Pitt Global Studies Program Runs “Reel Voices From the Middle East” Film Series

Throughout February, the University of Pittsburgh’s Global Studies Program is presenting a film series titled “Reel Voices From the Middle East.”

The series was developed to emphasize contemporary issues in the foreground of Middle East culture. It coincides with Visiting Pitt Professor Mazyar Lotfalian’s teaching courses on the interaction of Islam and science and technology and the relationship between Islam and cinema. Lotfalian, who holds the Visiting Professorship in Contemporary International Issues in Pitt’s University Center for International Studies, was a resident scholar at the University of California at Santa Cruz’s Center for Cultural Studies prior to coming to Pitt.

The films highlight the diverse perspectives of Middle Eastern culture and examine questions of gender, war, religion, and culture. Many of the films explore the relationship between tradition and modernism, the formation of identity, the breaking of stereotypes, and the poetic and musical trends in the Middle East.

Showings include discussions led by Pitt School of Arts and Sciences faculty members Mohammed Bamyeh, Department of Sociology; Amani Attia, Less-Commonly-Taught Languages (LCTL) Center in the Department of Linguistics; and Lotfalian.

Film showings begin at 7 p.m. and are held in the Frick Fine Art Auditorium. The schedule follows:

• Feb. 7: Four Women of Egypt (Tahani Rached, 1997)
• Feb. 8: Mahmoud Darwich: As the Land Is the Language (Simone Bitton, 1997)
• Feb. 14: 20 Fingers (Mania Akbari, 2004)
• Feb. 15: Under the Moonlight (Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi, 2002)
• Feb. 21: Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi, 2005)
• Feb. 22: Forget Baghdad (Samir, 2002)

The event is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh’s Global Studies Program, University Center for International Studies, Film Studies Program, LCTL Center,

University Library Services’ Stark Media Services, with additional help from the Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies, the Pittsburgh Chapter Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the Pittsburgh Gulf Initiative. For more information, contact Veronica Dristas at dristas@pitt.edu or 412-624-2918.

For more information about the Global Studies Program, visit www.ucis.pitt.edu/global or e-mail global@ucis.pitt.edu.