Taken at a friend's wedding in Long Island, the bride shows off her henna.
Returning to the Upper West Side from the port authority is where I took this. The man on the left entered the train first and I felt that was enough for me to take a photo. But I didn't actually pull out the camera until the gentleman on the right entered the train.
In the Claridge casino bus terminal, Atlantic City. In order to get to work on time that day I left Atlantic City on the 5:30am bus to New York. There are 4 people out of frame that are also sleeping in uncomfortable red chairs.
Queens Bridge park in Queens, NY. Taken at the Thursday jam in the park.
Also taken at Queens Bridge Park.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I found Nemo.
An artist in Williamsburg spends his 4th of July making this mosaic on the street. Note the sign that says "We're arming both sides. Shiite + Suni Death Squads" on the upper left. Not unprecedented.
Today I heard that British forces are pulling their troops from the south of Iraq. I'm wondering how long it will take before the UK pulls their whole contribution of soldiers for the war.
I found this broadcast on the Freespeech TV website in 2003 and recorded it as an mp3. Seeing Amiri Baraka got me in a bit of a spoken word mood so I was listening to everything spoken word I have. Poets Not Fit For The White House was a project started after Laura Bush invited Sam Hamill to a poetry symposium at the White House celebrating the work of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson and Langston Hughes. In response, Hamill put out a call for anti war poems and received an overwhelming number of poems to send to the symposium in his absence. After attracting a bit of press about Hamill's plan the White House canceled the symposium. Then, on February 17, 2003 an event was held in New York City for poets to share their dissonance for the war.
The list of those who participated is as follows: Ammiel Alcalay, Lee Ann Brown, Steve Colman, Robert Creeley, Martin Espada, Jorie Graham, Andre Gregory, Sam Hamill, Suheir Hammad, Marie Howe, Galway Kinnell, Youseff Komanukaa, Stanley Kunitz, Ann Lauterbach, Arthur Miller, Mos Def, Odetta, Sharon Olds, Willie Perdomo, Robert Pinsky, Peter Sacks, Sapphire, Wallace Shawn, Mark Strand, Anne Waldman, C.K. Williams, Saul Williams
NY is the greatest place for free events. I wanted to go to a total of six large free events while I have been in NY but was unable to due to rain, overcrowding or other unforeseen circumstances.
I was able to see Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez on Tuesday at Central Park. It was an interesting night to see two artists carry a show with spoken word. The night ended with a short talk with Ms. Sanchez and Mr. Baraka about the beginning of the Black Arts Movement. Amiri Baraka is a man filled with knowledge, an amazing sense of humor and comedic timing. Just hearing him talk about Malcom X makes me feel that the current generation has flatlined. If anyone has any suggestions about how to activate the people again, don't say it without doing something.
Today's meeting with Sara Rahbar yielded some quality results. I have been inspired by her work since I stumbled across it some months ago. She gave me some feedback on the new documentary I'm working on and will be collaborating on the project with some of her work. In addition, she put me in contact with a few essential people in Iran and the US.
Jon Stewart consistently brings the hotness to cable TV. I caught this yesterday morning and laughed until my lungs hurt, then I snapped back to reality remembering that the majority of Americans don't know about this or just don't care. *sigh
Shot on the coldest night of the year, December 2006. Hours before it's due date Justyn put this scene together with our help as talent and JorDan's infamous van and art dept skills (also featured in The Runners). The film showed at First Fridays at the Loft and (amazingly) didn't get gonged even though it is much over the usual length and a much slower pace than the films that do well.
I found this on the Mossadegh project website. This was published in 1952, just one year before the US overthrew a democratic leader replacing him with a royal monarch willing to fill British and American pockets with oil. Just when I thought it couldn't get more ironic and absurd , Dick Cheney comes in through the window and throws a pig at someone. Read more here [link]
We've been working for the release of The Hub beta release scheduled for July 20th. The Hub will act as a central network for human rights media on the internet. Users will be to upload their documented human rights violation for the world to see. In addition to media, Hub users will be able to start groups, discussions, e-campaigns, petitions, events, and receive media advocacy training all through the Hub.
