A program dedicated to filmmakers who are pushing the boundaries of storytelling. Odd, thought-provoking, beautiful and sometimes funny, these unique films are sure to invoke feeling and inspire creativity. This program includes the following films: The Sailor (United States) dir. Lily Ekimian &amp; Ahmed T. RaghebMusing in the Desert (Kuwait) dir. Maysaa AlmuminMoonscape (Palestine) dir. Mona Rouhana BenyaminClench My Fists (United States) dir. Sarah TradJasminum (Lebanon) dir. Lara RassoulEgg Rebelled (Saudi Arabia) dir. Sultran Rabea

Co-presented by SF Urban Film Fest&nbsp; An Egyptian living and working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reflects on his new surroundings through a series of images and observations. The resulting montage is a poignant cinematic postcard that explores the contradictory nature of the immigrant experience: at once lonely, frightening, and exhilarating. The Sailor is truly an international production and an example of how to safely create a film during a pandemic. The writing and filming took place in Pittsburgh, the music composed and performed in Chicago, and both the translation and voice-over acting done in Cairo, Egypt. About the filmmakers: <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/3da6d9753afc6bef98f5117b6b79e2ab.jpg" width="185" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;">Lily Ekimian &amp; Ahmed T. Ragheb are independent filmmakers based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ekimian – part American, part Russian – is originally from Washington, D.C., and Ragheb – Egyptian, Dutch, and American – is originally from Cairo, Egypt; they met while both attending school in Cairo. Together they co-founded and run The Pittsburgher, an online arts and culture magazine, and a film production platform, Dog Door Films. Ekimian &amp; Ragheb have recently completed their feature debut, Portrait, an experimental documentary. They have produced and directed ] music videos for Daniel Knox and The Handsome Family, as well as a series of short films. Their work deals heavily with the concepts of identity and place, with a special emphasis on feminism, cultural dislocation, and domestic relationships. Co-presented by<a href="https://sfurbanfilmfest.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/b9fb88588447101b3af44de64e0b9377.jpg" width="150"></a>

The Sailor

An Egyptian living and working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reflects on his new surroundings through a series of images and observations.

We muse in the desert to moments that test strength and faith In the presence of her mother to bear witness, a child must face a menacing creature in a Rite of Passage. The Travellers have lost faith in the powers of the Chambers, and it has been long since any have summoned The Congress. After a long journey, a Traveller has found the last article to complete a long-forgotten ritual but when she has the chance to call on the Congress, she faces the moment when she too may lose her faith. About the filmmaker: <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/0d636ad68b880bfd8ad3df6609d197d8.jpg" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;" width="153">Maysaa Almumin, Kuwaiti, is currently living and working as an Assistant Professor in design in Qatar. She grew up in London where she was trained and practiced in architecture after which she moved to Kuwait and then Qatar where she started, acting and scriptwriting and eventually filmmaking. She has had acting training with directors/ filmmakers/academics Scandar Copti and Daniel Suissa and has been involved in film projects in Kuwait, Italy,

Musing in the Desert

In the remoteness of the desert there are moments of faith gained and faith lost.

Moonscape is a short film which takes the form of a music video for a ballad/middle of the road song, performed as a duet between a male and female singer, in Arabic. The song traces the story of a man called Dennis M. Hope, who claimed ownership of the Moon in 1980 and thus founded the Lunar Embassy – a company that sells land on a variety of planets and Moons, and makes a connection between his story and that of the director's – a young Palestinian woman living under the Israeli occupation, longing to end the misery of her people in any way possible.&nbsp;The visuals of the film are a hybrid of surrealist scenes from the Arab music industry, reenacted by the artist’s parents who also play the roles of the singers in the film, and film noir; in addition to found footage from the NASA archives, references from canonic films which influenced the art world and show representations of the Moon, and screenshots of Email correspondences with staff members of the Lunar Embassy. All set together in order to explore the relationship between hope, nostalgia and despair.&nbsp;*A moonscape is an area or vista of the lunar landscape (generally of the Earth's moon), or a visual representation of this, such as in a painting. The term "moonscape" is also sometimes used metaphorically for an area devastated or flattened by war, often by shelling. About the filmmaker: <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/343bd4455978f34cc3b87a81101ed05e.jpg" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;" width="144">Mona Benyamin (b.1997, Haifa) is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker, she obtained her BFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, in 2020. In her works, she explores intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma and questions of identity, using humor and irony as political tools of resistance and reflection. Her practice consists of time based media, in addition to painting and drawing, and she usually works with her immediate surroundings, collaborating with her family as the main protagonists of her works, and her family home as her only setting.

Moonscape

A surrealist film showing the connection between ownership of the moon and Palestinian displacement.

Clench My Fists is a found-footage collage video that explores the process of growing up in an Arab family deeply affected by death and grief. Using footage from the Lebanese film “In the Battlefields,” as well as “Candy” and “The 100,” and audio from archival recorded Lebanese funeral laments, the video looks at how men and women express grief and anger under the patriarchy, as well as how trauma and childhood experiences can evolve into mental illness and patterns of behavior as adults. Clench My Fists is part of a larger body of work dealing with racial identity and the concept of “inherited grief;” that through biological or behavioral means, trauma is passed down through prospective family generations so that family members might experience the residual effects of trauma they did not personally witness. This body of work explores how the death of the artist’s grandfather, an Arab American, caused ripples of mental illness and skewed racial identity through her paternal family. Using filmic material that the artist used to connect with her heritage, Clench My Fists is part of a series of work focusing on not only decolonizing Imperialist Western understandings of the Middle East but to also show the beauty of the artist’s heritage, outside the context of her family. About the Filmmaker: <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/1beb6573be34fae64e7a0348ff0e0c83.png" width="150" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;">Sarah Trad is a video artist who explores the relationship between subjective and objective emotionality, navigating daily life and relationships while faced with mental illness, and breaking down stereotypes of gender and narrative. Her work also highlights how mental illness and coming from marginalized backgrounds intersects with internal emotional worlds. The living embodiment of the correlation between chronic depression and binge-watching practices, her work appropriates and manipulates found footage from movies, music videos and television. Trad’s work uses recognizable narrative structures to be viewed in and outside the academy of art, as well as comment on the individual’s relationship to pop culture.

Clench My Fists

A found-footage collage video that explores the process of growing up in an Arab family deeply affected by death and grief.

Nature retaliates after being abused. About the filmmaker: <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/58bc83a1dc8ba47087f2385caf64b5b1.jpg" width="133" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;">Lara Rassoul is a Lebanese Romanian filmmaker and digital artist. She studied Cultural Studies with a minor in American Film Studies at Transilvania University in Romania. Upon graduating, it was clear to her that cinema would be the right path for her. She went back to Lebanon and studied Cinema at the Lebanese University. Her short film “Jasminum” is currently competing in multiple festivals around the world. She is currently working on her next film, a sci-fi animation.&nbsp;

Jasminum

A man tries to make his usual morning breakfast. But a strange egg ruins the day and turns it into a fierce battle, which eventually leads him to discover a bizarre surprise. About the filmmaker: <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/eventive-static/12c4af3c23c13ef95751effcc5ba8521.jpg" style="display: inline; float: left; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px;" width="141">Sultan Rabea was born and raised in Saudi Arabia. His love for Cinema led him to make films in the U.S., Panama, and England, while working as a freelance videographer to pay the bills.

Egg Rebelled

A strange egg ruins the day of a man just trying to make breakfast.

Experiments in Film

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