Desert in the
Coffeehouse
See online now at Culture
Unplugged:
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/11246/Desert-in-the-Coffeehouse
Art design by Asvar Aras
Trailer:
http://vimeo.com/14304624
Film Festivals
International Festival of Short
Films on Culture
and Tourism (Jaipur, India)
Jordan Short Film Festival
(Amman)
MESA Film Festival (Boston)
Radical
Frame Film Festival (Berlin)
Urban/Suburban Film Festival (Philadelphia)
CommFFest (Toronto)
Indie Fest (Award of Merit)
Charlotte Film Festival (North Carolina)
Square Lake Film Festival (St. Paul)
Chashama Film Festival (New York)
Best Shorts Competition (Award of Merit)
Selected
Screenings
Amideast, Cairo
American Embassy, Cairo
Southside Hub of Production (Chicago)
Maine Humanities Council (Portland)
Holy Cross College (New Orleans)
Australian Television Broadcast
Comment from Cairo
screening:
"Filmmaker Nice asks all the right questions, and succeeds
in shedding
light on the diversity of opinions within American society
on the Middle
East. Desert in the Coffeehouse is a great opening
for dialogue between the
U.S. and the Middle East."
--Matthew Kuehl, Education Abroad Program Manager
AMIDEAST/Egypt www.amideast.org
"Almost a decade after 9/11, and after numerous
publications and films, I have yet to see a documentary
that matches Pamela Nice's treatment of Americans'
perceptions of Arabs, Islam and the Middle East. By
allowing average Minnesotans to voice their opinions,
Nice's 'Desert in the Coffeehouse' brings America's
mainstream views--unedited and without embellishments--into
focus and lets us wrestle with our prejudices and hopes."
--Anouar Majid, author of We are All Moors and
A Call for Heresy
Desert in the
Coffeehouse
28.00 minutes
Café Aziza, Inc., 2010
Credits:
Direction, script, interviews, voiceover:
Pam Nice
Camera and editing: Mark Tang
Music: Yehya Khalil
Audio mix and post-production sound: Depth Audio--Jeff
Deeth
Produced by Café Aziza, Inc.
Desert in the Coffeehouse Synopsis
Many
Arabs may have stereotypes of Americans being
materialistic, sex-obsessed and intent on controlling world
resources. But the actions of our government and the image
projected by our media do not reflect the lives of average
Americans. This film attempts to put a face on the
“American public,” who are for the most part aware that
their foreign policy is creating enemies in the Arab world.
Some are naïve and ignorant about the Middle East; others
are fairly well-informed and appalled at our policies. This
film asks two basic questions: what do Americans think
about the Middle East, and do they see America as an
empire? Minnesotans from a variety of backgrounds,
interviewed in coffeehouses across the Twin Cities, reflect
on these questions and on our relationship with
people in the Middle East.
DC Program Notes
This
film is an answer to a challenge and a question posed by
Ahmed, a young Moroccan, when I was teaching theatre at the
National Theatre Institute in Rabat. “We want to know what
Americans--not their government or media--think of Arabs.”
This was followed by, “Do they feel like they are living in
an empire?” This film explores the territory between these
two thoughts. My map was made of questions I had heard many
times in Egypt, Morocco and Syria. With it, I discovered
how my fellow Minnesotans--over 100 of them, in many
coffeehouses in Minneapolis and St. Paul—were thinking of
the Middle East and America’s relationship to it. What
images do they have of the Middle East? Where do they get
their news of this region? Do they know why Palestine is so
important to Arabs and Muslims around the world? Why do
they think we’re so involved in the Middle East? How do
they think Arabs view us? And finally, back to Ahmed’s
question, considering the financial and human investment in
the Iraq War and the War on Terror, do they feel like we’re
living in a country at war?