Description:

In 2011, Irish author, filmmaker, and former director of Edinburgh Film Festival, Mark Cousins, ended his cinematic odyssey with the release of the 15 hour long compilation documentary: The Story of Film. For this epic project, Mark traveled the world to learn more about the films of renowned directors such as Youssef Chahine, John Ford, Abbas Kiarostami and Ritwik Ghatak and to experience firsthand the settings of their master works. While in Iran, Mark made two tribute documentaries on Iranian cinema: On the Road with Kiarostami and Cinema Iran.

In A Journey Through Iranian Cinema With Mark Cousins, Iranian filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht catches up with Mark during the English tour of The Story of Film. Mark explores the impact of the films of Forough Farrokhzad, Abbas Kiarostami and the Makhmalbaf(s) have had on his life as filmmaker and film lover, as he reminisces about the two trips he made from Scotland to Iran in his campervan. Mark also offers fascinating insights on modern Iran: A country whose rich culture and vast history are often overshadowed by the day-to-day fluctuations in modern-day politics.

Reviews:

“Mark Cousins is incapable of writing anything about cinema history without making it fascinating.”
—Sean Connery

Description: 

“A provocative and hilarious cross-cultural investigation.”
— Jonathan Rosenbaum

“Jerry & Me is a love letter to cinema”
— Chicago Journal

In her intimate documentary “Jerry & Me,” filmmaker Mehrnaz Saeedvafa examines the significant role that Hollywood movies played in her life, both as a young film lover growing up in pre-revolutionary Iran, and as an adult working as a filmmaker and educator in both Iran and the USA.

Of particular focus in “Jerry & Me” is the intimate relationship young Mehrnaz develops with the image of Jerry Lewis, the iconic American film auteur who delighted audiences around the world with hilarious portrayals of outcasts and misfits in popular Hollywood comedies of the 1950s and ’60s.

As illustrated through a variety of Lewis’ film clips, the shifts in the comedian’s on-screen persona reflected the twists and turns of Saeedvafa’s own life, providing her much needed comfort and companionship during a time that was tumultuous and chaotic. Mehrnaz’s illusion of Lewis as an empathetic fellow outsider is ultimately shattered, however, by the stark reality of a real-life encounter with the star.

Description:

A semi-autobiographical short video play by Jamil Khoury, both/and disrupts the dictates of “either/or” and “us vs. them,” imagining identities that are holistic and non-fragmented.

In both/and, the characters of Jamil, Arab Man, and Gay Man explore and explode the constructed boundaries between American and Arab, Arab American and gay, for-profit and not-for-profit, and other assorted disputed territories.

DVD copies include On both/and and Being a Both/And-er, an 11-minute video essay in which writer-producer Jamil Khoury discusses the themes and ideas presented in his film. Khoury’s documentary film Not Quite White is also available from Typecast here.

Trailer:

Description:

Inspired by Jamil Khoury’s short play WASP: White Arab Slovak Pole, Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness is a thought-provoking documentary that explores the complicated relationship of Arab and Slavic immigrants to American notions of whiteness.

The film integrates scenes from WASP alongside interviews with Arab American and Polish American academics who reflect upon contested and probationary categories of whiteness and the use of anti-Black racism as a “whitening” dye.

In Not Quite White, Jamil Khoury (Artistic Director of Chicago’s Silk Road Rising) draws upon his own Arab (Syrian) and Slavic (Polish and Slovak) heritage as the lens through which to investigate the broader issue of immigrants achieving whiteness and hence qualifying as “fully American.” The film advances society’s on-going conversations about the meaning of whiteness and efforts at redefining whiteness.

Not just for white people, and not just for Arabs and Slavs, Not Quite White proceeds from the assumption that whiteness affects all our lives and that we all need to critically engage whiteness. “Whiteness has everything to do with melanin and pigmentation and it has nothing to do with melanin and pigmentation,” Khoury observes. “Whiteness is about power and borders and authorship. And whiteness can, and does, change.”

The academics featured in Not Quite White include: Roxane Assaf, Adjunct Faculty, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Ann Hetzel Gunkel, Director of Cultural Studies, Columbia College Chicago; John Tofik Karam, Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, De Paul University; Dominic A. Pacyga, Professor of History, Columbia College Chicago.

DVD copies also include On Whiteness, a 16-minute video essay in which writer and co-director Jamil Khoury discusses the themes and ideas presented in his film. Khoury’s short film both/and is also available from Typecast here.

