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Arab Film Festival Ends Sunday With UC Shows

By JAKOB SCHILLER
Friday October 03, 2003

The 7th Annual Arab Film Festival winds up its Bay Area run in Berkeley Sunday, with screenings and a closing night party at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Auditorium Film. 

Films slotted for Sunday include “Planet of the Arabs,” “Lord’s Song,” “Souha Surviving Hell,” “Meantime in Beruit,” “Under the Sky of Baghdad,” and “Forget Baghdad.” The closing party will also include a performance by Yuri Lane, a rising beat-box performer from San Francisco who is currently on tour performing his beat-boxed theatrical production, “From Ramallah to Tel Aviv.” 

Event organizer Tariq Elaydi said that this year the festival has tried to open its doors to a wide variety of films, including those of a more artistically experimental nature. The ones that will be screened at Wheeler Auditorium, however, are more political—meant to attract Cal students who organizers know have a history of political involvement. 

Elyadi said he also wanted to provide opportunities for younger people to be exposed to what has become a growing Arab and Arab American film scene. 

“We wanted to bring a whole new generation of people in and introduce them to Arab films, especially here at Berkeley because of its political history,” Elaydi said. 

The night’s closing film, the widely acclaimed “Forget Baghdad,” tells the story of four Jewish Iraqis now living in Israel, documenting their lives as part of a society where even though they belong to the religious majority, they still face discrimination because of their ethnicity. 

In an attempt to examine the “clichés of ‘the Jew’ and ‘the Arab’ in the last hundred years of cinema,” Elaydi says that the film does an excellent job of exposing Israeli prejudice against Arabs, in a very “subtle and convincing” way.  

The festival has grown every year, but Elaydi says it has also faced a number of hardships, and in the post 9/11 era, organizers have had to deal with fear and discrimination targeting Arabs. 

Elyadi said the festival itself hasn’t been scapegoated, but people occasionally have to be escorted out of films for making disruptions, and many festival donors have asked to remain anonymous so their names aren’t associated with any of the films. 

Overall, Elaydi said the festival has been a success, drawing large crowds in San Francisco every night. Berkeley was slow during the first round of films partly because the screenings were held on the day of the USC vs. Cal football game. For closing day, organizers encourage people to turn out to attend what Elaydi promised will be an astonishing lineup, then stay for Yuri Lane’s performance. 

Films will run starting at 2 p.m. and Forget Baghdad screens at 7:15 p.m. The closing party will start after the film, around 10 p.m. 

For more information on the films and times, and to buy tickets, go to www.aff.org.