February 26, 2007

Viewings:
Vacuum (Adel Abidin, Iraq/Finland, video installation [excerpt], 2005)
Les Egares (Mounir Fatmi, Tunisia/France, video, color/sound, 9 min, 2005)
Allahu Akbat (Usama Alshaibi, Iraq/United States, video, b&w/sound, 5 min 10 sec, 2003)
In This House (Akram Zaatari, Lebanon, video, color/sound, 30 min, 2005)
Sad Man (Lina Ghaibeh, video, sound/color, 4.5 min, 2001)
Dead Time (Ghassan Salhab, Lebanon, video, 6 min, 2006)

We had a guest appearance by Laura Marks. She talked about the whole independent and experimental culture that the countries in the middle east have. These experimental films were pretty good. Some of them have very deep cultural undertones in them that I don't really understand since I don't know enough about their culture. These films also give me an uneasy feeling. I'm not really sure what it is, perhaps it's just the terrible experience of my time spent in the middle east. These films do show the culture though, and even show it with a sense of humor. One example of this is the belly dancing song, played to the religious symbols. Another example is the guy vacuuming up the snow. Another thing I noticed from these films is the overall pride for country and religion. I think religion is a big part of their culture, so they include it in their films. In the United States, we are of mixed religions and cultures so we don't really see an abundance of religious films. Or maybe we do, and I just don't know where to look...