Bring Your Own Doc: The Square Egypt's Revolution Documentary with Sundance Winner Director Jehane Noujaim

The Square, Egypt's Revolution Doc with Sundance Winner Dir Jehane Noujaim
Bring Your Own Doc

Fresh from winning the best World Documentary award at Sundance, The Square director Jehane Noujaim comes to BYOD to discuss her background in film and the process of telling the story of the Egyptian revolution. Jehane also shares the feeling she had of crawling through the dark while filming, and still managing to make a film that is recognized and appreciated.

GUEST BIO:

Jehane Noujaim is an Egyptian-American filmmaker who began her career with the MTV documentary series, Unfiltered. She left her post as segment producer to work with the legendary Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker on the film STARTUP.COM, which led to numerous nominations and won awards at The International Documentary Association, Philadelphia, Doubletake Documentary Film Festival, and a DGA Award.

Jehane followed the success of the film with the equally acclaimed CONTROL ROOM, which won awards at Full Frame, Boston Society of Film Critics, International Documentary Association, Seattle Film Critics, and Sydney Film Festival.

Continuing her work in both the United States and The Middle East, Jehane is back with a new film, THE SQUARE, depicting the revolution in Egypt's famous Tahrir Square. She is back, fresh from Park City, where she was awarded the World Documentary Audience Award at Sundance for her magnificent work on this film.

Kahsatstenhsera: Indigenous Resistance to Tar Sands Pipelines

Kahsatstenhsera: Indigenous Resistance to Tar Sands Pipelines
Films For Action

Kahsatstenhsera (gah-sad-sdanh-se-ra) is a Kanienkeha:ka (Mohawk) word that means Strength in Unity. This short documentary details contemporary Indigenous resistance to tar sands pipeline expansion, in particular the Line 9 and Energy East pipelines, which threaten the health of our territories in the northeast of Turtle Island. This was a co-production with Amanda Lickers of Reclaim Turtle Island and subMedia.tv



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How the Government Tracks You: NSA Surveillance

More about the NSA Video

Jennifer Lynne Barker: Radical Projection

Radical projection contrasts with fascist aestheticization in that it does no attempt to ensnare the individual with an image of pure and perfect beauty, but rather makes them aware of the permanently unstable and uncontrollable nature of the real and of the traumatic reality of fascist atrocity. Thus it is not utopic in its vision, but "radical" in the sense that it attempts to act on the root cause of a pathological process and use extreme tactics in order to foment revolutionary change; and "projection" because it communicates ideas distinctly and forcefully to an audience, visualizing an idea as objective reality and reproducing this process within the film itself. (19)

Barker, Jennifer Lynne. The Aesthetics of Antifascist Film: Radical Projection. Routledge, 2013: 19.

La Commune (Paris 1871) (France: Peter Watkins, 2000)

La Commune (Paris 1871) (France: Peter Watkins, 2000: 345 mins)

Ford, Hamish. "Producing revolutionary history on film: Henri Lefebvre’s urban space and Peter Watkins’ La Commune (Paris, 1871)." Jump Cut #57 (Fall 2016)

Harvey, David. "Urban Uprisings from Occupy Wall Street to the Paris Commune." Democracy Now (April 30, 2012)

La Commune (Paris, 1871) (France: Peter Watkins, 2000: available on Google video in multiple parts)

"Peter Watkins: La Commune." Chtodelat (October 31, 2008)

Peter Watkins: The Media Crisis Dialogic (October 3, 2007)

Peter Watkins: Filmmaker/Media Critic." Dialogic (September 7, 2012)

Rapfogel, Jared. "The Cinema of Peter Watkins." Cineaste 32.2 (Spring 2007)

Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "The Revolution Has Been Televised [Peter Watkins’ LA COMMUNE]." Chicago Reader (May 17, 2002)

The Universal Clock - The Resistance of Peter Watkins by Geoff Bowie, National Film Board of Canada

Watkins, Peter. "Notes on the Making of La Commune (Paris, 1871)." Peter Watkins: Filmmaker/Critic (2000)

---. "Notes on the Media Crisis." Barcelona, Spain: Quaderns portàtils, 2010.

