The Boston Globe
A fresh focus on Muslim women
New film festival seeks to challenge old stereotypes
By Leslie Brokaw | April 13, 2008
No, it's not a resurrection of the old Apple Computer "Think different"
campaign;
"Think-Different Women" is the intriguing title of the new Boston Muslim
Film Festival.
Aiming to present a "stereotype-defying tour of the Muslim world's
diversity and complexity,"
the festival says it's chosen movies with central characters who are
especially
"think-different women" - people who challenge extremism and "offer rarely
heard iconoclastic
voices."
Irshad Manji is one of those voices. "Faith Without Fear," which opens the
festival tomorrow at
6:30 p.m. in the Sargent Building at Boston University, is a look by Manji
- journalist,
director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University, and author
of the 2004 bestseller
"The Trouble With Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith" -
at the risks and
promises of having a conversation about reform.
"A couple of years after the family settled down, my dad discovered free
baby-sitting services
at Rose of Sharon Baptist Church," writes Manji, who immigrated as a child
from Uganda to
Canada in 1972, in her book. As her mom went out to sell Avon
door-to-door, Manji settled into
Bible study cl***** and exhibited enough curiosity to win the Most
Promising Christian of the
Year Award.
Thus began a lifetime of embracing, questioning, and challenging.
Raquel Evita Saraswati from Manji's Project Ijtihad, an initiative to
"help build the world's
most inclusive network of reform-minded Muslims and non-Muslim allies,"
will lead a discussion
after the movie.
Other films include "Mrs. President: Women and Political Leader****p in
Iran," about six of the
47 Iranian women who registered as candidates for Iranian president in
2001 and were
disqualified by ruling clerics. That film's producer, Shahla Haeri, is
director of Boston
University's Women's Studies Program and will speak after the Thursday
6:30 p.m. screening at BU.
"Shadya" is a profile of 17-year-old Shadya Zoabi: Muslim Arab, Israeli,
feminist,
soon-to-be-wife - and world champion in karate. It plays Wednesday.
Peabody award-winning
filmmaker Paul Freedman's "Sand and Sorrow" is a do***entary about Darfur
refugees and the
Displaced Persons camps, and includes commentary from New York Times
columnist Nicholas Kristof
and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, with narration by George Clooney. It plays
on Tuesday.
Festival curator Mohammed Harba is a 27-year-old filmmaker from Iraq now
living in
Massachusetts. Five years ago, he partnered with Seth Moulton, a US Marine
lieutenant from
Massachusetts, on a news show for Iraqi television called "Moulton and
Mohammed" about the life
in that country after the US-invasion. Both men became well known in Iraq
for their
presentation of both the good and the bad happening in the country.
The festival is presented by the American Islamic Congress in conjunction
with the Women's
Studies Program at Boston University, the Pathways Interfaith Initiative
at Tufts University,
the Global Film Initiative, and Americans for Informed Democracy. A
shorter version of the
program is running concurrently in Wa****ngton, D.C.
Screenings take place on seven evenings between tomorrow and April 30, on
the campuses of
Boston University, Tufts University, and Endicott College. The schedule is
online at
muslimfilm.org, or call 617-266-0080 for more information.
CONVERSATIONS WITH: Journalist and director Polly Devlin will be at the
Harvard Film Archive
tonight at 7 with her 1990 one-hour work "The Daisy Chain," a do***entary
about a boarding
school. The project erupted into a tempest for Devlin when a subject
withdrew her cooperation.
"Amid the accusations of manipulation and betrayal, the viewer can never
be certain of the
truth, never sure when the protagonists are performing for the camera and
when they are
genuinely its victims," Devlin says in a statement provided by the
archive.
"Just before the screening the then-director of [my] film school refused
to allow it to be
shown," she says. "I was not allowed to graduate." Devlin says that she
withdrew the film and
has not shown it for nearly 20 years.
Jennifer Fox brings her three-hour work "Flying: Confessions of a Free
Woman" to the MFA this
week. The five-year project is a do***ent of Fox's love life and those of
women in 17
countries, asking questions such as whether choice equals happiness and
what ***ual freedom
really means. It will be presented in two parts: the first half on
Thursday at 7 p.m. and
Saturday at 2:30 p.m., and the second half on Friday at 8 p.m. and
Saturday at 7 p.m. Fox will
be present at the Thursday and Friday shows.
SCREENINGS OF NOTE: The Belmont World Film series closes tonight with the
New England premiere
of "Irina Palm," which premiered at last year's Berlin Film Festival and
stars Marianne
Faithfull. That's at 7:30 p.m. at the Studio Cinema in Belmont
(617-484-3980 and
belmontworldfilm.org).
"Then She Found Me," starring Helen Hunt as a teacher getting over a
separation from her
husband (Matthew Broderick) by dating a student's parent (Colin Firth),
gets a pre-release
screening by the Boston Jewish Film Festival at the West Newton Cinema on
Thursday at 7 p.m.
Northampton-based Elinor Lipman, who wrote the book on which the movie is
based, will be at the
show (617-244-9899 and bjff.org).
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/04/13/a_fresh_focus_on_muslim_women/
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com
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