STARmeter rankings provide a snapshot of who's popular based on the searches of millions of IMDb users. Updated weekly, these rankings also graph the popularity of people over time and determine which events affect public awareness.
The little star is a film I worked grip on last year. These graphs are ridiculous.
I'm writing coverage of a writing sample given to my cousin for a project that is in the works. The script's portrayal of Muslims reminded me of Delta Force. Laughable propaganda films are LOLtastic.
Hamed gave me this tape a while back to transfer digitally. This is the style of music used in the Zurkhane, House of Strength, a place where a traditional form of Iranian exercise is practiced. This art always has interested me and it's one thing I am really looking forward to seeing when I go to Iran again. For more information visit the above link. Also check out this video from German TV.
This topic has always been a sensitive one in the American Muslim community. It seems that quite a few members of the US military are Muslims. I had not really given much thought to the issue until I saw a brother (fellow Muslim) at the Islamic Center of Tucson wearing full desert fatigues. The site was quite jarring considering I had never seen anything like it before. I ate lunch with the brother as many in the mosque looked on at him as if he was wearing a clown suit. We talked about his background and his recent tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I attempted to subdue my feelings for telling this brother that he was fighting an unjust and illegal war and that his participation in these campaigns is against the principles of Islam. Some other brothers joined our conversation eventually. One of the brothers politely asked the question that was on everyones mind. "Did you kill anyone?" Whoa. I was shocked that he asked the question so bluntly. The answer was a silent one but we all saw the look on his face. The answer was there. The brother quietly finished eating and excused himself from the table which we were all sitting. That was that. I recalled this story today after reading this article on the BBC about a Muslim chaplain in the US Marines. (read more here) As Muslims, we live by a few principles and guidelines. One of those is the accountability for one's actions, especially in acts of war.
مِنْ أَجْلِ ذَلِكَ كَتَبْنَا عَلَى بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ أَنَّهُ مَن قَتَلَ نَفْسًا بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ أَوْ فَسَادٍ فِي الأَرْضِ فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَمَنْ أَحْيَاهَا فَكَأَنَّمَا أَحْيَا النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا The Quran 5:32 On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. There is no "I was only doing my job" defense in this case. Even if you are serving in the military, you are not exempt from the above verse. If a commanding officer, boss, President, orders one to commit injustice one is very liable for his or her decision.Wars are not only fought by governments, they are fought by individual soldiers who make conscious decisions to follow orders.
Collective hours on the subway have me reading more than I have since my non production classes. The more I read of Dr. Shahid Alam's book Challenging the New Orientalism, the more I feel it necessary to recommend. I was told about the book through Abbas, who interviewed him on Hot Coals. The book is a collection of Dr Alam's essays regarding Orientalism and a practical look at criticizing its simplistic conclusions. He really breaks down the events that shaped the Islamic world and Europe and how things are in their current state.
I've been raiding my cousin's collection of films.
This one stood out and was one of the strangest stories I have ever seen. It is part of the Criterion Collection and the English title is Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. It is about an older German widow who randomly meets a Moroccan man at a bar and ends up marrying him. She is discriminated by her friends and family for her decision to marry an Arab and Ali gets very upset that his new wife cannot make, nor does she enjoy cous cous. I think it was an interesting look on interracial marriages in a post Nazi Germany but it comes off as oddly simplistic, makes Arab men look really stupid, and Arab women crazy jealous. My favorite part of the movie was when Ali's old fling literally spits at the site of him with the old German woman. There are a couple other classically awkward moments in this and they alone make it worth seeing.
