The People of Gaza

It's quite hard to find any material, whether documentations or any other form that is concerned to reflect on the people of Gaza rather on the social everyday situations they live in. But here comes a ray of light. Zouheir Alnajjar is a 29-year-old Palestinian Flim-making Journalist that produced short documentaries concerning Gaza and more importantly the people of Gaza.

With extremely interesting approaches, a surprisingly high level of professionalism and a local reporter which means he has a deeper understanding to his own people, come the videos of Zouheir Alnajjar or as he's called journalist_pal on Current TV's profile of his.

I would like to share what I thought were two very interesting short documentaries of his, but you can easily access all his other work through current tv.

I am personally very proud of Zouheir and the amount of effort he's putting into wrapping up these videos. It's very refreshing to see that the he's a Palestinian and he's trying to get the message through in the most sincere way possible. Gelnar Mousa and Najwa Qasem might be of the best Arab journalists out there, but it's also time for ones that need to communicate to the ones across the borders.

The Fabulous Picture Show with Captain Abu Raed

As I attended the screening of Captain Abu Raed here in London, I was very delighted to see that there was media attention and most specifically from Al Jazeera English as they also hosted the screening in a sense.

Many asked me what I thought of the movie, I think it's absolutely brilliant. It sends out a message that could possibly be the most important message we need to send out in the mean time. The quality of the production was beyond amazing, and the twist of the story was extremely interesting and unexpected.

What's the message? That Arabs, as much as they are living in political turmoil and in a geographic area where they were destined to face politics anyway they change their direction, we are also humans which lead lives just as any universal citizen and we face social problems and issues that was barely brought to attention in film making or even in the media in general. This message was quite clear and carried on in Nadine Labaki's Caramel, as she also chose not by any chance mention the War on Lebanon or the political differences people might have in Lebanon.

Anyway, watch the video and I will pop up a couple of times in it. Too bad my friends didn't, well just Sultan for a bit but not Noora and Aliya :(

bollywood goodness

Ok, here's the deal. Every once in a while I get inspired by a certain culture. That includes the music, history, cuisine, movies, language, culture and more. Remember the time I was dying to go to Tokyo? I mean I still do want to go there but I'm into another culture which I felt I could relate to more as I can easily be in contact with. I always liked it, but now I'm rather focusing on experiencing it as much as possible.

My friends who are from South Asia (Sabz, Tas, & Myiah) introduced me to a couple of musical performances from Bollywood movies. I have to say, I always liked how Bollywood acts are perfectly in-sync and how every little detail is paid attention to. It has it's own flavour. I was introduced so many times previously by my friends Souraiya and Harry-Singh, but now I got my memory revived with the brilliance of such productions. The following are a couple of the videos they showed me:

[Stage6 is Dead Now]

This is a music video from the Bollywood film of the same title Aaja Nachle which means "Come and Dance". It features Mandhuri Dixit who is a renowned Bollywood artist and been considered an icon in Bollywood.

This on the other hand is the one that really blew me away, unfortunately I couldn't find it in Higher Quality but I absolutely love everything about it. The gracefullness of both Mandhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai is just fascinating. The colours, the vibrant atmosphere, the set - it's all magical. This is from the movie Devdas which apparently was a huge hit and I'm planning on watching it very soon. The song is already on my iPod, which I consider very catchy and great to listen to!

I'm also watching the new release of Jodhaa Akbar which shall be interesting since it focuses on a story of the Mughal Jalaluddin Akbar (or as referred to as Akbar the Great) and his Hindu wife Jodhaa (or Jodhabai, a.k.a Marrium-uz-Zamani). Here's the trailer from the film, although I'm not so impressed with the editing of the trailer but the film must be good:

[Stage6 is Dead Now]

So yeah, more to be watched and enjoyed - yet for the meantime I'll just enjoy strolls in Southall!
As I have strong urge to eat Butter Chicken Masala, Chicken Tikka, Naans & Onion Bhajji to be finishing it off with Lassi all week long. See? this is a culture I can get in touch with and experience on an almost full level. It might be upsetting to those of origins from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or others but when you can't go there I guess this is the best you can get when you're in the UK, no?

p.s: Pakistanis are HAWT, i didn't just discover that - it was over the span of the last 2 and half years ;D

The Day I met Nadine Labaki

Thanks to Nadine Labaki's website, I was informed that the movie Caramel will be opening at the London Film Festival this year. I hurried to check the website, and I actually found it there and I booked two tickets.

