film festival fun

The 7th Seattle Arab and Iranian Film Festival is currently underway and the lineup looks as fantastic as always. I really regret the fact that I'm never in town for SAIFF anymore--in addition to the films themselves, there are always talks, parties, and other sorts of fun going on. This year, As'ad Abu Khalil of the blog Angry Arab News Service was a featured speaker, and the films include several things I've been wanting to see--especially James Longley's new documentary Iraq in Fragments, the Italian/Palestinian co-production Private, and the Canadian film Sabah, featuring the luminous Arsinée Khanjian (one of my favorite actors, best known from her husband Atom Egoyan's films, including Ararat and The Sweet Hereafter). Arab Film Distribution, which produces the festival, has a wonderful DVD catalog available.

Thankfully, my sorrow at missing SAIFF will be ameliorated by attending the 4th Annual South Asia Human Rights Film Festival here in New York this weekend. I'm looking forward both to Ligy J. Pullappally's Sancharram (The Journey), a Malayali-language film about a lesbian couple in Kerala, which people keep telling me is brilliant (here's a nice profile/interview of Pullappally) and Aparna Sen's new film, 15 Park Avenue. Uma of indianwriting had some very good things to say about the latter, as did Amardeep Singh; and I liked Sen's last film, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (though it was the cause of a £1o bet I lost to thariel). But I'm particularly excited about 15 Park Avenue because I'm just madly in love with Shabana Azmi, and will happily turn up to see any film that allows me to indulge my crush. Pity I wasn't around for this a couple of years back.