Thursday,
March 22 - Saturday, March 24
Middle
East Week 2007
A
Showcase of Syrian Cinema
Co-presented
by the Middle East
Center at the University of Pennsylvania
 Syrian
cinema is largely unknown to audiences in the US. While some
films may have featured in international film festivals, never
before has a program focused on the rich cinematic output of
Syrian filmmakers. ArteEast is proud to offer American audiences
a unique opportunity to discover and engage with this vibrant
and diverse cinema by curating a traveling show. The program
includes digitally re-mastered gems of Syrian cinema whose original
prints were on the brink of complete deterioration.
While
Syrian cinema can be described as unabashedly national in its
entrenchment within the local culture of Syria, and unabashedly
Arab, it is also
a
cinema that is in profound engagement with world cinema, particularly
with regard to schools of cinematography, or styles. First and
foremost is the stellar influence of Soviet formalism, as most
Syrian filmmakers are graduates of film schools from the former
Soviet Union. Critics worldwide have cited the kinship between
their work and the legacy of Andre Tarkovsky, as with the work
of Oussama Mohammad and Mohammad Malas, to cite two examples.
The work of Abdullatif Abdul-Hamid, on the other hand, has more
often been compared to the legacy of the Italian neo-realist
school, the work of Vittorio de Sica, in particular. The program
is the first to provide an overview of Syrian cinema, bringing
forward the cinematic vocabulary of a national cinema to which
the world has rarely granted its attention.
Thursday,
March 22 at 7pm
Shorts
Program
The
Wash
dir.
Hisham el-Zouki, Syria/Norway, 2005, DVD, 8 mins, color, Arabic
w/ English subtitles
Dirty
laundry takes on new meaning in The Wash. Two immigrants
working in Norway as cleaners for a company entrusted to prepare
the site for the visit of the US president, are suddenly thrown
into disarray when blood begins to drip from the US flag hanging
high on its mast. The Wash is crafted like a caustic
allegorical fable about perceptions of the US, and leaves the
viewer with an open-ended field of interpretation.
The
Pot (al-Qarura)
dir.
Diana el-Jeiroudi, Syria, 2004, DVD, 20 mins, color,
Arabic w/ English subtitles
 In
this unconventional documentary debut, The Pot creates
the space for women to express themselves freely about being
pregnant in the shadow of a society that still regards their
bodies as a vessel to carry progeny.
Blue
Grey
dir.
Mohamad el-Roumi, Syria/France, 2003, DVD, 23 mins, color,
Arabic
w/
English subtitles
 Filmed
in northern Syria, the filmmaker travels the reverse trajectory
of the ferry crossing that carried him and his family to the
city of Aleppo. The villages he returns to have now vanished
with the construction of the artificial lake of Tishreen. With
tenderness and melancholy, the film bids farewell to a life
right before its vanishing, it carries the sorrow of people
in the moment preceding their uprooting and displacement.
The
Dream (Al-Manam)
dir.
Mohammad Malas, Syria , 1981, DVD, 45 mins, color,
Arabic w/ English
subtitles
Filmed
shortly before the massacre in 1982 in Sabra and Shatila, Palestinian
refugee camps in Lebanon, this documentary's principle reference
is dreams,
and
not lived reality. Women, children, the elderly and combatants
speak the actualities of their everyday lives, eerily transposed
in dreams, nightmares and premonitions. Ultimately, they converge
on what the Palestinians have lost – their homeland and a life
with dignity.
Friday,
March 23 at 8pm
Just
Get Married!
dir.
Husam Chadat, Syria/Germany, 2003, DVD, 20 mins, color, Arabic
w/
English subtitles
 Hilarious
and heartwarming, Just Get Married! tells the story
of Mr. Sharif, a Syrian living in Germany, whose student visa
has finally run out. Desperate to find a way to stay in the
country he has come to love, his futile attempts find him revisiting
past girlfriends, responding to personal ads, and pleading with
strangers. Eventually he learns that home is where you make
it.
followed
by
Verbal
Letters (Rasa’el Shafahiyyah)
dir.
Abdullatif Abdul-Hamid, Syria, 1991, DVD, 105 mins, color, Arabic
w/ English subtitles
 Set
in the bright orange groves of a small village in the Syrian
countryside, Verbal Letters earned Abdellatif Abdul-Hamid
frequent comparisons to French author Marcel Pagnol (Jean
de Florette, Manon des Sources). The film about
love, friendship, loyalty and the magic of the first kiss, is
loosely adapted from the tale of Cyrano de Bergerac. A young
man with an oversized nose is too embarrassed to approach the
beautiful young woman he has fallen deeply in love with. He
dispatches his most trusted friend to recite to her his love
letters, but she falls for the friend. An ode of tenderness
and humor to childhood, coming of age, the enchantment of the
first love, and the pains of learning multiplication tables.
Click
Here for the 3rd Middle East Week Celebration
at 6pm.
Saturday,
March 24 at 2pm
Stars
in Broad Day (Nujum an-Nahar)
dir.
Oussama Mohammad, Syria, 1988, DVD, 115 mins, color, Arabic
w/ English subtitles
 A
double wedding in a small village turns to high drama when one
bride runs away and the other refuses to go on with her marriage.
This unveils the fragile balance holding together a family strained
by an abusive father, now replaced by the successful but corrupt
eldest son, a pathologically enraged second son, and the troubles
of the youngest son, rendered deaf by a violent blow his father
dealt him as a child. Ultimately tragic, the film is rife with
biting humor and sharp political critique as it exposes how
the violence of arbitrary and absolute power in a patriarchal
society seeps into the unit of a family. This film remains banned
from screening in Syria because of its subversive representation
and critical voice.
Selected
at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival
in 1988
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