Thursday, March 04, 2010

You're Invited!



Alex and Heather are getting married and
Alex wants to get married in Iran,
just like his (American) mother and (Iranian) father did
over 30 years ago.
Join documentary maker Marjan Tehrani as she documents
two passionate and intriguing relationships:
her family's relationship with their dual heritage,
and the on-again, off-again relationship between the US and Iran

Arsui:Persian Wedding screens
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
at The 10th Avenue Theater
930 10th Avenue,downtown San Diego
7:30 pm, $7 suggested donation.

We also hope to screen But You Speak Such Good English- stay tuned!

This film goes great with




The fantastic one man show by Robert Farid Karimi-

Poor Robertito!
What is a Gautemalteco-Persian American supposed to do? Dance? Pray? Listen to Motown?
In Union City, California, no less?
Don't miss this fantastic voyage through California, hybrid identity,
and, oh yeah, the Iranian revolution!

For tix, go to Mo'olelo Theater Arts Company

you can also follow us on Facebook.
Well, were back!

Sorta.

MTM is looking for a new venue for awhile while the Centro reorganizes (loooong story), so check this space for our updates!

Monday, October 26, 2009

FREE SCREENING ALERT: 9500 Liberty

The San Diego Asian Film Festival is doing a free screening of:



9500 Liberty

9500 LIBERTY reveals the devastating social and economic impact of the “Immigration Resolution,” felt in the lives of real people in homes and in local businesses. But the ferocious fight to adopt and then reverse this policy unfolds inside government chambers, on the streets, and on the Internet. 9500 LIBERTY provides a front row seat to all three battlegrounds.

Directors Eric Byler and Annabel Park are scheduled to attend


Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Time:
7:00am - 10:00am
Location:
Jacobs Center 404 Euclid Ave San Diego, CA 92114
Street:
404 Euclid Ave

Sunday, October 18, 2009


Sita Sings...Some More!

For those of you who missed it- and you know who you are... Sita Sings the Blues is showing AGAIN at the San Diego Asian Film Festival at the Ultra Star at the Hazard Center on the following dates:

Friday, Oct. 23 at 3:10 pm.
and

Monday, Oct. 26 at 4 pm.- this is a free screening with Target.

for more info go to the San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Sunday, October 04, 2009


SITA SINGS THE BLUES!

That's right. THAT Sita. You know- Sita and Rama, the Ramayana.

Just in time for Diwali (Oct. 17), MTM is screening Nina Paley's amazing animated film

Sita Sings the Blues
October 16, 2009
Friday
Doors open at 7 pm. $7

Centro Cultural de la Raza
2004 Park Blvd, Balboa Park

Disclaimer: for purists (like M.) this is NOT the Ramayana exactly

Billed as the greatest breakup story ever told, Nina Paley has animated a parallel story. While in India with her husband, Dave, also an animator, Nina finds out (from Dave) her marriage is over...and discovers something in common with Sita from the Ramayana. Sita's singing voice is dubbed by a 20's singer while many of the other voices are dubbed by cast members from the film Loins of Punjab Presents.

To find out more about Nina, the film and the music go here. To find out what Sepia Mutiny thought about it and a great interview with Nina, go here

Disclaimer #2: We love cross-cultural stuff, but not the kind that appropriates for appropriation's sake - the ethnographic zoo and all that - so we carefully looked at what Sepia Mutiny and others have to say and we feel fairly confident that Sita passes the don't over-exoticize us test. Otherwise, we would not show it.

Sooooo, that said, there's more! More? Yes, more!

- Kirti of Cafe India will be dancing
- There might be food (but don't quote us just yet)
- and a raffle for tickets to a doc at the San Diego Asian Film Festival

and now we are going to clean the house (ok, let's honest, part of the house) for Diwali. It will takes us ALL week and then some.

See you October 16!



How do you say 10 in Japanese?
or Chinese or Korean or Hindi or Farsi
or any other language spoken in Asia?

