Our April DocuClub will take place on Wednesday, April 21, 7 p.m., at DCTV [http://www.dctvny.org/], located at 87 Lafayette Street (at Walker; take N/R/Q/6 trains to Canal).
We will be showing a rough cut of short documentary BISMILLAH by Jolene Pinder and Sarah Zaman. The film follows the beginnings of one Muslim woman’s groundbreaking struggle against America’s political structure. BISMILLAH tells the story of Farheen Hakeem, a feisty 31-year-old Muslim Girl Scout troop leader who puts herself under public scrutiny by taking part in the consummate patriotic act: running for office. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Farheen is the first Muslim woman to run for office in Minnesota. Putting Midwestern niceties aside, she is neither apologetic for her religious beliefs nor silent about the biases she sees in her community. She lives the phrase emblazoned on her favorite t-shirt: “This is what a radical Muslim feminist looks like.”
BISMILLAH was a finalist for the International Documentary Association's David Wolper Award, won first place in the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' College Television Awards (Student Emmys) and was the recipient of a CINE Golden Eagle Award.
Co-director Sarah Zaman was born and brought up in Pakistan, and came to the U.S. in the fall of 2002 to pursue an undergraduate degree in Communication Studies at Eastern Illinois University. While earning her B.A. in Mass Communications, she worked as a news producer, reporter, cameraperson, writer and assignment editor for three years at WEIU-TV (the PBS affiliate) in Charleston, Illinois. Sarah graduated from the University of Florida's Documentary Institute in 2007. Currently, she works as an anchor and producer for Voice of America's Urdu TV show in Washington, DC.
Co-director Jolene Pinder is currently the Festival and Outreach Director at Arts Engine. Prior to this work with AE's Media That Matters Film Festival [wwwmediathatmatteresfest.org], she was an Associate Producer at Big Mouth Films (the production arm of Arts Engine) [http://www.artsengine.net/bigmouthfilms]. She is currently a co-producer on the Arts Engine work-in-progress Asexuality: The Making of a Movement [http://www.artsengine.net/asexuality]. In her role in the production department, she was Associate Producer for Outreach and Distribution on Arts Engine's latest releases, Arctic Son [http://www.artsengine.net/arctic_son] and Election Day. Recently, she screened the short film Little Fountains (co-directed with Josh Solondz) at MoMA as part of her work with the UnionDocs Collaborative. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida's Documentary Institute.
Our moderator will be Iris Morales, a life-long activist, educator, media producer and writer. She is the producer, writer and co-director of !PALANTE, SIEMPRE PALANTE! THE YOUNG LORDS, an award-winning documentary that chronicles Puerto Rican activism in the United States in the Sixties. Broadcast on P.O.V in 1996, it continues to be widely screened at film festivals, colleges, high schools, and community venues across the country. Morales has also produced several short films and web-based projects, and has published articles about Puerto Rican migration, immigration and detention, gender equality and other social justice issues. Recently, she produced and launched US-PuertoRicans.org, a web-based multi-media project that integrates commentary, news, video, photographs, maps, and history dedicated to the Puerto Rican Diaspora. She is also an attorney and currently serves on advisory boards of the Caribbean Cultural Center and Teatro Vida, has previously served on the boards of Women Make Movies, the Association of Hispanic Arts, and Black and Hispanic Images (BHI) and on artists panels at the National Endowment for the Arts [www.arts.gov], P.O.V. Television Series [www.pbs.org/pov], Urbanworld Film Festival [www.uwff.com], Media That Matters Film Festival [http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/], New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Independent Television Service (ITVS), among others.
Admission is free for current DocuClub members and $6 for non-members.
If you plan to attend, please RSVP at docuclub@artsengine.net [docuclub@artsengine.net]. Our previous screenings have sold out and although admission for non-members is on a first-come, first-serve basis, it is highly recommended if you let us know that you’ll be attending.
Membership is an annual $50 and it includes free admission to all DocuClub events. It takes five minutes to join online:
http://www.artsengine.net/store/items/docuclub_membership_individual_rate
