Amman Stand-Up Comedy Festival is calling for auditions, 1 or 2 Jordanians will have the chance to be a part of the festival. If you are funny and you think you can make people laugh either in Arabic or in English, all you have to do is to show up at the small theatre of Al-Hussein Cultural Center - Ras El-Ein, on November 29th, 2008 at 5 PM.
The judging Panel will include Dean Obeidallah, Aron Kader, Lee McGrath from Play 99.6, and Khaled Burgan from GAM.
This should be seriously hilarious! The stars of the Axis of Evil comedy show Aron Kader, Dean Obeidallah, Maz Jobrani, and Ahmed Ahmed will join a great group of comedians from around the world to perform live at the Amman Stand-Up Comedy Festival, a 4-day event that will be held between 2 - 5 December 2008 at Al-Hussein Cultural Center.
The Axis of Evil is one of the best comedy shows I’ve ever seen, the combination is amazing; 4 Middle Eastern guys - Aron and Dean are originally Palestinians, Maz is Iranian, and Ahmed is Egyptian - all coming together to change people’s perspective on Middle Easterns and Muslims in general, it’s really funny!
For more details:
Ticket price: 20 JODs
Telephone: +962 6 473 9956
E-mail: ASCF@ammancity.gov.jo
The Palestinian Film Week begins today in Amman and will feature an interesting group of Palestinian films, all subtitled to English. The screening will take place daily at 7 pm, Sunday till Thursday of this week at Al-Balad Theater (Masra7 Al-Balad) - click for the map, and will conclude at Al-Hussein Cultural Center on Saturday 8 November 2008 at 8 pm. For more details please call: +962 6 465 2005. The schedule is below
The Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF) faced some criticism for totally ignoring the Arabic language, the Syrian actor Abed Fahed lead the criticism, and I agree with him, yes English is the universal language, but you can’t totally ignore Arabic, have an Arabic interface for the website, circulate an Arabic schedule beside the English one, translate the speeches since you are doing it an Arab country. According to Fahed, Cannes Festival runs in French, Berlin Festival is in German, and so on, which means Arabic should be an integral part of this festival.
Anyways, some numbers, and the list of winners:
The awards were the culmination of ten action-packed days of cinema, with 152 movies and 186 screenings shown in five Abu Dhabi venues. A total of 76 feature films and 34 short films from over 35 countries competed for the MEIFF 2008 Black Pearl Awards.
Winners of the US$1 million MEIFF 2008 Black Pearl Awards were announced at the festival’s closing night ceremony, directed and choreographed by Otis Sallid.
MEIFF 2008 Black Pearl Award Winners:-
The Black Pearl for Best Narrative Film - $200,000
Disgrace | Director: Steve Jacobs. Producers: Anna Maria Monticelli, Emile Sherman, Steve Jacobs
The Black Pearl for Best Documentary – $150,000
Stranded | Director: Gonzalo Arijon. Producer: Marc Silvera
The Black Pearl Special Jury Prize- $125,000
Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love | Director and Producer: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
The Black Pearl for Best Actress - $75,000
Fawzia: A Special Blend | Actress: Ilham Shaheen
The Black Pearl for Best Actor - $75,000
Wild Blood | Actor: Luca Zingaretti
The Black Pearl for Best Artistic Contribution - $75,000
Laila’s Birthday | Screenwriter: Rashid Masharawi
The Black Pearl Audience Choice Award
Saving Luna | Co-Directors: Suzanne Chisholm & Michael Parfit. Producer: Suzanne Chisholm
The Black Pearl for Best Narrative - Short Film- $75,000
The View | Co-Directors: Hazim Bitar & Rifqi Assaf. Producer: Amman Filmmaker Cooperative
The Black Pearl for Best Documentary – Short Film- $75,000
Breadmakers | Director: Yasmin Fedda. Producers: Jim Hickey & Robin Mitchell
The Black Pearl for Best Animation- Shot Film- $75,000
Jacinta | Director: Karla Casteneda. Producer: Luis Tellez
Best Advertisement – Cultural Category - $25,000
Anti Slavery | Director: Eric Lynne. Producer: Partizan Films – Midi Minuit
Best Advertisement – Consumer Category - $25,000
Battle | Director: Traktor. Producer: Partizan Films – Midi Minuit
Best Advertisement – Artistic Contribution - $25,000
Great Pretender | Director: Patrick Bergh. Producer: Partizan Films – Midi Minuit
The Black Pearl for Best Narrative – Student Films – $25,000
Illusion | Director: Burhan Qurbani. Producer: Fabian Gasmia
The Black Pearl for Best Emerging Filmmaker – Student Films- $25,000
Lullaby | