Tuesday, February 27----New York film buffs have the opportunity to experience the creative vitality and sociopolitical realities of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia at the 2007 New York Arab & South Asian Film Festival (NYASAFF), which began last weekend and continues through Sunday, March 4th. The Festival is a collaborative effort among several cultural and media organizations, including Alwan For The Arts, 3rd i NY, South Asian Women's Creative Collective and Downtown Community Television.

A PERFECT DAY (France/Lebanon)The Festival is unspooling at the Tribeca Cinemas and Columbia University, will screen almost 50 films from the regions of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Aside from new films, many making their US Premieres at the event, the Festival will present two notable sidebar programs. The first special event includes rare screenings of Palestinian resistance films from the 1970s, which showcase the struggles to become a recognized and legitimate nation. Another notable section of the festival, WAR DIARIES,  will introduce the American public to unseen daily experiences of the people of Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. These images and scenes, which are markedly absent from the American nightly news, will be selected from footage donated by cameramen, videographer activists, and people living on the ground. Presented without commentary, and minimally edited by NYC-based filmmakers, WAR DIARIES will be screened both at the Tribeca Cinemas and projected in public spaces around New York City.

Nacer KhemirThe Festival will also present a mid-career retrospective of the film career of celebrated Tunisian director Nacer Khemir. Born in the town of Korba, Tunisia, in 1948, Nacer Khemir, or, as he insists on being called in Arabic print, Mohamed Al-Nasir Al-Khumeir, is a painter, sculptor, story-teller, and an award-winning filmmaker. He directed his first feature film THE STORY OF THE LAND OF GOD in 1975. For his 1984 film THE WAY MARKERS OF THE DESERT, he won the award for best film at the Film Festival of the Three Continents, in Nantes, France; the Festival of Carthage, Tunisia; Golden Palm Leaf and the Critic's award at the Valencia Film Festival (Spain). His latest film BAZ AZIZ: THE PRINCE WHO CONTEMPLATED HIS SOUL, is making the rounds of the Festival circuit, and will screen on Monday evening at Columbia University, with the director in attendance.

VIEW FROM A GRAIN OF SAND (Afghanistan)

For more information on the Festival, film schedule and other events, log on to their website: http://www.alwanforthearts.org/filmfestival 

Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor