Winner FIPRESCI/NETPAC Singapore International Film Festival
Filmed with a borrowed camera and featuring a cast almost entirely made up of friends and relatives of the director and his producer/creative-partner Peng Shan, Taking Father Home is the story of a teenager (Xu Yun) from a remote village who travels to the big city of Zigong with nothing but a brace of ducks in a basket on his back to find and retrieve his errant father, who walked out on his family six years before.
Yun learns quickly once he arrives in Zigong, as there’s no shortage of mentor-figures eager to impart advice. Ying’s remarkable evocation of Zigong’s sights, smells, and sounds is breathtaking – showing the mood and character of an entire culture with just the simplest of touches and what seems to be the most basic of dialogue. Taking Father Home is an utterly engaging emotional experience, and Ying has established himself as one of world cinema’s promising young talents.
Typecast Releasing is pleased to announce that American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein, the new feature-length documentary film from directors David Ridgen (Mississippi Cold Case) and Nicolas Rossier (Aristide and the Endless Revolution), enjoyed a successful premiere and week-long run in NYC at Anthology Film Archives in February—with Norman Finkelstein and the directors in attendance at opening weekend screenings for Q&A. American Radical will next play in Seattle, WA at the Northwest Film Forum from March 8-11, after which it will have its Los Angeles theatrical premiere at Laemmle Theatres’ Music Hall 3 cinemas in Beverly Hills. The film will be showing there March 12-18, with opening night events on Friday, March 12 sponsored by the Levantine Cultural Center.
A devoted son of Holocaust survivors and ardent critic of Israeli foreign policy, the polarizing American political scientist and author Norman Finkelstein has been called a lunatic and self-hating Jew by some, and an inspirational revolutionary by others. Exploring the deeply complex issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, American Radical is the insightful and enraging documentary that follows Finkelstein around the world as he attempts to negotiate a voice among his impassioned critics and supporters. Uncompromising even in the face of his recent denial of tenure at DePaul University, Finkelstein is revealed as a complex and supremely lonely figure whose self-destructive nature often undermines his academic credibility. A guaranteed argument starter, this potent documentary plunges viewers into the psychological and intellectual underpinnings of a vitriolic personality.
“For us, Finkelstein is the consummate documentary subject: a complex firebrand, principled to the point of self-ruin, at the apex of several of the world’s largest conflicts. A man who has never been asked to appear on mainstream American television, but who regularly appears – always creating controversy – in the international media. At once anti-hero, clown, and merciless scholar, Finkelstein creates as many storms as he enters. And to what end? When radicals collide, does it create understanding? Some would argue that it sometimes does. Others would claim that Finkelstein’s principled but too often bitter advocacy does much to discredit the cause of a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Audiences can decide for themselves.” —directors David Ridgen & Nicolas Rossier
VIEW TRAILER:
REVIEWS:
“‘American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein’ is a cautiously respectful documentary portrait of a political firebrand who presents himself as a beacon of moral truth in the murk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” —Stephen Holden, New York Times
“With impressive restraint, the fascinatingly thorny ‘American Radical’ is less interested in the validity of Finkelstein’s ideas—seriously mounted, if inflammatory—and more in the topsy-turvy life of today’s professional academic. Amazingly, that choice doesn’t result in a boring movie.” —Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
“‘American Radical’…presents a more balanced portrait of Finkelstein, who, when his passion doesn’t carry him off on a wave of anger, is shown to be thoughtful, intelligent and deeply melancholy.” —George Robinson, The Jewish Week
“A blood-boiling, very good documentary.” —Mark Keizer, Boxoffice Magaine
“(Norman Finkelstein’s) conclusions can be debated, his methods can be deplored, but as (‘American Radical’ directors) Ridgen and Rossier take pains to point out, a man so rigorously committed to putting an end to oppression ought not be so easily dismissed, even if coming to grips with such a challenging figure may be finally as difficult as getting to the bottom of the Arab-Israeli conflict itself.” —Andrew Schenker, Slant Magazine
“A guaranteed argument starter…an engaging portrait of an academic whose work is both fueled and undermined by his vitriolic personality.” —Chicago Reader
“A fascinating, well-rounded portrait of Finkelstein that simultaneously informs, inspires and infuriates…the filmmakers ride a delicate line, assembling a warts-and-all portrait that shows why Finkelstein is deeply respected and equally reviled.” —Mark Achbar, director of ‘The Corporation’ and ‘Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media’
A devoted son of Holocaust survivors and ardent critic of Israeli foreign policy, the polarizing American political scientist and author Norman Finkelstein has been called a lunatic and self-hating Jew by some, and an inspirational revolutionary by others. Exploring the deeply complex issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, American Radical is the insightful and enraging documentary that follows Finkelstein around the world as he attempts to negotiate a voice among his impassioned critics and supporters. Uncompromising even in the face of his recent denial of tenure at DePaul University, Finkelstein is revealed as a complex and supremely lonely figure whose self-destructive nature often undermines his academic credibility. A guaranteed argument starter, this potent documentary plunges viewers into the psychological and intellectual underpinnings of a vitriolic personality.
“For us, Finkelstein is the consummate documentary subject: a complex firebrand, principled to the point of self-ruin, at the apex of several of the world’s largest conflicts. A man who has never been asked to appear on mainstream American television, but who regularly appears – always creating controversy – in the international media. At once anti-hero, clown, and merciless scholar, Finkelstein creates as many storms as he enters. And to what end? When radicals collide, does it create understanding? Some would argue that it sometimes does. Others would claim that Finkelstein’s principled but too often bitter advocacy does much to discredit the cause of a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Audiences can decide for themselves.” —directors David Ridgen & Nicolas Rossier
Trailer:
In Theaters
Typecast Releasing is pleased to announce that American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein, the new feature-length documentary film from directors David Ridgen (Mississippi Cold Case) and Nicolas Rossier (Aristide and the Endless Revolution), enjoyed a successful premiere and week-long run in NYC at Anthology Film Archives in February—with Norman Finkelstein and the directors in attendance at opening weekend screenings for Q&A. American Radical will next play in Seattle, WA at the Northwest Film Forum from March 8-11, after which it will have its Los Angeles theatrical premiere at Laemmle Theatres’ Music Hall 3 cinemas in Beverly Hills. The film will be showing there March 12-18, with opening night events on Friday, March 12 sponsored by the Levantine Cultural Center.
Winner Audience Choice Award Chicago Underground FF
*September 2009 . Chicago Underground Film Festival . Chicago, IL. USA
*September 2009 . DocuDays: Beirut International Film Festival . Beirut . LEBANON
*October 2009 . North of Nowhere Expo . Edmonton, AB . CANADA
*October 2009 . Boston Palestine Film Festival . Boston, MA. USA
*October 2009 . Carleton Cinema Politica . Ottawa, ON . CANADA
*November 2009 . Sheffield International Documentary Festival . Sheffield . ENGLAND
*November 2009 . Copenhagen International Documentary Festival . Copenhagen . DENMARK
*November 2009 . International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam . Amsterdam . THE NETHERLANDS
*November 2009 . Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montreal . Montreal, QC . CANADA
*December 2009 . Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival . Jerusalem . ISRAEL
*January 2010 . Argus Film Festival . Denver, CO . USA
*January 2010 . Atlanta Jewish Film Festival . Atlanta, GA . USA
*March 2010 . KinoTeatr.doc Film Festival . Moscow . RUSSIA
*March 2010 . New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival . New Orleans, LA . USA
*April 2010 . Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine . Buenos Aires . ARGENTINA
*April 2010 . Chicago Palestine Film Festival . Chicago, IL . USA
*May 2010 . Hot Docs Film Festival . Toronto, ON . CANADA
*May 2010 . Planete Doc Review Film Festival . Warsaw . POLAND
In his latest film, writer-director Nacer Khemir unwittingly tempts fate by naming one of the characters Ishtar, which may remind some moviegoers of the notorious 1986 Warren Beatty/Dustin Hoffman flop of the same name. It’s like calling one of your characters “Gigli.”
But Khemir avoids any sort of jinx with the luminous and bewitching “Bab’Aziz — The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul.” Although at times difficult to follow narratively, the visual poetry and deep spiritualism of the film keep the audience involved.
Ishtar (the winning young actress Maryam Hamid) is a girl trekking through the desert with her grandfather Bab’Aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou) on their way to see a mysterious ceremony involving dancing spirits called dervishes. And by “through the desert,” I mean they just walk straight up one sand dune and down another, with few landmarks in sight. Khemir shot the film in the Iranian desert, and the elegant curves of the massive dunes give the film an almost surreal quality.
Somehow, the pair of travelers keep running into other people in the middle of nowhere, all of whom have tales to tell. At night, Bab’Aziz has his own ongoing story to tell Ishtar, that of a wealthy prince who decides to forgo all his riches in search of spiritual fulfillment.
Much of the plot of “Bab’Aziz” is inspired by Sufi Muslim teachings, and in an age where some neocons still equate Muslims with terrorists, it’s refreshing to see a film espouse the tolerance and openness that underlies much of Islamic culture.
“Bab’Aziz” seems to wander at times much like the travelers, and at some points it’s unclear whether an episode is germane to the main storyline or just a digression. At times, the audience feels like Ishtar, tagging along agreeably but unsure exactly where we’re going or when we’ll get there.
But the visuals are stunning, particularly seeing the dervishes sing and dance with such life in the midst of such austere desert surroundings, and the entire film builds toward a powerful final scene that’s easily worth the trip.
“Bab’Aziz (The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul)” is a spare but haunting movie extolling ancient faith via stark visual imagery, mythic fable and allegory.
The framing tale is straightforward and strikingly simple. Bab’Aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou), an aged, blind dervish, and his young granddaughter (Maryam Hamid) are on a pilgrimage on foot across a barren desert to join a religious assemblage that comes together every 30 years. To pass the time, and continue his role as her spiritual teacher, he tells her a parable about a worldly prince who one day followed a graceful gazelle and abandoned his throne to stare into a pool of water, seemingly in perpetuity.
The telling of the parable occurs in recurrent snippets throughout the journey of the pair, who meet up with various other characters along the way. Their stories become part of the narrative, and they include a hot-tempered, disheveled young man out to avenge his brother’s murder, a man who claims he dove into a well and found a palace and true love on the other side, and a poet hunting for a religious woman he loves.
Tunisian director Nacer Khemir’s picaresque structure and fabulist content are not the only reminders of Western tradition. The inclusion of the dreamlike and surreal recalls Federico Fellini, which is no surprise, because the screenplay by the director is said to include “participation by” Fellini scenarist Tonino Guerra (“Ginger and Fred”).
The movie’s strengths include cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari’s breathtaking but stern ode to desert imagery and composer Armand Amar’s plaintive score. Khemir’s approach to explicating Sufi religious tradition is understated and carefully tied to his characters and incidents, so that the philosophical gleanings are lean and nicely integrated into the story. This is spiritual filmmaking distilled enough to appeal to believers of all stripes and agnostics too. One exquisite mini-parable about three butterflies hovering around a flame is a searing exposition of human love. The cycle of youth and age and the trope of a journey come together inevitably, maybe predictably, but not without sparks of wisdom.
Bab’Aziz himself reveals the central theme of this serene, thought-inducing endeavor. “Everyone in this world,” he says, “has a great task to fulfill.”
Tunisian writer-director Nacer Khemir delights with tales and travelers. Blind and wise Bab’Aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou) and his granddaughter Ishtar (Maryam Hamid) cross breathtaking deserts in search of a legendary gathering of dervishes. Themes of illusory identity — and a totemic gazelle — unite a tapestry of tales.
Bab’Aziz tells Ishtar about a handsome prince who long, long ago peered into a pool to contemplate his soul. Another traveler is Osman (Mohamed Grayaa). He tells of once diving into a well in pursuit of a woman. He found himself inside a marvelous palace. Zaid (Nessim Kahloul) tells of Nour (Golshifteh Farahani), a woman who cut her hair and stole his clothes and passport so she could travel freely.
Each story and storyteller nestles in Khemir’s quest-style narrative. Shot in Iran and Tunisia, the film has a timeless setting. The subtext, though, is very timely for this Switzerland, Hungary, France, Germany, Iran, Tunisia and United Kingdom co-production.
In his press notes, Khemir states his intent of “showing an open, tolerant and friendly Islamic culture, full of love and wisdom, an Islam that is different from the one depicted by the media in the aftermath of 9/11. This movie is a modest effort to give Islam its real image back, based on the joyful and love-giving Sufi tradition.” Islam has a place for song, verse and dance. Khemir celebrates a mystical ethos lost among the militancy reported in international news.
A soft, poetic side of the Muslim world is portrayed in “Bab’Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul,” a movie as multifaceted and difficult to follow as its labyrinthine title. There’s nothing wrong with being difficult if there’s a payoff at the end. Screenwriter-director Nacer Khemir provides that with a visually stunning final scene that makes sense of everything that came before.
“Bab’Aziz,” which was shot on location in Iran and Tunisia, opens with a breathtaking vista of sand dunes stretching past the eyes’ ability to see. Their sensual rounded shapes look like Edward Steichen nudes.
Looking into the distance, you half expect to see Lawrence of Arabia on a camel. Instead, there’s a girl, Ishtar (a lively Maryam Hamid), calling for her grandfather, Bab’Aziz (Parviz Shlahinkhou). A storm has separated them and delayed their journey to a kind of convention for dervishes. He’s one and his granddaughter is learning the art. This gathering they’re off to only happens every 30 years. The location is kept a secret. As Granddad tells Ishtar, the important thing is just to keep walking, for which Bab’Aziz, who is blind, relies on his companion and a stick.
At nighttime, the youngster wants to be told a story. Bab’Aziz obliges with an ancient saga of a prince who renounces his worldly pleasures to stare into a pool in the desert while contemplating his soul. This scenario is acted out as the story is narrated. Besides clearing up the meaning of the second part of the film’s title, it also adds a mysterious element to the meaning of life.
