Palestinian actor-filmmaker Samira Saraya with artistic collaborator Neta Weiner brings 4 films made in Israel about Palestinian and Israeli social and political relations Thursday October 10th 7:00pm
Q&A and discussion to follow
Presented Free to the public by College of the Atlantic first come seating only.
Samira Saraya is an actor, writer, director, spoken word artist, musician and LGBTQ activist. She was born in Haifa in 1975. In her early twenties, she began performing as a drag king while working as a nurse. She won the Acco Festival Award for unique acting in 2012; Fringe Theatre Award for 2015 and 2017; Best Actress Award in the 2017 Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF); and the Best Script Award for her short film Polygraph of 2018 at TLVFest. Samira graduated from Tel Aviv University with a degree in directing and debuted with Polygraph in 2020. She is also a member of the System Ali band.
Neta Weiner is a musician, theatre director, singer, actor, rapper, poet, accordionist, and the artistic director of "Beit System Ali," a multi-lingual hip-hop project. He was born in Kibbutz Givat Haim in 1987. Weiner has created and acted in several critically acclaimed and award-winning stage works produced for festivals and prominent theaters worldwide. As a musician, he wrote the soundtrack for the acclaimed TV teen series "Madrasa” (meaning "school" in Arabic). Weiner is a lecturer in Tufts University's Theatre, Dance, and Performance Department and a guest scholar at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University.
"Death of a Poetess" (Dir. Dana Goldberg and Efrat Mishori, 2017, 1 hr 15 mins, in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles)
Synopsis: "A delicate, poetic cinematic work, consisting of two parallel axes. Lenny Sadeh is a Tel Aviv based scholar who passes through the last day of her life. Yasmin Nasser, an Arab nurse who lives in Jaffa, is interrogated by the police. The worlds of these two women meet for a critical moment and are bound together inseparably." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7067390/ PLEASE NOTE: This film ("Death of a Poetess") engages subject matter that might be difficult for some, including (but not limited to) suicide, murder, and political interrogation.
Polygraph (Dir. Samira Saraya, 2020, 20 mins.)
Synopsis: "Yasmine, an openly lesbian Arab nurse, finds out that her lover, Or, an intelligence officer in the Israeli army has been reporting on their relationship. Yasmine's sister arrives for a visit from the West Bank, not knowing that she is going to meet the occupying enemy at her own sister's house." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11760462/
"Samira" (Dir. Anna Anat Gofman Banai, 2021, 18 mins, in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles)
Synopsis: "Leading up to her concert, Samira, an Arab lesbian singer, invites her family to see her on stage for the first time - something that feels almost like coming out again." (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22487134/)
Bilingual (Dir. Bar Talmon, 2022, 9 mins.)
Synopsis: "Two pairs of parents attempt to catch a criminal who is responsible for racist graffiti on the walls of the bilingual school where their children go. But a fight that took place between their children that week threatens to destroy the delicate dynamics between the group." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31810661/