Whatever, we're thrilled the announce the 10 annual San Diego Asian Film Festival is coming!

It gives us great pleasure to welcome the SDAFF into the Movies that Matter film fanatics circle. Catch us on a doc screen (hint: come to our Sita screening to find out which one and you MIGHT just win a ticket to it!)

The cinematic dragon roars in the Ultra Star at Hazard Center on October 15 and spends a magnificent 2 weeks there- films, music, parties and fun.

It's going to be the best Asian Film Festival yet!

Check out the url for times, tickets, special presentations and parties!

The 10th San Diego Asian Film Festival
And now a word from: Mo'olelo Theater Company

MTM strongly believes in community and cross-collaboration and nothing makes us happier than to collaborate with great projects!

We are very pleased to welcome Mo'olelo Theater Company of Seema Sueko into our circle of friends and fellow conspirators. (Seema is also a long-time support of the Arabs Anonymous-No Hay Moros project).

This amazing and dynamic young theater company has been putting on award-winning, thought-provoking theater for over 5 years and this present project is no exception. We urge you to spend an evening with Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire and to take advantage of the nights when interesting and important speakers engage the audience after the performance.

Here is the info- and tell them Movies that Matter sent you!

URL:9 Parts of Desire


Heather Raffo's

9 Parts of Desire

Directed by Janet Hayatshahi

October 8 - November 1, 2009


Mo`olelo at The 10th Avenue Theatre
930 10th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101 Downtown San Diego, on the west side of 10th Avenue, between Broadway and E Street


An Artist. An Exile. An American.
A Doctor. A Girl. A Survivor.
A Mullaya. A Lover. An Old Woman.
What does it mean to be a woman from Iraq?

Inspired and extracted from true events, 9 Parts of Desire is the story of nine Iraqi women living in Baghdad, London and New York who confront the world in both ordinary and surprising ways, revealing conflicting perspectives about an age-old war zone.

Post Show Discussions

Thursday, October 8 - Dilkhwaz Ahmed, 9 Parts of Desire Kurdish Perspective
Dilkhwaz Ahmed is the Founder of License to Freedom, a nonprofit organization that provides support services for victims of domestic violence from refugee and immigrant communities. Originally from Kurdistan of Iraq, Ms. Ahmed was the Executive Director of Nawa Center, a shelter for abused women, in Sulaimanya. She was granted asylum in the United States and resettled in San Diego in 2002.

Friday, October 9 - Nadia Keilani, Iraqi Women and the Undemocratic Impact of 'Democracy'
Nadia Keilani is an Iraqi-American who immigrated to the United States in 1981. She is a practicing attorney and civil rights activist. Since the early 1990's, she has given numerous speeches and lectures on the issue of U.S.-Iraqi relations as well as the topic of women's rights in Iraq and other parts of the Arab world.

Sunday, October 11 - Dr. Ghada Osman, Interpretations of the Role of Women in Islam
Ghada Osman is Director of the Center for Islamic & Arabic Studies at San Diego State University. She holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies and an M.A. in Islamic Studies, and frequently gives lectures on Islam and various aspects of Muslim societies.

Sunday, October 18 - Janet Hayatshahi, Talk-back with the Director of 9 Parts of Desire
Janet has been active in the San Diego theatre scene as a director, actor, and producer since 1999. Her most recent directing credits include The Turn of the Screw at Cygnet Theatre, Inside Story: Middle-Eastern Tales for the Theatre of the World Festival 2009 at SDSU, and a staged reading of 9 Parts of Desire for the Thurgood Marshall Human Rights and Global Citizenship.

Thursday, October 22 - Dr. Shelley Orr, Theater and Social Change: How Theater Can Give Us A New Perspective
Shelley Orr teaches in the School of Theatre, Television, and Film at San Diego State University in the graduate and undergraduate programs. She heads the dramaturgy area at SDSU. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Drama, an MFA in Dramaturgy, and is President of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA).

