FINDING THE MIDDLE EAST
A Social Documentary Film Series

Sponsored by the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department
and the Alternative Media Library and Resource Center

Friday May 2, William L. Harkness Hall, room 119, Yale Campus
Outside Looking in: The Islamic Diaspora and Views of America

6:30-7:30—Brothers and Others: The Impact of September 11th on Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in America
Featuring interviews with such experts as Noam Chomsky and James Zogby, Brothers and Others is a one-hour documentary on the impact of 9/11 on Muslims and Arabs in America. The film follows a number of immigrants and Americans as they struggle in the heightened climate of hate, FBI and INS investigations, and economic hardships that erupted following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

7:30-8:00—Islam & America: Through the Eyes of Imran Khan
Why do so many Muslims hate the United States? What has America done to alienate so many people in the Muslim world? Imran Khan, a Pakistani celebrity cricket player turned politician, tries to answer these questions in this provocative documentary filmed in locations throughout Pakistan. He examines the political, social and economic causes of the schism between the Islamic world and the West.
 

Monday, May 5, William L. Harkness Hall, 119
The Meaning of War: Faith, Combat and Historical Memory

6:30-7:30—Alone with War
Exiled to France during the civil war that killed 150,000 people from 1975 to 1991, Danielle Arbid returns to Lebanon to interrogate its principal antagonists—the Christian and Muslim militiamen—about their justifications for the war, while wondering about the collective amnesia that seems omnipresent. Arbid visits soldiers, widows and fugitives. Her quest reveals a Beirut seen with new eyes, with the reflections and echoes of history fading.
 

7:30-8:30—Women of the Hezbollah
Filmmaker Maher Abi-Samra returns to the neighborhood of his youth, Ramel el Ali, in Beirut's southern suburb, which became I the 1980s a stronghold of the Islamic Party of God, the Hezbollah. Women of the Hezbollah is a portrait of two female Hezbollah activists, Zeinab and Khadjie, and an examination of the personal, social and political factors of their commitment.

Wednesday, May 7, Dwight Hall Chapel, Yale Campus
Aftermath: the Palestinian Crisis Continues

7:00-8:00—Jenin Jenin
This groundbreaking film is based on chilling testimony from Jenin residents after the Israeli army's Defensive Wall operation, during which the city and camp were the scenes of numerous atrocities. Jenin Jenin shows the extent to which the prolonged oppression and terror has affected the state of mind of the Palestinian inhabitants of Jenin.
 

For more information, contact: michelle.chen@yale.edu