presented the
Second Annual
Middle East Film Fest: A Cultural Conversation
on May 31, June 8 and June 22, 2000
 
 

 ~ Our third evening of films ~
June 22, 2000
Dodd Hall, Room 161, UCLA
 

Happy Birthday, Mr. Mograbi (1999, 77 minutes)

From the director of How I Learned to Overcome My Fear and Love Arik Sharon comes "A clever and fascinating film" (Aviv Lavie, Ha'aretz); "Manueuvers between the ridiculous and the solemn, between amused mockery of the local mayhem and serious unequivical criticism of this society" (Meir Schnitzer, Ma-Ariv.) This 'mockumentary' weaves together a triple narrative about Israel's 50th anniverary, the Palestinian commemoration of Al Nakba  (The Catastrophe) and Avi Mograbi's birthday, which all fall on the same day in 1998.

 

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Open Tent Coalition Members included: American Friends of Nazareth Orchestra, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA, Human Rights Advocates International, International Rescue Committee, Ivri-NASAWI, Casey Kasem, Congregation N'Vay Shalom, Orange County Cousins Club, Workmen's Circle,  Congregation Ohr HaTorah, and Sunnin Lebanese cafe.

Co-Directors were:  Jordan Elgrably, Natasha Khamashta

Film Advisory Committee:  Nezar Andary, Warren Blum, Azadeh Farahmand, Wendy Jane Carrel, Simon Edery, Kate Seelye, Soula Saad, Claude Wanis, Elio Zarmati

Organizing Committee: Amir and Christine Collins

~

1999 Open Tent, L.A.'s Middle East Coalition, was formed in 1998 with the mission to bring together Arab/Muslims and Jews on a local and national level with the hope that united they could set a potent example of cooperation and coexistence. Open Tent seeks to counter negative stereotyping and encourages the development of constructive relationships among the many cultures and religious communities with ties to the Middle East. In Southern California alone, there are more than 1.2 million people from more than 30 countries, for whom Open Tent may represent a new departure.

 In the story of Abraham, there was a tent with four sides. Each side was open and everyone was welcome. The Open Tent Coalition hopes to recreate that spirit. The principal tools for making Open Tent work are cultural activities and dialogue. Open Tent has worked to unify a number of Jewish and Arab groups in the Los Angeles region to sponsor cultural programs. Each organization joins in the philosophy that friendship can be fostered between diverse communities.

The roots of Open Tent were in the June 1998 program produced by Ivri-NASAWI called Arabs and Jews Beyond Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Community.  This program at the Mark Taper Auditorium featured a concert of Arab and Sephardic music by Nabil Azzam and Souhael Kaspar, followed by a panel discussion with Arab intellectuals Elie Chalala, editor of Al Jadid,  and Diana Abu-Jaber, novelist and literature professor, along with Jewish professionals Myer J. Sankary, a Harvard lawyer and mediation specialist, and Gina Hamoui-Ross, a multicultural therapist and painter (both Sankary and Hamoui-Ross have family origins in Syria.) Arabs and Jews Beyond Boundaries was a project of the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, and its four-year project, L.A. As Subject.

In the summer of 1999, Open Tent produced a two-part series entitled the Middle East Film Fest: A Cultural Conversation,  beginning in May at the Los Angeles Public Library's Mark Taper Auditorium, with three short film screenings: The Street by Dima El-Horr, Homage by Assassination by Elia Suleiman and Searching for Paradise by Binnur Karaveli. The festival continued in June at the University of California - Los Angeles with the screening of Rick Ray's film Lost World of the Middle East. Both parts of the festival featured a public dialogue where audience members participated in an open conversation with the filmmakers.