I heard about this when it was in the works. When I heard about the idea of a blog that focuses on modern and mostly western Shia Muslim viewpoints (politics, religion, culture, etc) I was immediately interested. I was going to write for them but the film(s) destroyed my free time which I could have spent writing blogs. It's a great idea and has so far been very good.
Also, Samarra is suffering after a curfew was imposed on the town on May 6th. BBC quoted an Iraqi aid worker who said, "the humanitarian situation in Samarra is terrible."
When I was in Florida this last December I noticed quite an anti Muslim sentiment in the air almost where ever I went. Especially since I was with covered Muslim women for the majority of my trip I felt like the chance of me having to scuffle some hick was extraordinarily high.
When I recently saw this it made me shake my head in disappointment and anger.
Hours of lost sleep, suffering relationships, bathing, cleaning, and having free time climaxes right here and right now... but I hope this is only the smallest step for my 2 films.
I wish I owned some so I could afford better DV tapes and not cheap Sony "Premium" tapes that may or may not HAVE NO TIMECODE after I shoot and now I have to sit here and manually capture every clip and have no assurance that the footage won't crash leaving me with my timeline of unlogged clips. AAAAAAAAAAAA!
Made from found footage both 16mm and 8mm. Most of it came from my uncle(paternal) who filmed the black and white Iranian footage and my grandfather(maternal) who filmed most of the 8mm footage. The rest is from assorted educational films on Islam, science, and Mexico.
Always to remember to format your hard drive to a Mac when editing with Final Cut Pro. It will save you the hours of tedious recapturing that I have recently fallen victim of. :(
I was recently chosen to work as an intern at WITNESS in NYC this summer. I am pretty excited since it was definitely my #1 choice of internship. I leave AZ at the end of May and will be in NY until the first week of August God willing. From what I hear, I will be working on the new video hub feature of WITNESS. I'm anxious to start working to say the least : D
.in other business. good article on the Save Darfur issue.
It has got me thinking... between my roommate who falls asleep in front of his laptop monitor 6/7 nights a week and myself and JorDan working non stop this last week on our film (constantly on the phone, emailing, texting, drinking coffee and then repeating) it makes me realize that technology has allowed us to either work ourselves too hard or not do anything productive at all.
I just discovered this little online network. I was familiar with the magazine but didn't know they had an internet video channel. It is pretty awesome though so check it out.
1. I have been too busy to do anything festive for the new year so next year I have to do something cool.
2. I have had a splitting headache for almost 2 days and I very rarely get headaches.
3. While rehearsing our actors today for The Runners we did an exercise to become more comfortable with each other and I shared something so personal that I felt guilty burdening people with the info.
4. I have effectively given up on school until this movie is at least done shooting. I have no motivation to do schoolwork when I know there is work that needs to be done for the movie.
5. I am supposed to have an idea of what I want to do as my Senior capstone film, but the script I wrote last semester and want to shoot is way too politically controversial to do so early in my career. I'm not trying to get myself on the Hollywood blacklist yet.
6. I drank so much coffee today that I felt dizzy.
7. I have to buy live chickens from the feed store tomorrow for the movie. : )
My new film, The Runners, will be my life for the next 2-3 months. JorDan Fuller and myself are co-directing it. We shoot late March and the 1st day of April. I'm still looking for a Norteña band for the soundtrack and financial sponsors for the film. If you want to sponsor the film contact me at krillan(at)comcast.net You will get a link on our production blog, credit in the film, and my undying love.
On Wednesday Heather came to my documentary class to screen some of her work and answer some practical questions about documentary. She showed us clips from her Masters thesis film called Los Trabajadores "The Workers" (2003) about Mexican day laborers in Austin, Texas. Her new film Letters From the Other Side is about the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of men who have left Mexico to work in the US.
