Asking The Questions We Avoid: A Film Review of “The Insult”
The Insult, directed by the renowned and controversial Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri, is an intense, thought provoking film. Critics worldwide have praised it and it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2018 Oscars. However, it has sparked…
The Time That Remains: Political or Anti-political?
The film The Time That Remains, created by Elia Suleiman, is a personal account of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 to present day. The film was inspired by Suleiman’s Fathers’ private diaries from when he was…
Omar: A Tale of Love and Loss in the West Bank
Since 1948, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been an ongoing saga of violence, brutality, and retribution which has encompassed the lives of thousands in the region. The movie Omar illustrates how an everyday man can be swept up in the conflict…
Review of Ahmed Jadallah’s “Daily Life in Shi’ite Baghdad”
Review of Ahmed Jadallah’s “Daily Life in Shi’ite Baghdad” Iraq has been overcome by a power struggle between Sunnis and Shi’ites, but life continues. In Baghdad the Shi’ite neighborhoods of Al-Fdhiliya and Sadr City have been targeted by Sunni groups…
From Oppression to Fame
From Occupation to Fame The movie “The Idol” tells the story of Muhammad Assaf and his path from oppression to fame. The movie portrays the occupation of Gaza very well by showing how difficult it is for a Palestinian to…
Omar (Netflix Movie) Review
Do you know how they catch monkeys in Africa? They addict them to sugar cubes. Then the hunter sets up a simple trap that closes on the monkeys hand when he grabs the cube. The hunter knows that the sugar-addicted…
The Insult (2017)- Review
The Insult (2017) is a movie directed by Ziad Doueiri and written by Joelle Touma. This movie can be characterized as a drama with an emphasis on historicism. Specifically, the Palestinian situation in Lebanon. The movie utilizes the Lebanese dialect…
Review: Salam Neighbor
Salam Neighbor is a documentary that focuses on Syrian refugees in the refugee camp, Zaatari, located in Jordan. This refugee camp has about 80,000 refugees living in it and this documentary explores the unknown inside of it and brings awareness…
How Comparison Can Literally Be the Thief of Joy
Shereen El Feki’s comparison of media in the Arab world to American pop culture during a TED talk is an open assessment of how the Arab world has seemingly borrowed western elements of pop culture. Her first contrasting element…
Review: Barakah Meets Barakah
Barakah Meets Barakah is a Saudi Arabian film released in 2016. It is a drama-comedy written and directed by Mahmoud Sabbagh and shot entirely in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The story focuses on a middle-class man named Barakah and Bibi, a…