Laila Lalami

The Seattle Arab and Iranian Film Festival opens this weekend. It will shows feature films and documentaries from and about Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen, with co-productions from Canada, France, Mexico, and the U.S. Yousry Nasrallah’s film adaptation of Elias Khoury’s novel Gate of the Sun will be shown, as well as the critically acclaimed Moroccan film The Grand Voyage. Check out the rest of the schedule.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the ‘Without Boundary‘ show currently on view at MoMA. Now in a New York Observer piece, Tyler Green reports that some of the artists connected with the show are unhappy about it, including Shirin Neshat, who says:

“My immediate reaction was, how could anyone today discuss art made by contemporary Muslim artists and not speak about the role the subjects of religion and contemporary politics play in the artists’ minds?” Ms. Neshat said. “For some of us, our art is interconnected to the development of our personal lives, which have been controlled and defined by politics and governments. Some artists, including Marjane Satrapi and myself, are ‘exiled’ from our country because of the problematic and controversial nature of our work.”

Green points out that it’s “highly unusual” for artists included in a MoMA show to criticize “the most powerful art museum in the world.” You can read more about the artists’ frustrations and MoMA’s stance on the merging of art and politics here.

Over at the New York Times, Holland Cotter reviews “Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography,” which is currently showing at the International Center of Photography. Of the curator, the Nigerian Okwui Enwezor, Cotter writes:

If Martians tuned in to our television news broadcasts, they’d have a miserable impression of life on Earth. War, disease, poverty, heartbreak and nothing else. That’s exactly how most of the world sees Africa: filtered through images of calamity. “Afro-pessimism” is the diagnostic term that Okwui Enwezor, the Nigerian-born art historian and curator, uses for the syndrome. And he has offered bracing antidotes to it in two major photography exhibitions.

The first, “In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present,” appeared at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1996. It was fantastic, a revelation. Now, a decade later, the second one has arrived, “Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography” at the International Center of Photography. It, too, is fantastic — stimulating, astringent, brimming with life — and different from its predecessor.

You can read the rest of the rave review here.

The online gallery for “Snap Judgments” is worth a visit. I was happy to see a strong showing by Moroccan artists in this exhibit, with artwork by Yto Berrada, Ali Chraibi, and Lamia Naji.

The Museum of Modern Art is currently running an exhibition called “Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking.” Curated by Fereshteh Daftari, the pieces in the collection explore the false notion of “Islamic art,” which is generally taken to mean any art produced in Muslim lands, regardless of ethnicity or culture.

The artists come from various countries (with a strong showing by Iranian artists, including photographer Sherin Neshat and comic artist Marjane Satrapi) and various religious backgrounds, showcasing the diversity of thinking about art from (or about) “over there.” Michael Wise, writing in the Los Angeles Times, finds the exhibit “subversive.” I think we can all use a bit of subversion. You can view the online page for Without Boundary here. (Click on “Full Program” for a guided tour.)

A reader sends words that London-based Palestinian singer Reem Kelani, whose songs speak of the plight of refugees, was recently interviewed on the BBC’s Everywoman and Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour. There also a print interview here.

Jasmila Zbanic’s Grbavica, a film that deals with the aftermath of the mass rape of Muslim women during the Bosnian genocide, has won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The movie’s website has stills and other information.

American speed skater Joey Cheek has donated his Olympics gold medal award ($25,000) to Darfur refugees.

Reuters reports that Israel and some U.S. Jewish groups have lobbied organizers of the Academy Awards to change the name of the nominating country for Hany Abu-Asad’s Paradise Now. They want it to change from ‘Palestine’ to ‘Palestinian Authority.’

Many Israelis were irked when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in publishing the nomination, said “Paradise Now” came from “Palestine.”

While the tag remains on the academy’s Web site, an Israeli diplomat said he expected the film to be described as coming from the “Palestinian Authority” during the awards ceremony.

What the hell?

Over at the L.A. Times, Kenneth Turan looks at this year’s Oscar nominees, and is thrilled to find so many independent features, like Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, Crash, and Capote. In addition, notes Turan, the Academy seemed to embrace rather than shun controversy, picking Steven Spielberg’s Munich for one of the Best Picture slots. And, he adds:

As to the commentators who hyperventilated over “Munich,” they are likely to have full-blown coronary attacks once they get a look at “Paradise Now,” the exceptional Palestinian film that is one of five nominees for best foreign-language film.

Though the category is a real tossup (all five Oscar nominees are strong enough to have U.S. distribution deals already in place), this powerful and provocative drama about the nightmare of terrorism is as involving and relevant a film as the year has produced.

Seriously, go see Paradise Now.

Reader David S. sends word that Danae Elon’s Another Road Home will be screened tonight at 6 pm at Symphony Space in New York.

Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th Street
212-864-5400
Reserve tickets here.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion led by Adam Shatz with Elias Khoury, Dahna Abourahme, Bashir Abu-Manneh, Danae Elon, Stuart Klawans, David Ofek, Richard Pena, Ella Shohat and Debra Zimmerman. Signed copies of Khoury’s Gate of the Sun will also be available.