Director
Samir

Country of Origin
Switzerland

Language
English, Hebrew, Arabic

Year/Time
2003/112m

Presenter
Noel Rivera

February 03

FORGET BAGHDAD: JEWS AND ARABS - THE IRAQI CONNECTION

Review from Variety.com...

Producer/filmmaker Samir (who uses no last name) narrates how he was born in the "rogue state" of Iraq and moved to Switzerland with his Jewish family when he was a child. He flies to Tel Aviv to look up four men who, like his father, were members of the Iraqi Communist Party before immigrating to Israel, along with 120,000 other Iraqi Jews, following pogroms in the 1950s.

Forced to leave their comfortable homes in Baghdad for refugee camps in Israel, they found themselves treated as dirty, uneducated Arabs, a stereotype immortalized in the popular period film "Petah Tikva." Today all four men are writers, and all but Samir Naqqash have abandoned Arabic to write in Hebrew. All but one have left their political activities.

The filmmaker questions them closely on Mideast politics in relation to their own identities. During the Gulf War, many of Saddam Hussein's missiles fell on Tel Aviv's Iraqi suburb; during the current Intifada, they have sometimes been arrested as suspicious Arabs. Yet in spite of the discrimination, one writer embraces his mixed cultural background, saying he feels "like baklava -- each layer of my personality loves the other."

Docu tends to be unfocused at times, mixing historical footage with film excerpts ranging from "The Thief of Baghdad" to "Exodus," and intercutting the Israeli writers with NYU prof Ella Shohat, interviewed in her New York apartment against the eerie backdrop of the World Trade towers. Her 1991 book on Israeli cinema caused an uproar in Israel, along with her appearance on a popular TV talkshow where she publicly discussed discrimination against the country's Arab Jews (called the Mizrahin). Her analysis of growing up in Israel ashamed of her Arab origin is clear-sighted and chilling.

Technically, film gains from brisk editing and superimposed images that give a lot of info quickly and concisely.

location: ILC 130

Director
Özer Kiziltan

Country of Origin
Turkey

Language
Turkish

Year/Time
2006/96m

Presenter
Ufuk Coşkun

March 03

TAKVA - ONE MAN'S FEAR OF GOD

Review from Variety.com...

Muharrem (the superb Erkan Can) is a man of few needs, his life centering on his religion and his job for sack merchant Ali (Settar Tanriogen). His outlook is as limited as his wardrobe, so it comes as a shock when the leader of his religious sect, the Sheik (Meray Ulgen), asks him to become the rent collector for the sect's property-rich seminary.

Muharrem's lack of ambition and worldliness is precisely why he's been chosen. The Sheik and his right-hand man Rauf (Guven Kirac) "suggest" Ali give Muharrem afternoons off so he can collect rents and see to repairs on the many properties the sect owns throughout Istanbul.

It is also "suggested" that Muharrem move into the seminary's building, where he's given suits, a cell phone, and all the accoutrements of a businessman, even a car and driver: "You must reflect the wisdom and the wealth of the Sheik and of the order," Rauf explains. Fish-outof- water isn't the half of it.

As he adjusts to his new role, Muharrem visibly changes. Whereas before he lived in a timeless world that could equally be 1926 or 2006, now he confidently strides into shopping malls and ultra-modern offices. When his basic goodness tells him to allow a poor family to skip their rent for a month, the Sheik says this might prevent a student from coming to the seminary.

Increasingly confused and plagued by "sinful" recurring wet dreams, Muharrem's previously black-and-white existence becomes filled not just with temptation, but with sophistical debates wrapped in opaque religious finery.

In a world currently extra-sensitive to all treatments of Muslim subjects, it should be added that Kiziltan is clearly criticizing a particular strain of fundamentalism that uses a moral sleight-of-hand to reconcile spiritual teaching with capitalism. His target could just as easily be any religious institution.

What really makes "A Man's Fear of God" stand out is the way Kiziltan enriches his characters through their environment. Muharrem's life was full of familiar, solid traditions linked to office, tea-shop, mosque and home. His plunge into the contempo world reveals the two sides of Istanbul, and the uneasy struggle that exists between them.

As he changes clothes and transforms from near indentured servitude to a position of respect, thesper Can undergoes a visual physical transformation, carrying his body with a new confidence and spontaneously, if uncomfortably, manifesting a forceful confrontational attitude. With heavy-lidded eyes that beautifully register his painful confusion, Can easily won the best actor award in Antalya.

