Saturday, March 3, 2007
SAUDI FILMMAKER'S VISA PROBLEMS LEAD TO FESTIVAL ABSENCE
Put this one in the irony department. Abdullah al-Muheisin, the director of a Saudi Arabian film (rare since that country produces few movies), missed the New York Arab and South Asian Film Festival in New York which is showing his film this evening. al-Muheisin applied three weeks ago for the visa and was initially told to wait seven weeks for a visitor visa. Attempts to expedite processing proved unsuccessful.
The New York Times reports
“I am sad that I could not be able to be in the United States to bridge the gap between the culture of our two societies, to know the people, and explain what is needed to be explained during my projection,” the director, Abdullah al-Muheisin, said in a telephone interview from Riyadh. His film, “Shadow of Silence,” is set in an unnamed Arab country, and follows the travails of a woman who enlists a group of Bedouin tribesmen to free her husband from a state institution set up, according to the festival summary, to “manufacture unthinking citizens.”
Mr. Muheisin added: “Our good relationship is too long to be damaged by somebody who is an alien to Saudi society — Bin Laden or whoever tried to spoil that relation. It is sad. We are paying the price for the mistake of somebody else.”
The Times reports that an Iraqi national who starred in the popular film United 93 was denied a visa to attend last year's premiere of the Academy Award nominated film.
# posted by Greg Siskind @ 10:55 PM
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The New York Times reports
“I am sad that I could not be able to be in the United States to bridge the gap between the culture of our two societies, to know the people, and explain what is needed to be explained during my projection,” the director, Abdullah al-Muheisin, said in a telephone interview from Riyadh. His film, “Shadow of Silence,” is set in an unnamed Arab country, and follows the travails of a woman who enlists a group of Bedouin tribesmen to free her husband from a state institution set up, according to the festival summary, to “manufacture unthinking citizens.”
Mr. Muheisin added: “Our good relationship is too long to be damaged by somebody who is an alien to Saudi society — Bin Laden or whoever tried to spoil that relation. It is sad. We are paying the price for the mistake of somebody else.”
The Times reports that an Iraqi national who starred in the popular film United 93 was denied a visa to attend last year's premiere of the Academy Award nominated film.
# posted by Greg Siskind @ 10:55 PM
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