Condom Lead

+Paired with Eyes of a Thief
+Palestine in Focus

Saturday, 11/7 at St. Anthony Main Theatre
7:00 p.m.

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Directors: Arab and Tarzan Nasser
Experimental/Narrative short, 17 mins, 2013
Country: Palestine
Minnesota premiere

Principal cast: Maria Mohammedi, Rashid Abdelhamid, Eloïse von Vollenstein

Synopsis: “Cast Lead” is the name of the 2009 offensive against the Gaza Strip; it was a seige that lasted for 22 continuous days. Terror and despair seized the population, and, unable to move, people were plunged into an unbearable oppression. Caught in the net of such brutality, banal instincts are thrown into harsh relief, and the search for physical and psychological safety and equilibrium become a necessity. The filmmakers ask: in the heart of war, do we make love? Aircraft, missiles, tanks – their deafening noise, their ground-shaking explosions – will in the end colonize both body and soul. War machines will triumph over human will and when we need the healing power of intimacy the most, love and desire become balloons just waiting to be burst. What condom can protect against this?

Tarzan and Arab Nasser are budding filmmakers and identical twin brothers from Gaza. They were born in 1988, one year after the last cinemas in Gaza were closed. The brothers developed their passion for filmmaking with the help of Gazan filmmaker Khalil Al Mozayen, working together for four years in Gaza’s fledgling avant-garde film industry. In 2010, Tarzan and Arab received the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s prestigious Young Artist of the Year Award for their conceptual artwork “Gazawood,” a series of mock-Hollywood posters for imaginary feature films named after real Israeli military offensives on Gaza, and their short film “Colorful Journey.” The posters and film were featured in a number of exhibits abroad, including at London’s Mosaic Room in 2011. Named two of the “50 People Shaping the Culture of the Middle East” by Al-Monitor in 2012, in October of the same year Tarzan and Arab were invited to Jordan to take part in “THIS IS also GAZA: A Celebration of Contemporary Visual Arts from the Gaza Strip,” where they met the exhibition’s curator, the Palestinian architect and designer Rashid Abdelhamid.

Festivals:
Festival de Cannes, France, 2013
Dubai International Film Festival, UAE, 2013
Newport Beach Film Festival, USA, 2014

Screening with Eyes of a Thief