Visuals are rich and multi-dimensional. Akin's regular editor Andrew Bird, along with Niko, do an outstanding job of building tension during a music-filled religious ceremony that hits a fever pitch and then jumps to a most unexpected follow-up.

location: ILC 130

Country of Origin
USA

Language
English

Year/Time
2005/106m

Presenter
Shyla Dogan

April 07

DAVID AND LAYLA

Review from the Washington Post...

David Fine (David Moscow), the nerdy and neurotic host of a public access TV show airing in NYC called "Sex and Happiness," is being pressured by his parents to marry Abby, a rich Jewish girl with a nose job, breast implants and a Porsche. Unfortunately, there's a major attitude that comes along with that attractive package, since the self-absorbed fitness freak refuses to go on the pill, and she also wants him to have a vasectomy.

That doesn't sit well with David, who's been seeing a shrink for six years to deal with erectile issues due to his fear of condoms. Therefore, it's no surprise when he falls in lust at first sight with an exotic beauty (Shiva Rose) who turns his head on the street one day.

Layla is a Kurdish refugee whose entire family was gassed by Saddam Hussein. However, she wasn't granted permanent asylum in America and has just 45 days to marry a U.S. citizen or else face deportation. She lives with her Aunt Zina and Uncle Ali  who have found her an eager suitor in Dr. Ahmed, a successful dentist originally from Kuwait. The fly in the ointment is that Layla is reluctant to tie the knot with a guy she has no feelings for.

Yet, she does sense find a certain chemistry with David, the awkward stranger who has taken to stalking her while followed by his French cameraman.

Eventually, she entertains his overtures only to discover that he's a Jew, a potentially controversial combination when it comes time to win the approval of her Muslim relatives.

This incendiary formula sets in motion David & Layla, a cross-cultural comedy set in Brooklyn in 1990. The story is based on the real-life experiences of David Ruby and Alwand Jaff, both of whom make cameo appearances here in minor roles. The film's fundamental question is whether this latter-day Romeo and Juliet will follow their hearts or simply stick with the more appropriate mates.

location: ILC 130

Director
Reza Mir-Karimi

Country of Origin
Iran

Language
Persian

Year/Time
2001/96m

Presenter
Zohra Yaqub

May 05

UNDER THE MOONLIGHT

Review from Screendaily.com...

A neo-realist drama with a sprinkling of feel good sentiment, the film is successfully carried by the understated simplicity of the central performance from Hossein Parastar as seminary student Seyyed Hassan. Nearing the completion of his studies, he has a marked reluctance to acquire the turban and robes that signal his final readiness to accept his calling as a mullah. Family traditions and expectations weigh heavily on his mind and he shrinks from the legacy of a grandfather whose spiritual influence was considerable. Hassan's doubts and uncertainties are contrasted with the total faith and commitment of a devout novice who wishes to do everything by the book.

His hesitation is underlined when a boy from the streets steals the fabric meant for his turban and robes. His search for the boy leads him to a bridge in the city that provides shelter for a boisterous, rag tag collection of lost souls and down-and-outs who he befriends. Bringing food and compassion, he finds a far greater sense of his vocation on the streets of the city than he was ever able to discover in the rigid teachings and cloistered comfort of the seminary.

Interesting enough in its own right, Hassan's story has diversions and deviations that allow Reza Mir-Karimi to comment on a variety of issues in Iranian society. These include everything from signs of the influence of Western culture on a younger generation (children scoff crisps on the subway and sell chewing gum on the streets) to the lack of respect accorded members of the clergy and the satirical jibes at a self-regarding religious establishment that seems unconcerned by its inability to connect with the common people. In its own deceptively simple way, the film is as critical and questioning as many films with a more overtly political agenda.

In an upbeat ending, Hassan embraces his newfound perspective on the world and accepts his commitment to a religious life. This may seem like an act of appeasement to the forces of censorship almost like the last minute punishment of the bad guys that forgave Hollywood its sins of violence and mayhem under the old Hays Code. However, it is defensible within the structure of the story, and is an acceptable decision by a character who has reached a crossroads and found his own way to the path taken by his forefathers.

The upbeat ending also seems to more fairly reflect the director's stated intention to tell "simple and humane stories" that offer "a hopeful look to the future".

location: ILC 130