Films We Want to See #35: Something In the Air (France: Olivier Assayas, 2012: 122 mins)

Anonymous: March Against Mainstream Media (September 14, 2013)

Offside (Iran: Jafar Panahi, 2006)

Offside (Iran: Jafar Panahi, 2006: 93 mins)

Ferdinand, Marilyn. Offside Ferdy on Films (May 23, 2010)

Hudson, David. "Jafar Panahi Sentenced to 6 Years in Jail, 20 Years of Silence." MUBI (December 20, 2010)

"Studies of Censorship and Cinema: In Solidarity with Jafar Panahi." Film Studies for Free (April 6, 2010)

Black Book (Netherlands/Germany/Belgium: Paul Verhoeven, 2006)

Black Book (Netherlands/Germany/Belgium: Paul Verhoeven, 2006: 145 mins)

Barton-Fumo, Margaret. "Paul Verhoeven." The Film Comment (November 15, 2016) ["What are the uncanny forces at work behind Paul Verhoeven’s visceral and transgressive cinema? In anticipation of the Film Society’s complete retrospective of the Dutch master’s films and the U.S. release of Elle, this episode offers a comprehensive discussion of the director’s audacious and eclectic career encompassing art-house Dutch films (Turkish Delight [1971], Spetters [1980]) and big-budget Hollywood productions such as Basic Instinct (1992), Total Recall (1990) and Starship Troopers (1997). In the first part of the podcast, Film Comment Digital Editor Violet Lucca sits down with a panel of Verhoeven connoisseurs, including Cinema Scope critic Adam Nayman, Film Comment Deep Cuts columnist Margaret Barton-Fumo (also the editor of a forthcoming book of interviews with Verhoeven), and Fort Buchanan director Benjamin Crotty, to tackle the controversy that lies at the core of Verhoeven’s work. In the final part of the episode, Margaret Barton-Fumo speaks to Verhoeven about the uncomfortable eroticism that pervades Elle and his Brechtian influences."]

Carlin, Dan. "Logical Insanity." Hardcore History #42 (March 31. 2012)

Cribbs, John, James Hancock and Leanne Kubicz. "The Cinema of Paul Verhoeven." Wrong Reel #200 (November 2016)

Howard, Ed. "TOERIFIC: Black Book." Only the Cinema (July 20, 2009)

Judt, Tony. "The Legacy of War" and "Retribution" from Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. NY: Penguin, 2006: 13-63. [Your professor has a copy].

Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal (USA: Stephen Vittoria, 2013)

Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal (USA: Stephen Vittoria, 2013: 120 mins)

Abu-Jamal, Mumia. "The United States Is Fast Becoming One of the Biggest Open-Air Prisons on Earth." Democracy Now (February 1, 2013)

Hanarahan, Noelle and Stephen Vittoria. "'Long Distance Revolutionary': Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Journey from Black Panthers to Prison Journalist." Democracy Now (February 1, 2013)

Hedges, Chris. The Unsilenced Voice of a 'Long-Distance Revolutionary.'" TruthDig (December 9, 2012)

Democracy Now Headlines: Palestinian Filmmaker Behind "5 Broken Cameras" Detained at LAX Ahead of Oscars

Palestinian Filmmaker Behind "5 Broken Cameras" Detained at LAX Ahead of Oscars
Democracy Now



A Palestinian filmmaker and his family were detained at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday after arriving to attend this weekend’s Academy Awards. The filmmaker, Emad Burnat, is nominated in the Best Documentary category for "5 Broken Cameras," which documents the growth of a resistance movement to the Israeli separation wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in. In a series of Twitter messages, the filmmaker Michael Moore said immigration officers told Burnat he would not be allowed to enter the country even after he showed them his Oscar invite. Burnat and his family were eventually released after Moore phoned Academy attorneys. Moore quoted Burnat as saying: "It’s nothing I’m not already used to. When [you] live under occupation, with no rights, this is a daily occurrence."

