Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Allison Weir Public Event

Allison Weir Public Event

Alison Weir is a reporter and executive director of If Americans Knew (ifamericansknew.org), a website devoted to misreported or unreported events regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Event Info
Host:
Type:
Network:
Global
Time and Place
Date:
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Time:
7:30pm - 9:30pm
Location:
TBA
City/Town:
Ann Arbor, MI
Contact Info
Email:

Description

Alison Weir is a reporter and executive director of If Americans Knew (ifamericansknew.org), a website devoted to misreported or unreported events regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Weir will be in town for two days. The first day, she will hold an informal workshop with members of SAFE and interested members of co-sponsoring organizations, offering information and support about effectively reporting and addressing media bias. The second day, she will hold a lecture on campus speaking about American media bias concerning the ongoing conflict, as well as sharing some of her experiences in Israel and the Occupied Territories. The overall purpose is to encourage the audience to question and further engage media representations of conflict, and to develop a greater sense of intellectual curiosity and in response to American media outlets. The event will impact campus by enriching the always-lively Israeli-Palestinian campus debate.

If Americans Knew is a non-profit organization that focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict and United States foreign policy regarding the Middle East, offering analysis of American media coverage of these issues. Its mission, according to the group's website, is to provide "what every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine."[1] The site is generally critical of U.S. financial and military support of Israel. The group blames the pro-Israeli lobby in the US, AIPAC, for advancing support for Israel.

In addition to the freelance journalist and founder Alison Weir [2], board members [3] and staff include critics of Israel, such as Francis Boyle, a law professor, Eugene Bird, the president of the Council for the National Interest, Paul Findley, a former United States Representative, Andrew I. Killgore, a former ambassador of the United States to Qatar [4], and Pete McCloskey, a Democratic politician from California.

Presenting: DAM & Jackie Salloum






Presenting: DAM & Jackie Salloum

Slingshot Hip-Hop
Event Info
Host:
Type:
Network:
Global
Time and Place
Date:
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Time:
8:00pm - 10:30pm
Location:
Michigan League Ballroom
City/Town:
Ann Arbor, MI
Contact Info
Email:

Description

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgSVXjNLFgo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAM_(band)
http://www.dampalestine.com/
http://www.jsalloum.org/
http://www.slingshothiphop.com/

SAFE is planning to bring renowned up-and-coming Palestinian American filmmaker Jackie Salloum to present an exclusive screening of her newest film “Slingshot Hip Hop”. The film, featured at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, is a feature-length documentary chronicling the lives of Palestinian rappers in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. The event will raise awareness about the film, drawing attention to oppression and how art can be used to express social justice. After the screening, Jackie will lead a discussion about the film. Our goal for the event is to spark meaningful dialogue around Palestinian issues while raising cultural awareness about this facet of Palestinian life.
Palestinian rap group DAM, heavily featured in the documentary, will also give a performance after the film. The audience will have the opportunity to experience DAM’s story full circle as they can enjoy their performance at the Michigan Theater right after watching raw and emotional footage of their struggles in Palestine.

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The young Palestinian-American artist, whose work was featured at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, was born in Dearborn, Mich. She grew up in a traditional home, surrounded by Middle Eastern food and music. Arabic was her first language.

In 2001, Salloum moved to New York City to pursue her interest in art as a graduate student. Her early work depicted conflict in Latin America. However, when the Israeli military raided Jenin in April 2002, Salloum was galvanized into a new focus on her Palestinian roots.

After the "Meen Erhabe" video, Salloum went on to make a movie montage for her senior thesis. She named it "Planet of the Arabs", and illuminated Hollywood�s widespread depictions of Arabs as villains and terrorists. Then Salloum experienced "a big shock." "Planet of the Arabs" went on to become an official selection at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Her early successes inspired Salloum to create the world's first full-length feature film about Palestinian Hip-Hop. "SlingShot Hip Hop" will premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.




Da Arabian MC's Suhell Nafar, Tamer Nafar, Mahmoud Jreri DAM is the first and leading Palestinian Rap Group. It is composed of Tamer Nafar, 27, his younger brother Suhell, 23, and Mahmoud Jreri, 24. The group has been performing together since the late 90s. Tamer, who had been performing Rap since 1998 with his brother, was first contacted by Mahmoud Jreri. Mahmoud was writing his own lyrics so they quickly decided to join forces and the group was born in 1999. All three members of the group were born and grew up in the slums of Lod, a mixed town of Arabs and Jews, 20 km from Jerusalem.

DAM's music is a unique fusion of East and West, combining Arabic percussion rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies and urban Hip Hop/Rap

The lyrics of DAM are influenced by the continuing Israeli - Palestinian conflict as well as by the Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality. DAM also draw their influence from such controversial issues as terrorism, drugs and womens rights.

Musically they take their inspiration from both Hip Hop artists (Nas, 2Pac, Mos Def, IAM, NTM, Saian Supa Crew, MBS etc.) and Arabic music (Marcel Khalifa,Kazem Saher,George Wassouf, Majda al Romi etc.)

The songs, lyrics and music, are written and arranged by all members of the group and musically produced by them and other known producers.

DAM's debut album "Stop Selling Drugs" was released locally in 1998, followed by the second album called "Min Irhabi" (who's the terrorist?) which was released in 2001. The controversial title track of this album was released on the net and more than 1 million people downloaded it within one month from the website ArabRap.Net. The song was also distributed free with Rolling Stone magazine in France and became a "street" anthem. It was also featured in a compilation in France with Manu Chao, Zebda, Noir Desir and many other top artists.