The whole film was screened at the University to the public in a filled auditorium. The film is very powerful. Heather lived in Mexico for a year to shoot the film. In the film, she delivers video messages to male family members in the US of the women in Mexico. Some of the women in the film have not seen their husbands or fathers for more than 8 years. Heather told our class that she was hesitant to deliver the video messages between her subjects because she felt it was intervening with the "truth" of the subject. Ironically these video letters are the heart of the film and serve to bring the issue of Mexican immigration to a personal level for the viewer.
Heather really impressed me as a great person and filmmaker. After the screening I gave her a copy of the script of my new film which is related in subject matter to hers. In exchange she gave me a DVD of the film. :)
I just got finished watching Born Into Brothels. Someone did a presentation on it in my history of documentary class last semester and it inspired me to see the whole thing.
It won at Sundance in 2004 for Best Documentary and at the Academy Awards in 2005 for under the same category. The documentary is about children in Calcutta's red light district. All of the subjects of the film are living in brothels with their families and are at risk of being put to work on the streets themselves. The film follows one of its directors, Zana Briski, through her mission of trying to teach the children photography and get them into boarding schools.
By using the children's photography Briski and Kauffman tell the story with the children and do not limit them to being only subjects. It is no coincidence that the film only received such attention after the outstanding international interest in the photographs of the children.
The film makes no attempt to tackle the issue of prostitution and I think that was a wise choice, since prostitution only acts in the film as the inescapable reality of the children. For the children, it is a problem that always was and always will be.
JorDan and myself have recently just jump started our pre production of our short film "The Runners" We have all but one location and the script is in draft 1.5 currently. We are cleaning and painting the interior of the trailer on Friday and casting on Saturday and Sunday. If anyone wants to help just holler. My insides will hate me with all this coffee I've been drinking.
Even though I haven't watched more than a few episodes of "24" but one doesn't need to watch much more than that to know it is high budget fear propaganda. My homie Robert Greenwald talks about his take on the hit show. -link-
This is a film I made spring of 2006 about two men I knew from our community in Tucson. I hadn't really known their stories until I interviewed them for the film.
These photos by Shadi Ghadirian are some of my favorite images. They are from a series called Like Everyday. The artist's statement is combined with the statement for another series named Qajar and reads as follows
... When I did the Qajar series of photographs, I had just graduated and the duality and contradiction of life at that time provided the motive for me to display this contrast: a woman who one can not say to what time she belongs; a photograph from two eras; a woman who is dazed; a woman who is not connected to the objects in her possession. It was very natural that after marriage, vacuum cleaners and pots and pans find their way into my photographs; a woman with a different look, a woman who no matter in what part of the world she is living, still has these kinds of apprehensions.
This time the woman is convicted of a daily repetitive routine and for this reason I named the series "Like Every Day". Now I know what I wish to say with my photographs. Until now, I have had many photographs which show women as second class citizens or depict the censorship of women.
I wish to continue speaking of women because I still have a lot to say. These are my words as a woman and the words of all the other women who live in Iran where being a woman has its own unique system.
I do not believe that Islam inherently treats women as objects. However, I do believe that men in the Islamic world have done a terrible job of treating women as the Prophet and his household (as) did. I don't think Ghadirian's photos are inflammatory but they do raise questions of how Muslim men view women's roles.
Taken at a friend's wedding in Long Island, the bride shows off her henna.
Returning to the Upper West Side from the port authority is where I took this. The man on the left entered the train first and I felt that was enough for me to take a photo. But I didn't actually pull out the camera until the gentleman on the right entered the train.
In the Claridge casino bus terminal, Atlantic City. In order to get to work on time that day I left Atlantic City on the 5:30am bus to New York. There are 4 people out of frame that are also sleeping in uncomfortable red chairs.
Queens Bridge park in Queens, NY. Taken at the Thursday jam in the park.
Also taken at Queens Bridge Park.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I found Nemo.
An artist in Williamsburg spends his 4th of July making this mosaic on the street. Note the sign that says "We're arming both sides. Shiite + Suni Death Squads" on the upper left. Not unprecedented.
