ARTEEAST - Arts and Cultures of the Middle East and its diasporas

ARTEEAST: Arts and Cultures of the Middle East and it's diasporas

ArteEast, a New York-based international nonprofit organization established in 2003, supports and promotes artists from the Middle East and its diasporas by raising awareness of their most significant and groundbreaking work through public events, exhibitions, screenings, a biennial film festival, a dynamic online gallery and a resource-rich website.

This Month:

		Upcoming Screenings Worldwide: May 6 - 11, 2008 - Rome, Italy Tekfestival screening of “Summer 2006, Palestine” May 7 - 10, 2008 - Cairo, Egypt Euro Arab-Cinema Caravan, organized in collaboration with SEMAT, will screen Omar Amiralay’s films “The Misfortunes,” “The Saphocage of Love,” and “There are Many Things” as part of ArteEast’s “Lens of Syria” Touring Program. May 8, 2008 - Rijeka, Croatia Screening of “Summer 2006, Palestine” May 21, 2008 - New Orleans, LA Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center will screen “Wesh Wesh” as part of ArteEast’s “Beur is Beautiful” Touring Program *May 28, 2008* - New Orleans, LA Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center will screen “Bled Number1” as part of ArteEast’s “Beur is Beautiful” Touring Program May 29, 2008 - Corvallis, Oragon Oragon State University screening of “Bled Number 1” as part of ArteEast’s “Beur is Beautiful” Touring Program

		This month in ArteNews: Between the ardor of militants and passions of aesthetes, a retrospective visit to the golden era of ciné-clubs in the Arab world There was a time in the contemporary history of Arab world, a mere forty or thirty years ago, when the passion for non-commercial cinema and the yearning for critical engagement with art and culture inspired the formation of ciné-clubs. This month's quarterly feature, In the Clement Society of Cinema, edited by Daikha Dridi and Rasha Salti, explores these cultural spaces which drew significant membership and transformed into vivacious realms for a free and open dialogue with world cinema and politically-engaged art. New! Click Here to View or Add Comments on the Issue

		The Virtual Gallery The Virtual Gallery launches its series of exhibitions exploring the history of modern art in the Middle East with Saloua Raouda Choucair. Born in Beirut in 1916, Raouda Choucair has devoted her career to rethinking art as a modernizing, civilizing, beautifying project and to applying Islamic aesthetics and mathematics to everyday experiences. Her sculptures combine a sense of contemporary global time and scientific discoveries with Sufic insights into human existence. Easily assimilated to abstract geometricism, her work has not been understood at home or abroad through its own terms… Click here to browse the Saloua Raouda Choucair exhibition

		Beur is Beautiful: A retrospective of Maghrebi-French Cinema A groundbreaking program of Maghrebi-French cinema: an emerging trend reflecting upon the legacy of colonialism and the challenges of integration and assimilation of immigrant populations in France. Curated by Carrie Tarr. This exciting program premiered at ArteEast’s 2007 CinemaEast Film Festival. The term "beur" is a French slang derivation of the word Arabe, and refers to the French-born children of North African (Maghrebi) immigrants who, for the most part, grew up in the concrete wastelands of the low-income housing projects in the working-class suburbs (banlieues) of France. February 5 - December 31, 2008

		Baghdad Film School-Making Movies in Iraq Now available online - Film clips and audio recording of Maysoon Pachachi and Kasim Abid's presentation "Baghdad Film School: Making Movies in Iraq."

		Events Around the World Click here to learn about worldwide events pertaining to the Middle East and its diasporas. Click here to post a new event

		Grow with us! Join ArteEast as we expand to showcase even more premier talent from the Middle East Beginning in 2003 with only a handful of monthly film screenings, ArteEast now offers several major annual film programs, including the CinemaEast film series and biennial film festival, visual arts exhibits, publications, and online resources. ArteEast has partnered with heavyweights such as Lincoln Center and the Tribeca Film Festival to broaden the audience for Middle Eastern film and art. Through our supporters, ArteEast has increased awareness of the Middle East and its contemporary arts across North America and internationally. Click here for more info