Furthermore, the lyrics of the song were taught in some Universities around the world because of their deep meaning, and were also used in pro-Palestinian demonstrations around the world.

DAM are now gaining increased international popularity around the world through their unique message and ground-breaking live shows.

The growing international profile and interest in this unique band have led to participation in various films, events and collaborations including:

- "Local Angel", a 2002 documentary by Israeli director and political activist Udi Aloni. - Appearance in Forgiveness, Udi Alonis latest film selected at the Berlin Festival 2006. - Key appearance in the documentary Slingshot Hip Hop about todays Palestinian rap scene, by apalestnine amrican director Jackie Salloum. - Key appearance in the documentary film "Channel of rage", by Anat Halahmi, that showed the Israeli-Palestine struggle from the Israeli and Palestinian Rappers point of view - Appearance in the soundtrack of the film Ford Transit by Palestinian director Hany Abu Assad, who won a golden Globe for his film Paradise now. - Participation in the photoshoot by Magnum/National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey about rap artists around the world. - Many live shows in Europe (France, England, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland etc.) and in the USA.

The band perform at the important TRANSMUSICALES DE RENNES festival in France in December 2006.

Dedication is DAMs long-awaited first international album which will be released autumn 2006.

Fiction meets fact in Hebron film


It is an ordinary story, in an extraordinary setting.

Hebron is the site for what its Israeli makers claim is the first fictional feature film ever to be shot in the city.

The city has become a byword for some of the sharpest tensions on the West Bank. It is the only West Bank city where Jewish settlers live in the midst of Palestinians.

The plot of Graduation is slender: it tells the story of a young Palestinian woman called Ayat, who is played by 23-year-old actress Yousra Barakat.

Ayat is attempting to reach her college graduation on the night of the Jewish festival of Purim. The Palestinians in the centre of the city are under curfew, so that the Jewish settlers can hold their Purim parade - a wild whirligig of coloured lights, loud music, fancy dress and feverish dancing.


I wanted to make the smallest story I could possibly tell, so that people could identify with it, but also say to themselves, 'This is really crazy, how can people live like this?' But yet this is the routine
Yaelle Kayam
Director

Ayat decides, along with her younger brother, to break the curfew. Theirs is an attempted journey past roadblocks, sealed entrances and checkpoints, and past soldiers and settlers.

The film's director is Yaelle Kayam, a 28-year-old from Tel Aviv and graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem.

"I wanted to make the smallest story I could possibly tell," she says, "so that people could identify with it, but also say to themselves, 'This is really crazy, how can people live like this?' But yet this is the routine."

Ms Kayam believes that the majority of people in Israel are "not aware at all" about what life is like for Palestinians in Hebron, or how the settlers behave.

She says that when she showed friends in Tel Aviv some of the earlier material she had shot, from the Purim parade, they thought that it had all been staged.

'Not allowed'

We watched rehearsals under a baking September sun, during Ramadan.

From the rooftop, where the actors were peering at the imaginary parade beneath, there was a clear view of the streams of men pouring towards the Ibrahim Mosque.
Director Yaelle Kayam
Kayam wants her film to increase awareness of restrictions in Hebron

Hebron is the West Bank's largest city, home to 160,000 Palestinians. Dotted through the centre of the city are the few hundred Jewish settlers, guarded by several hundred Israeli soldiers.

It is the presence of these settlers that has turned Hebron into a patchwork of internal checkpoints and closures.

From the material already shot by Yaelle Kayam and her Israeli crew, one of the most arresting, almost other-worldly scenes, shows Yusra watching, from the caged first-floor balcony of a Palestinian house, the Purim parade below.

In real life, the house belongs to Zlika Muhtaseb, a 46-year-old teacher, and life-long resident of Hebron.

As with all the houses along this street, Zlika's balcony is enclosed in a stout metal mesh to guard against the stone-throwing from young settlers. She says that, in any case, she is rarely allowed out on to the street which her home overlooks.

"It was the main street in Hebron, connecting the north with the south," she said. "But the settlers said that Palestinians shouldn't use it, because of security."

She last used the door onto Shuhada Street more than a month ago. At the roundabout 200m from her house, she was stopped by a soldier.

"He was surprised to see me. 'Where did you come from?' he said. I showed him my house. He said: 'You're not allowed to use this street. Go back.'

"I showed him my permit. He said: 'It's not valid. It does not apply here.' I asked him where I should use it. He said: 'I don't know, it doesn't apply here.'"

Welded shut

Zlika does have another doorway she can use, but it takes her on a much longer detour, through several more checkpoints, to get to where she wants to go.
Tim Franks, on the roof of the house
The Qafisha family must cross to a neighbour's roof to go outside

At least she does have another entrance. That is an improvement over the Qafisha family, who live a short walk away, and whose house has also been the site for some of the filming.

Five years ago, their only door to the street was welded shut by the Israeli army. Since then, the 10 members of the family - from grandparents to grandchildren - have a rather more complicated route to the outside.

They have to ascend uneven, switchback stone steps, stooping to avoid the ceiling, in order to reach their roof. There they cross through a ragged hole in an outside wall on to their neighbours' roof.

They then make their way down a series of steep stairways to the neighbouring doorway.

The older women of the family say that they have been left depressed and sometimes injured by the ordeal of just coming and going from their home.

Graduation is due to premiere next April. It is a work of fiction. But only just.