MOVIES

A celluloid celebration of India, the Middle East and North Africa

Children of Abraham/Ibrahim: Films of the Middle East and North Africa highlights six movies

By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILM WRITER
Thursday, February 12, 2009

With upheaval in the Gaza Strip, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and scrutiny aimed at Iran, the Austin Film Society's series "Children of Abraham/Ibrahim: Films of the Middle East and North Africa" is as timely as ever. This year, the series also includes films from Southern Asia. Now in its third year, the series of six hard-to-find films is the society's "attempt to bring human faces and individual stories to the statistics and overwhelming images seen on TV and computer screens daily throughout the world," say organizers.

Screenings are 7 p.m. Tuesdays at the Alamo South.

Tuesday: "Earth" — Deepa Mehta's second installment in her sometimes politically inflammatory trilogy (including "Fire" and "Water") dramatizes the repercussions of cataclysmic history — the partitioning of India into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan in 1947 — with emotional thrust and visual dash.

Feb. 24: "Khamosh Pani: Silent Waters" — A surge of Islamist radicalism in 1970s Pakistan sends volatile ripples across the country, upending faith and family and individual identity. Written and directed by Sabiha Sumar.

March 3: "Close to Home" — The impulses and distractions of adolescence clash with the compulsory duties of military service in this personal drama about a pair of young Israeli women trying to reconcile their responsibilities on patrol with their native human needs. Written and directed by Vardit Bilu and Dalia Hager.

March 10: "Bab'Aziz — The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul" — Deeply reflective, profoundly poetic, this minimalist fable navigates wide narrative spaces with unhurried ease and childlike charm. Nacer Khemir wrote and directed the Tunisian-Iranian co-production.

March 24: "Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Streets" — Three scraggly urchins brave the brute Dickensian streets of Casablanca, negotiating violent abuse, poverty and hunger, sustaining their hearts and souls with their unbroken friendship. The Austin premiere of Nabil Ayouch's drama.

March 31: "Under the Bombs" — In 2006, amid the wreckage of war in Lebanon, a Christian cab driver and a Shiite woman get to know each other during a long drive looking for her son. Understanding and, perhaps, compassion bloom between two worlds. Shot on location with mostly non-professional performers, the film was written and directed by Philippe Aractingi.