

Inanimate
By Nick Robideau
Directed by Courtney Ulrich

Erica, shy and more than a little socially awkward, is in love with Dee. The problem is that her politician sister, her only and equally awkward new friend, and the nosy residents of their small town in Massachusetts don’t understand at all, because Dee… well, Dee is a Dairy Queen sign. Inanimate is a play that explores objectum sexuality, feeling like an outsider, listening to your heart and finally, finding your tribe.

CAST
Lacy Allen
Maki Borden
Philip Feldman
Tressa Preston
Artem Kreimer
Nancy Tatiana Quintana
Michael Oloyede
Marcus Jones
Alexandra Slater

Film: This Is Not What I Expected - Hay foon nay

Derek Hui  2017 Mandarin with English subtitles 106 minutes

This pastiche of the contemporary Chinese romcom and the old-school screwball comedy delights all the senses. Mousy and accident-prone Gu Shengnan is a brilliant chef, the best-kept secret in her fancy hotel; Lu Jin is a reserved yet rude megalomaniac millionaire. In an antagonistic antithesis of the meet-cute, the two have an unfortunate yet hilarious run-in that makes them mortal adversaries. In a comic twist of fate, die-hard foodie Lu ends up a guest of the hotel and becomes hopelessly obsessed with Gu’s intoxicating dishes. An all-consuming love-hate relationship blossoms—with food standing in for sex—amidst a succession of laugh-riot hi-jinks, as stars Zhou Dongyu and Takeshi Kaneshiro prove as effortless a comedy duo as Hepburn and Grant (Bringing Up Baby), while wryly nodding to Ge You and Shu Qi (If You Are the One). A dish to be savored.

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/this-is-not-what-i-expected/

Documentary Film: Lost in Lebanon, dir. Sophia Scott, Georgia Scott

Lost in Lebanon
Sophia Scott, Georgia Scott
2016 Arabic, English 80 minutes

As the Syrian war continues to leave entire generations without education, health care, or a state, Lost in Lebanon closely follows four Syrians during their relocation process. The resilience of this Syrian community, which currently makes up one fifth of the population in Lebanon, is astoundingly clear as its members work hard to collaborate, share resources, and advocate for themselves in a new land. With the Syrian conflict continuing to push across borders, lives are becoming increasingly desperate due to the devastating consequences of new visa laws that the Lebanese government has implemented, leaving families at risk of arrest, detention, and deportation. Despite these obstacles, the film encourages us to look beyond the staggering statistics of displaced refugees and focus on the individuals themselves.  https://www.filmlinc.org/films/lost-in-lebanon/

Documentary Film: The Force, dir. Peter Nicks

Director

Peter Nicks 

2017
93 minutes

The Force presents a deep look inside the long-troubled Oakland Police Department in California as it struggles to confront federal demands for reform, civil unrest in the wake of the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and layers of inefficiency and corruption. A young police chief, hailed as a reformer, is brought in to complete the turnaround at the very moment the #BlackLivesMatter movement emerges to demand police accountability and racial justice in Oakland and across the nation. Despite growing public distrust, the Oakland Police Department is garnering national attention as a model of police reform. But just as the department is on the verge of a breakthrough, the man charged with turning the department around faces the greatest challenge of his career—one that could not only threaten progress already made, but the very authority of the institution itself.

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-force/

Documentary Film: The Good Postman, by Tonislav Hristov

Tonislav Hristov  2016 Bulgarian 80 minutes

A quiet Bulgarian community on the Turkish border finds itself in the middle of a European crisis. This otherwise unremarkable village has become an important loophole for asylum seekers making their way through Europe. But Ivan, the local postman, has a vision. He decides to run for mayor and campaigns to bring life to the aging and increasingly deserted village by welcoming the refugees and their families. While some of his neighbors support the idea, it meets with resistance from others, who want to make sure the border stays shut. With surprising warmth, humor, and humanity, The Good Postman provides valuable insight into the root of this timely and internationally relevant discussion.

“How amazing to find a little forgotten town where all the European Union and US discussions and politics about refugees and immigration are distilled so clearly. The Good Postman has great characters and surreal moments – genuine and moving.”

—Bill van Esveld, senior researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch

Documentary Film: Muhi - Generally Temporary, by Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander and Tamir Elterman

Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander, Tamir Elterman  2017 Arabic, Hebrew 87 minutes

For the past seven years Muhi, a young boy from Gaza, has been trapped in an Israeli hospital. Rushed there in his infancy with a life-threatening immune disorder, he and his doting grandfather, Abu Naim, wound up caught in an immigration limbo that made it impossible for them to leave. With Muhi’s citizenship unclear, and Abu Naim denied a work permit or visa, the pair reside solely within the constraints of the hospital walls. Caught between two states in perpetual war, Muhi is being cared for by the very same people whose government forbids his family to visit, and for him or his grandfather to travel back. Made by two filmmakers from Jerusalem, this documentary lays out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in human terms, documenting the impact these paradoxical circumstances have on individual lives. Screening followed by discussion with filmmakers and Omar Shakir, Researcher, Middle East and North Africa division, HRW.

“A beautiful, haunting film about a man and a child who find themselves sheltered and also trapped in an absurd, extraterritorial corridor between Israel and Palestine, at war with each other…This story challenges the notion of enemies and shows ordinary human beings trying to be human in a world that has betrayed humanity.”

—Sari Bashi, Israel/Palestine advocacy director, Human Rights Watch

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/muhi-generally-temporary/

Documentary Film: City of Ghosts, dir. Matthew Heineman, HRW Film Festival 2017

City of Ghosts

Matthew Heineman  2017 91 minutes
Post-Screening Discussion

With deeply personal access, this is the untold story of a brave group of citizen journalists forced to live undercover, on the run, and in exile—risking their lives to stand up against one of the most violent movements in the world today. City of Ghosts follows the efforts of anonymous activists in Syria who banded together to form a group named “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently” (RBSS) after their homeland was taken over by the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014. Finding safety is no easy task either, as growing anti-refugee sentiment in Europe greets them with anger and rejection and ISIS pledges to target them wherever they go. Terror, trauma, and guilt similarly follow the men at the center of the film, having left loved ones behind to expose the horrors happening in their town. The strength and brotherhood that bonds the men is clear: the film is full of affecting intimacy and humanity in a situation where little else can be found. Screening followed by discussion with filmmaker Matthew Heineman and Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa Executive Director, Human Rights Watch.

“Matthew Heineman’s film shows us the valor of ordinary Syrians putting their lives on the line to document the brutality of ISIS as it rules their city, Raqqa. The film reconnects us to the human toll inflicted by the war in Syria, through the personal journeys of young citizen journalists who are driven from their homes but remain tethered to the country’s struggle for freedom and justice.”

—Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch

https://www.filmlinc.org/films/city-of-ghosts/

Theater: Invincible, by Torben Betts at 59E59

The Original Theatre Company & Ghost Light Theatre Productions presents

INVINCIBLE

By Torben Betts

Directed by Stephen Darcy

with Elizabeth Boag, Emily Bowker, Graeme Brookes, Alastair Whatley

With the recession biting hard, Emily and Oliver have decided to downsize and shift their middle- class London lifestyle to a small town in the north of England.

One night they open their doors and invite next door neighbours, Dawn and Alan into their home. Over the course of a disastrous evening of olives, anchovies, Karl Marx and abstract art; class and culture collide where the consequences are as tragic as they are hilarious.

From one of the most exciting playwrights to emerge since Alan Ayckbourn, Torben Betts, and produced by the award-winning Original Theatre Company comes this "riotously funny" production.

http://www.59e59.org/moreinfo.php?showid=282