Mar 11-14: Sixth Twin Cities Arab Film Festival
March 11-14, 2010, Heights Theatre, Columbia Heights, MN
Click to download the Sixth Twin Cities Arab Film Festival schedule.
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More information at mizna.org/arabfilmfest10
Mizna's Twin Cities Arab Film Festival was conceived of in 2002 and was first presented in 2003. It has since run on an eighteen-month cycle, between autumn and spring seasons. It is the second longest standing Arab Film Festival in North America.
The festival aims to exhibit primarily films made by and about Arabs, but also about non-Arabs who live in the Arab world. With few exceptions, the festival screens Minnesota theatrical premieres. For Mizna, the festival serves as an opportunity to collaborate with a variety of Twin Cities organizations.
The festival also signifies Mizna's interest in celebrating artists whose work is Arab-themed by inviting filmmakers to attend screenings of their films and to engage audiences in related discussions.
For the first time, Mizna's Twin Cities Arab Film Festival includes an Arab (Persian) Gulf film segment and a children's shorts segment. The upcoming festival promises to be Mizna's most exciting yet!
Curator's StatementAt times it is a delight to reexamine one's own words. In my curator's statement for this very festival three years ago, I had lamented that the traded images of Arabs in the US film market would doubtfully gain in variety or complexity as a result of two domestically well reviewed films.
Not that the breadth, depth, or sincerity of the depiction of Arabs have since drastically modified in US popular culture, merely that among films that have lately been made by Arabs and about Arabs many have been well received domestically and two accessible titles have achieved theatrical distribution—Amreeka and Captain Abu Raed.
Perhaps I feel optimistic because among the sixty or so previewed films, made eligible by their not having been screened theatrically in Minnesota, so many impressed the planning committee for this edition of the festival: films whose artistic merit qualifies them for interest by cinephiles not determinedly aiming to consume Arab cinematic product. This edition's films impress despite their Arabness, not merely because of it.
Thanks are beyond due to members of the festival committee, to members of the Mizna board, to friends of Mizna's, and to all other enablers and supporters without whose endorsement and dedication this festival and its instrumental celebration of cinema by and about Arabs would not have materialized.
Mohannad Ghawanmeh
For more information about Mizna's Sixth Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, visit www.mizna.org/arabfilmfest10/ or contact Mohannad Ghawanmeh, festival curator at mizna@mizna.org.
Click to download the attached file(s):
2010 Festival schedule (PDF format, 400K)
Thank you for your generosity in supporting Mizna, a Minneapolis-based Arab American cultural organization with a mission to celebrate expression and diversity in the Arab community!
Mizna was formed in 1998 and has done much work to promote Arab American artistic expression since that time. We publish a nationally recognized literary journal, and have presented several well-attended community arts events as well.
We do all of this work as a volunteer-run, non-profit organization that survives on grants and donations. Your donation will greatly help us to continue our important mission. Mizna is a 501(c)(3) organization and donations are deductible for U.S. taxpayers. Learn more or donate now.
FEATURED STORIES
 May 22 | 7 p.m. | Black Dog Café | FREE
UPDATE: KHALDOUN SAMMAN WILL BE DRUMMING
Mizna brings a diverse group of established and emerging writers and performers to St. Paul Almanac's Lowertown Jam stage. With that Homeland Security dictum "if you see something, say something" ringing in their ears, Mizna's group of Arab American and/or Muslim writers will give voice to their own experience of diverse homelands. The evening will be hosted by performance artist and Mizna rep Moheb Soliman, who will present his own work along with other amazing artists of spoken word, performance, and straight-up poetry coming out of Mizna's Silaat writing workshop series MORE >> |  |
 This summer, Mizna will be offering four classes in spoken and written Arabic: Arabic I, II, III, and an Advanced Class. Levels I and II will be 10-week sessions taught by Rita Farah, and Level III and Advanced Arabic: Media & Culture will be intensive 5-week sessions taught by Mohammed Elmeski, Ph.D. Classes will take place in Mizna's office in St. Paul. MORE >> | |
 Mizna is participating in Northern Spark, a major Twin Cities all-night art festival on June 8! (Yeah, you read that right—ALL NIGHT, dusk to dawn.) It's a participatory street art project, and we want you to join us!
We will be hosting a street art installation called "Underpass of the Eyes of Freedom" that will bring the spirit of the recent and ongoing Arab revolutions and uprisings to St. Paul. Festival goers are called to wander into an underpass of the Arab Spring: Take a spray can, an Arabic stencil: reinscribe potent global expressions of resistance and change. Including graffiti designs by Hend Kheera, Islam Shabana, Hamza Salim, Dunya Alwan. Amazing, right?
ARTIST HEND KHEERA WILL BE JOINING US FROM CAIRO. MORE >> |
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About Mizna
Mizna is a forum for Arab American film, literature, and art. Mizna publishes the only journal of Arab American literature and presents the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival as well as some of the most talented Arab American artists in the visual arts, on stage, in music, and in film—including Simon Shaheen, Suheir Hammad, Hakim Belabbes, Nadia El Fani, Jack Shaheen, Raed Al Helou, Mai Masri, the Iron Sheik, Elias Khoury and others.
Mizna presents
Cinema Arabiata an Arab film blog by Mohannad Ghawanmeh.
Learn more about Mizna, subscribe to our journal, or
RECENT ADDITIONS
 | Events: OTHERWISE OCCUPIED: First-ever Palestinian exhibit at upcoming Venice Biennale (March 30th, 2013) | | Events: Mizna's first Writer-in-Residence, playwright Ismail Khalidi (March 29th, 2013) | | Events: Novelist Randa Jarrar | May 10 at Honey (March 19th, 2013) | | Events: Silaat Showcase at St. Paul Almanac's Reading Series (March 16th, 2013) | | Events: Summer Arabic Classes (March 1st, 2013) | | Events: Street Art of the Arab Spring (February 27th, 2013) | | Events: Spring Arabic Classes: Starting February 2013 (February 1st, 2013) | | Events: Silaat/Connections: Children's Story Hour Saturday, February 23 (January 26th, 2013) |
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