Link to Today's Headlines

Mumia Abu-Jamal: "The United States Is Fast Becoming One of the Biggest Open-Air Prisons on Earth"; Noelle Hanrahan & Stephen Vittoria: "Long Distance Revolutionary" - Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Journey from Black Panthers to Prison Journalist

Mumia Abu-Jamal: "The United States Is Fast Becoming One of the Biggest Open-Air Prisons on Earth"
Democracy Now



In a rare live interview, Mumia Abu-Jamal calls into Democracy Now! as the new film, "Long Distance Revolutionary," about his life premieres in New York City this weekend. After 29 years on death row, he is now being held in general population at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy. "How free are we today, those who claim to be non-prisoners? Your computers are being read by others in government. Your letters, your phone calls are being intercepted," says Mumia Abu-Jamal. "We live now in a national security state, where the United States is fast becoming one of the biggest open-air prisons on earth. We can speak about freedom, and the United States has a long and distinguished history of talking about freedom, but have we exampled freedom? And I think the answer should be very clear: We have not." In 1982, Mumia was sentenced to die for killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He has always maintained his innocence and is perhaps America’s most famous political prisoner. In 2011, an appeals court upheld his conviction, but also vacated his death sentence. It found jurors were given confusing instructions.

Guest:

Mumia Abu-Jamal, former death row prisoner. For decades, Abu-Jamal has argued racism by the trial judge and prosecutors led to his conviction for the killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Last year, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside his death sentence after finding jurors were given confusing instructions that encouraged them to choose the death penalty rather than a life sentence.

To Watch the Interview

"Long Distance Revolutionary": Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Journey from Black Panthers to Prison Journalist

The new documentary, "Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal," premieres today in New York City. We play an excerpt of the film and speak to writer, producer and director Steve Vittoria, as well as Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio, who has interviewed Abu-Jamal many times over the years. The film features many supporters of Mumia, including actress Ruby Dee, writer Tariq Ali, and author Michelle Alexander.

Guests:

Stephen Vittoria, longtime documentary filmmaker. Most recently, he is the writer, director, producer and editor of Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal. The film premiers in theaters in New York City Feb. 1-3. We recently featured his 2005 documentary, One Bright Shining Moment, about Senator George McGovern.

Noelle Hanrahan, director of Prison Radio and a producer of Long Distance Revolutionary.

To Watch the Conversation

Proshot Kalami: No One Knows About Persian Cinema -- Bahman Ghobadi’s Songscape of Revolt

No One Knows About Persian Cinema: B. Ghobadi’s Songscape of Revolt
by Proshot Kalami
Cinemascope (Italy)



In recent times, Iranian films have been at the centre of attention in world cinema. Since the fraudulent Election in June 2009, Iranian cinema has had to follow a different path of destiny. The poetic allegorical camera and narrative can no longer satisfy the filmmaker who now must work within the politically-charged and troubled narrative of nationhood, human rights violations and questions of artistic integrity. The unjust prison sentences passed on Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof made this road more challenging. In this essay, I examine the notion of “revolt” by means of creative process in Bahman Ghobadi’s No One Knows About Persian Cats (2009). This is an underground film—made without any permission from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance or state support—on the underground music of Iran within an underground culture that survives against the severest odds. This is the last breath at a crossroad that leads to dead-ends in all directions.