A month later, the time has come. After I left the station, some work in a road messed up how to get the cinema in my head so we had to take a huge turn to reach it. We reached it at the end, a bit late. I wasn't worried about the movie, because I've already seen in back in Beirut. But I was worried that I missed whoever concerned with the movie as it's a première.

But to my surprise, after the movie ended - Nadine got on stage and I was applauding so hard I could barely feel my hands! They asked who has any questions, one only seemed to raise her hand and the other one was me! I asked her does she feel in such place, breaking boundaries getting to places, that she's representing Lebanese Woman in particular or all the women from the Arab world?

After she left the stage, I went, shook her hands and introduced myself to her. Then talked a bit and I got a photo with her. WHEE, the joyness!

Nadine isn't just another celebrity to me, I seriously love her work and insist that she is one of the biggest creative powers in the Arab World.

Jordywood

I know, uberly cheesy title but whatever.

Variety magazine has published an article (online) titled "Film Business blooms in Jordan" - that title enough grabbed my attention as I saw it on my news feed (facebook) - with the link posted by Laith Majali.

The article is absolutely interesting, with little snippets of short interviews of several people in the film industry in Jordan. Such as, Prince Ali (as chairman of the RFC), Suleiman Bakhit (founder of Aranim), Fadi Sarraf (head of Sandbag Productions) and more.

I don't have much to say, but I strongly recommend you read it and I'm quite happy with such recognition and hopefully we'll be an Arab capital for film making - something we lacked for a long time!

Omar w Salma review

I really wanted to see that movie, and just because I like the actress Mai Ezzedine. But unfortunately I wasn’t disappointed to this extent ever since “Little Man”. And just to be cautious, if you really like Mai...do NOT go watch the movie because you’ll leave the theatre hating her guts. This is not as much of a professional review as much as it's a rant on my frustration of this movie...

The movie is hugely based on cheap laughs, because it’s known that if you give whatever sorts of sexual hints (and believe me, they weren’t hinted at all – just total bluntness) you’ll get your nice little audience to laugh. The times where actors still act macho and personify themselves as sex gods are way, way over. It seems that Mr. Hosni (who happened to write the story for the movie) thought it should always be his way in if he pulls an Ahmad Al Sa’a stunt on us. Unfortunately, he didn’t realise the fact that it didn’t work for his colleague so why would it work for him? Please button your shirt up and spare us your college kid jokes.

What you’ll greatly notice, this is if you actually give a damn to look into the movie from a different perspective that, the movie is massively packed with disgusting women objectification. It didn’t surprise me, yet I was surprised on how to this age people still accept it in full. Most women recruited on the movie either got their buttocks stared at and filling the movie screen, got their breasts “highlighted” or been a victim of Hosni’s random pseudo-pinch of flirtation.

Some people might ask why it is a big deal, and it’s ‘just a movie’. But seriously, the Arabic media is sure giving women their space at this age and time yet 80% of such representations are either for sexual fantasies or to portray a perfectly good housewife who gets roses when she cooks a good soup. And such movies do plant some sort of twisted perspectives. What do you expect young men to think after seeing hot chicks getting slapped, beaten up, been stared at with wetting or biting lips? “Let’s go do the same and we’ll be as-cool!”

And come to think about it, do you really want to see a movie about a rich kid who always gets what he needs, been raised by his pimp father, have problems with having a garment on, a girl he loved who gets to fame, ditches him, gives autographs, turns out she’s being ‘abused’ by her director, another new victim of his who wears boots in mid day summertime, falls in love with the rich brat because of his perfume, gets slapped and simply jumps back into the car, get married and yay happily ever after in the end?

Rating: 0.5/10

What a waste of my 6 JD’s! I could’ve bought almost 6 packs of Orange juice and at least get some sort of vitamin C instead of this useless crap.