DIASPORA FILM FESTIVAL 2004

Ottawa’s 4th annual Diaspora Film Festival (DFF) presents 11 films this year, focusing on the experience of Iranians, Palestinians, Ugandans, Moroccans and Lebanese living outside their countries of origin. November 4-6 in the Alumni Theatre of Ottawa University. The DFF also takes place in Toronto and Montreal.

While DFF includes productions by well-established filmmakers it also encourages young and emerging directors to participate. Any film or video made by a filmmaker living and working outside his or her country of origin is eligible.

Launched in 2001 to celebrate the diversity of films and videos directed by filmmakers living outside their countries of origin, DFF-Ottawa showcases films and videos from all genres that push the traditional boundaries of storytelling. Screened by a jury, films are selected because of their ability to inspire, provoke, inform and entertain with challenging images, topics, and themes. They can be shorts, features, documentaries, fiction or animation.

Over the past three years, DFF has screened films and videos produced in Canada, the US, the UK, Sweden, France, Norway, Austria, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. Filmmakers have come from a variety of countries and ethnic backgrounds, including Morocco, Iran, Uganda, Palestine, Israel, Singapore and Lebanon.


Please see festival schedule and film descriptions as attached. For more information, write to information@diasporafilmfest.org or call Mehri Abdollahi at (613) 241-2731. www.diasporafilmfest.org

Festival Schedule and Film Descriptions


Thursday November 4th, 6:30 p.m.

Never (a.k.a. Border); Reza Parsa, Sweden, 1995, 34 min.
Winner of 1996 Oscar for the best short film. Aisha, an Iranian under the threat of deportation, holds a class hostage, threatening to shoot the teacher and the children if her demands are not met.

The Eighth Song; Reza Parsa, Sweden, 2000, 14 min.
An immigrant father makes room for an elderly lady on the bus by taking his son on his lap. But the lady remains standing in the aisle rather than sit down next to the dark-haired pair. It is one of several emotional situations portrayed in the film.

Tigerheart (Tigerhjärta); Reza Parsa, Sweden, 2000, 14 min.
Maria, a 13-year-old, spent the summer with a family in the country. As she prepares to return to the city, she must say goodbye to her host family and to Anton, her first love. Their friendship is put to a severe test before they can share their first kiss.

Meeting Evil; Reza Parsa, Sweden, 2002, 14 min.
A man with 12 minutes left to live sits in the back seat of a car and speaks his words of valediction to the camera. Screened at Cannes, the film was disturbing and highly-controversial. Ingmar Bergman said it contained “perhaps the most astonishing moments ever created in a Swedish film”.


Thursday November 4th, 8:30 p.m.

Jalla! Jalla! (yalla yalla); Josef Fares, Sweden, 2002, 90 min.
Mans, a Swede, and Roro, an Arab, are best friends nearing thirty. Roro’s parents want him to marry an Arab woman as soon as possible, even though he is dating a Swedish girl. When Lebanese relatives turn up in the city and want him to marry their daughter, the trouble begins.



Friday November 5th, 6:30 p.m.

Amnesia Shahin Parhami, Canada, 2001, 14 min
Amnesia (Nesian) revolves around the improvised monologues of veteran Iranian actor Shahram Golchin (Desert of the Tatars (1976), Shatranj va Bod/Chess of the Wind (1977)). It is a cinematic composition that weaves director Shahin Parhami’s signature poetic style of writing with image and sound with Golchin’s improvised performance. Centred on the tale of a suicidal man who can’t remember where he has hidden his gun, Amnesia is a story of fragmented identity, perfumed with longing, the pain of forgetting and of being forgotten.


Meantime in Beirut Merdad Hage, Canada/Lebanon, 2002, 29 min.
Lamice, a 35-year-old Canadian, visits her native country Lebanon. She decides to stay in her war-destroyed childhood home and repair it, an undertaking intimately entangled with the reconstruction of a devastating childhood event. A comic tragedy where past and present intermingle.

Sayeh Kaveh Nabatian, Canada, 2002, 37 min.
Sayeh is a film about a documentary that went wrong. A small film crew follows Shahram Golchin, a former Iranian movie star, to meet a man who has lived in the Paris airport for over a decade.


Friday November 5th, 8:30 p.m.

Tale of Three Jewels; Michel Khleifi, Palestine/Belgium/England, 1994, 112 min.
Youssef, a 12- year-old Palestinian Arab in Gaza, has retreated into an imaginary world. Hunting birds one day, he falls in love with Aida, the young Gypsy leader of a gang of kids. Embarking upon a heroic journey in a bid to marry her, Youssef discovers the meaning of life in an embattled land.



Festival Schedule and Film Descriptions



Saturday November 6th, 6:30 p.m.

Ford Transit; Hani Abu-Assad, Palestine/Netherlands, 2002, 85 min.
Winner, Fipresci Prize, 2003; Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Khatabi transports Palestinians between Israeli military checkpoints in a battered Ford minivan. He takes pride in his ability to negotiate bullets and one-way streets. We see the daily interactions between Israelis and Palestinians that keep tensions at boiling point; hear passengers discuss George Bush, Yasser Arafat and suicide bombers.



Saturday November 6th, 8:30 p.m.

Just a Woman (Juste une femme); Mitra Farahani and Sonbol B.Y., France, 2001, 26 min.
An Iranian man has a sex change and lives as a woman out of public sight, within the four walls of her apartment. Eventually, she dons a chador and prepares herself to venture outside. How in a country like Iran can one desire to be a woman?

Salam; Suad el-Bouhati, France/Morocco, 1999, 30 min.
Old Ali cannot decide whether to stay in France or return to Morocco for the short time that remains of his life. He spends his days of deliberation at Momo’s apartment, pondering his Arab roots and French citizenship.

Malcolm; Kaeim Bakir, Sweden, 2002, 18 min.
A Ugandan refugeed in Sweden, Malcolm lives by day-to-day jobs. He hasn’t seen is son for a long time, and today is his son's birthday. A harrowing drama unfolds in the style of cinema-verité.