The politics of fear is the mobilising force exercised by the Islamic state to keep the nation from potential “Westernization” and anti-Islamic behaviour, through harassment, imprisonment and other nefarious measures. No One Knows About Persian Cats addresses this issue by following a group of Indie-Rock, Jazz, New-metal and Rap bands, and the challenges they face in arranging rehearsals, underground concerts or escaping the hunting guards of the Islamic authorities. Meandering through the streets of Tehran, Ghobadi’s camera travels with them into another Tehran, a liminal space between crime and freedom, where these young artists create their music. Their act of creation is their soundless revolt. And Ghobadi, I argue, has tried to give the sound back to the otherwise muted underground music of Iran in this film.

I Don’t Wanna’ Go to Jail, Why are You pushing Me? [1]

The narrative of the film is locked between two reverse top shots indicating two blinks of the eyes of an injured young man from whose perspective the camera shows the running lights of a hospital corridor’s ceiling in a Kafkaesque manner. The person on the emergency bed-on-wheels, we find out later, is called Ashkan, who remembers in between those blinks all that he has gone through within a few weeks in Tehran. Although the narrative of the film is fictional, the people/actors of the film, barring the professional actor Hamed Behdad who plays the role of Nader, are real and use their own names in the film. Most of the events that are depicted in the film have actually taken place, one way or the other, but not necessarily in that sequence and not exactly to the same people/characters[[2]]. Knowing these factors is important in order to understand, therefore investigate, the connection between the viewer and the material of the film. This becomes more important in regard to Ghobadi’s style that constantly moves between the self-reflexive documentary and the fictional narrative film. This notion in the film is apparent in the way in which he has used the camera, the various rhythms in editing, the selection of locations and with his deliberate casting of largely non-actor real-life musicians.

In the very first frame of the film we see the ceiling with the sharp white fluorescent lamps moving across the frame that look like white markings on a road at first, until you realise that the camera is actually facing upwards. The sound that we hear is more like the muted and unclear breathing sound that one can hear from under the water or over a sealed barrier, a breath at the dead-end[3]. The next shot is the reverse angle, this time an out of focus top shot, showing a young man’s bloody face, covered with an oxygen masque on an emergency bed-on-wheels moving through what seems like a hospital corridor, while another hand with a large piece of gauze is holding one side of his head. We shall meet him again. But Ghobadi leaves his viewer with this bleak image along with that eerie sound of breathing to make a jump cut to another location. The second sequence is located in a dimly lit sound studio. We see the sound editor/engineer managing the recording that is apparently in session along with a few female musicians with their instruments in the background, waiting for their recording session to come. The point of view is of the recording room. The sound is a mixture of a few people talking in the background and a number that none other than Bahman Ghobadi himself is singing in Kurdish. The narrative starts from this moment, not directly though, but through a side conversation that the engineer has with one of the female musicians, who does not seem to recognise the singer in the recording room as the famous film director! The sound engineer says, and we hear, that Ghobadi could not make his films, he did not receive permission to shoot and was stopped by the authorities, as a result he was forced to give up making films. All these made him so depressed that he tried to sing, a hobby that he always kept on the side, to feel slightly better and positive. Babak, the sound engineer also tells us, through their conversation that now Bahman Ghobadi is busy making a film about the underground music scene of Iran. Ghobadi, we hear that, was intrigued by the news of Islamic Guards ambushing an underground rock concert and arresting hundreds of people. There are no professional actors, Babak says, in the film. This, apparently, is the true occasion for making No One Knows About Persian Cats. Ghobadi himself re-asserted this, not only in the “Special Feature” section of the DVD, but also in the 2009 London International Film Festival, during a number of post and pre-screening “Question and Answer” sessions. Why is this information so important that he has to open his film with it and why is it that he repeatedly emphasises this fact at every opportunity he gets? The role the music plays, the importance of creating music and the importance of breath in the creation of voice in songs—all within the oppressive atmosphere of Tehran— and the difference between reality and the truth, I argue, are some of the reasons that this film gives us as way of understanding the importance of this occasion for the filmmaker. In this regard, music is both the apparent subject as well as the political and philosophic metaphor or allegory that the film has to offer.

To Read the Rest of the Essay