Reviews:

“Not Quite White is a bold and dynamic examination of the social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States. Switching between the theatrical performance of an Arab American who ‘looks’ white and interviews with scholars from the Arab American and Polish American communities, the film is able to offer a multi-dimensional understanding of whiteness as a contested racial category. As a Lecturer in Cultural Studies, I find the film useful as a tool for teaching students that race is more complex than what meets the eye.”
- Michelle Yates, Ph.D., Dept. of Humanities, History, & Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago

“Zeroes in on whiteness as a constructed social and political category…that historically ‘played favorites,’ advantaging Northern and Western European immigrants over immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and the Middle East.”
- PRNewswire

“Not Quite White presents the often sensitive topics of race and identity in an entertaining, thoughtful, and enlightening way. The film is very well done and also a great reminder that appearances cannot always provide the full story of politics, race, and class that come into play in American society. Jamil Khoury has turned his vision and personal experiences of race and identity into a powerful artistic piece.”
- Christie J. Dal Corobbo, Cultural Studies and Minors Programs at Columbia College Chicago

Trailer:

Description:

Basketball is much more than a game in David Fine’s stirring documentary about an Iraqi women’s basketball team at the American University of Iraq—Sulaimani (AUIS) in Kurdistan. For the young women on the team, most of whom have never touched a basketball or been allowed to play sports at all before, it is a blissful escape from the realities of living in a war-torn nation.

The team members come from a variety of ethnicities and sects—Arab, Kurd, Christian, Sunni, Shiite—but the joy they discover in playing together and the deep love they come to feel for one another and for Ryan, their young American coach, reveals an Iraq united in a way we’ve rarely seen before.

Reviews:

“A stirring example of the possibilities for young Iraqis outside the country’s war zones.”
- Variety

“Of the majority of images and video to be coming from Iraq…SALAAM DUNK stands aside from the pack.”
- IndieWire

“Sometimes, it’s the simple things that we take for granted that can become the subjects of powerful films when told through the eyes of people a half a world away.”
- Film Slate Magazine

“The film captures their love for one another and for the game. It’s a purity that leads them to shoot free throws in the rain, or run layup drills at a hoop in the middle of nowhere. They don’t play for fame, scholarships, or money; they play because they can.”
- ESPN

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At Festivals

2011 – LA Film Festival – World Premiere

2011 – Winner! Golden Plaque, Chicago Film Festival

2011 – DOHA Tribeca Film Festival – International Premiere

2011 – (IDFA) International Documentary Festival Amsterdam – European Premiere

2012 – Reframe International Film Festival – Canadian Premiere

“Magnificent!…must not be missed. I could heap praises on it forever.”
— The Stranger

“Fascinating…Deneuve’s disorientation comes to stand for that
distance we all feel in the West when forced to think about the reality behind the headlines and news reports.”
— FILM4

“An unusual, personal film…defies description.”
— Seattle Times

While in Beirut to attend a glamorous banquet, legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve (Potiche, Belle de Jour) insists on being taken to the southern regions of Lebanon in order to see first-hand the devastation caused by Israel’s month-long bombing campaign there in the summer of 2006.

Cleverly blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, directors Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas (A Perfect Day) create a mesmerizing, thought-provoking travelogue in which they appear as filmmakers capturing Deneuve’s road-trip on camera.

After visiting the crumbling ruins of ancient villages and watching as the shattered remnants of cities and towns are slowly pushed into the sea, Deneuve’s perception of Lebanon is transformed somewhat when she appears later that evening before the myriad photographers ardently capturing her image at the elegant evening gala.

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Description:

An accomplished new documentary feature from Jawad Metni, Remnants of a War is a portrait of the people of South Lebanon who endeavor to rebuild and reclaim their land for their fellow countrymen following the devastating 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

During the 33 days of fighting, Israel dropped more than one million cluster bomb munitions onto the fields, orchards and towns of South Lebanon—with the majority of the bombs being deployed in the final 3 days of the war. An estimated 35% of these cluster bombs failed to detonate upon impact, leaving the mine-like devices scattered over the countryside until unwitting civilians stumble upon them and are maimed or killed by the resulting explosion. In 2007, teams of locally recruited and trained de-miners race to locate and deactivate the bombs before even more civilians are injured or killed.

Remnants of a War takes an intimate look into the lives of these brave workers—Muslims and Christians; Sunnis and Shia; women and men—who work shoulder to shoulder in the sweltering heat to make their lands available for ranching, farming and for children to safely play upon once again.

Reviews:

“Metni offers an humanitarian advocacy, economically and judiciously, about a silent war which is still killing and maiming civilians in South Lebanon…a masterpiece of documentary filmmaking.” – L’Orient Le Jour

“Reveals the uncertain future of a Lebanon where the generation that should be running the country is struggling to survive.”  - filmjournal.com

“The film speaks volumes about the fate of civilians caught in the crossfire.” - filmcritic.com

Trailer:

On TV

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In Theaters

At Festivals

WINNER! – Best Documentary, 2010 British Independent Film Festival
WINNER! – Golden Palm, 2010 Mexico International Film Festival