Bab’Aziz and Ishtar meet numerous people along the way with their own stories. Each time they come upon a group performing music, she’s hopeful they’ve reached the convention, only to be told by her grandfather that the group they’re seeking is much larger.
A fellow traveler tells the old man and his granddaughter that he has been seduced by a beautiful woman. Waking up in her bed, he strokes the lush head of hair next to him only to realize that she has cut it all off and left it there like a wig (well, it could have been a horse’s head) before absconding with his passport and clothes. As this young man explains, where she is headed it is difficult for a woman to travel alone, hence the borrowing of his clothes.
This is one of the few overt mentions of the lives lived by many followers of Islam. In a statement, the film’s director rather dramatically states, “I tried to wipe Islam’s face clean with my movie, by showing an open, tolerant and friendly Islamic culture, full of love and wisdom.”
Khemir has succeeded to the extent that he makes you forget you’re watching Muslims and just think you’re watching people.
The primal tranquillity of shifting sands across the Iranian and Tunisian desert is no mere backdrop to this hypnotic fable of spiritual wisdom. The silken dunes that cocoon, propel or transform the humans and animals crossing their rippled lines are elemental characters with as much significance as the mystical parable they all inhabit.
Using a mostly seamless series of narrative techniques, the film spins a string of interconnected stories based on Sufi mysticism. It is anchored by the journey of an old blind man named Bab’Aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou) and his granddaughter Ihstar (Maryam Hamid) as they wander in search of a gathering of dervishes who celebrate together in the desert every 30 years.
Bab’Aziz entertains and calms his anxious charge by telling her the legend of a young prince who becomes fanatically obsessed by the gaze of his own reflection from a pool of water. Trekking deeper into the labyrinthine wilderness, they meet a succession of others who share their own stories of philosophical pain or yearning. One man believes he has discovered paradise at the bottom of a deep well; one is on a quest to find a love he has driven away; another courts madness by seeking aimless revenge. A common thread of introspection is eloquently woven amid the truth of universal thought and the hypnotic spell of landscapes that are as ancient as they are transient.
Tunisian director Nacer Khemir’s palette also includes the mesmeric texture of half-buried mosques, harsh rock formations and occasional flashes of brilliantly colored textiles leaping out of the monochromatic horizon. So timeless is the pace and setting that it’s a little alarming when reminders of modern culture — such as a motor scooter, a baseball cap or an airplane — intrude into view.
An exotic musical score that climaxes with the epic gathering of dervishes in a parched, crumbling city enhances the visual poetry. The music also gives balance to a dramatic structure that might otherwise have seemed overly amorphous. The atmosphere is so thick with mystical theory that languor sometimes threatens to win out over insight. Be sure to come well rested; this desert is no place for a nap.
* New York, NY . Cinema Village . Feb. 8, 2008
* Atlanta, GA . High Museum of Art . Feb. 16, 2008
* Los Angeles, CA . Landmark’s Nuart Theatre . Feb. 22, 2008
* Seattle, WA . Landmark’s Varsity Theatre . March 14, 2008 * New Orleans, LA . Zeitgeist Arts Center . March 21, 2008
* San Francisco, CA . Landmark’s Lumiere Theatre . April 4, 2008
* Berkeley, CA . Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas . April 4, 2008 * San Rafael, CA . Smith Rafael Film Center . April 11, 2008
* Boston, MA . Landmark’s Kendall Square Cinema . April 25, 2008
* Denver, CO . Starz FilmCenter . May 2, 2008
* Cleveland, OH . Cleveland Museum of Art . May 10, 2008 * Fort Worth, TX . Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth . May 16, 2008
* Santa Fe, NM . Center for Contemporary Arts . May 16, 2008
* Chicago, IL . Gene Siskel Film Center . May 30, 2008 * St. Louis, MO . Webster University Film Series . June 13, 2008
* Washington, DC . Landmark’s E Street Cinema . June 20, 2008
* Detroit, MI . Landmark’s Main Art Theatre . June 27, 2008
* Austin, TX . Landmark’s Dobie Theatre . July 11, 2008
* Hartford, CT . Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art . July 17, 2008
* Madison, WI . Sundance Cinemas . August 1, 2008
* Hanover, NH . Hopkins Center Film . August 10, 2008
* Ann Arbor, MI . Michigan Theater . August 16, 2008
* Beverly, MA . Cabot Street Cinema Theatre . August 22, 2008
* Minneapolis, MN . Landmark’s Uptown Theatre . September 12, 2008
* Hartford, CT . Real Art Ways . September 26, 2008
* Beverly, MA . Returns to Cabot Street Cinema Theatre . October 7-9, 2008
* Portland, OR . Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10 . October 10, 2008
* Crested Butte, CO . Majestic Theatre . November 1, 2008
In Theaters
At Festivals