Saturday, October 31 - Judith L. Seid, The Role of Money & Women in the Middle East - A Key Driver Toward Sustainable Prosperity
How are socially responsible investors making an impact on women in the Middle East?
Judith Seid is the founder of Blue Summit Financial Group, a San Diego-based financial services firm specializing in Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). After fifteen years of helping investors align their money with their values, Judy has been recognized as this year's SRI Advisor of the Year by Boomer Market Advisor and has also been awarded the National Association of Women in Business (NAWBO) Green Community award, and the U.S. Small Business Administration 2009 Women Owned Business of the Year Award.

Art Exhibit:
Wishes/
Umniat
Visual artists Doris Bittar, Joyce Dallal, John Halaka, Wade Harb, Adeeb Makki, Al Nashashibi, and George Wahab will present their work in an art show titled Wishes/Umniat in the Lobby and 2nd Floor Galleries of The 10th Avenue Theatre. Umniat means "wishes" or "desires" in Arabic. It is the wish-umnia of this multi-ethnic, multi-religious group of artists who each come from Middle Eastern backgrounds to lay the groundwork for renewed efforts in peace through their art.



Thursday, September 03, 2009


ARCHEOLOGY OF MEMORY: THE VILLA GRIMALDI

Movies that Matter is observing 9/11 - 1973 and post 9/11 with a screening of the amazing and moving documentary Archeology of Memory: the Villa Grimaldi, directed by Marilyn Mulford (Freedom on My Mind).

We're screening the festival version with a short and a roundtable discussion about human rights, civil rights and extraordinary rendition with Amnesty International, Survivors of Torture International and the ACLU.

Archeology of Memory is the extraordinary story of Bay Area-based
multimedia artist and musician Quique Cruz

who was arrested, disappeared and tortured under Pinochet shortly after the fall of Allende while still a teenager. He was later expelled to the US where he rebuilt his identity and slowly, painfully started to address what had happened to him.

Archeology of Memory "follows our major protagonist to Chile and the back to the U. S. in a unique journey as he navigates a landscape of state sponsored torture, forced exile, transformation and healing. We accompany Claudio as he visits former concentration camp sites and ruins, and talks to his mother about his disappearance and incarceration for the first time in thirty years. To help tell his story, he searches for artist friends who were incarcerated with him. In these intimate conversations—with writer Nubia Becker, poet Anita Moreira and painter Guillermo Nuñez—we see these artists, and their art, as they re-tell their experiences as political prisoners and talk of how they use their art for healing." (http://www.archeologyofmemory.org/the_film_synopsis.html)

Join us for a powerful story about the triumph of art and music over torture and government betrayal.

09/11/09
7 pm
$7

Centro Cultural de la Raza
2004 Park Blvd
Balboa Park


Monday, August 17, 2009

Y Chile Cuando?


September 11...hmmm. Dislike that day, dislike the hyper-patriotism around that day, However, no need to totally disregard it.

So, Movies that Matter is remembering September 11, on September 11- September 11, 1973, that is...

with Archeology of Memory: the Villa Grimaldi

here's the current tag line:

On September 11, 1973, the government of Chile was overthrown.
For Quique Cruz, life would change...forever.

Detained
Tortured
Disappeared
Exiled.

Join us on September 11, 2009, for a compelling story about the triumph of Art and Life.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009


Screening Aug 14.

Get a jump on India Independence Day (it's actually Aug. 15, but hey, a party is a party) and join us for the award-winning documentary:
ROOTS IN THE SAND
by
JAYASRI HART

Roots in the Sand is the fascinating story of Sikh men from the Punjab in India who immigrated to the Imperial Valley in Southern California in the 1920's. The Asian Exclusion Act prevented them from bringing wives from the Punjab to California, so Sikhs married Mexican women, many of whom had been Adelitas or soldiers during the Mexican Revolution.

We open the doors at 7 pm and the screening starts around 7:30pm

Location: the Centro Cultural de la Raza
2004 Park Blvd, Balboa Park

$8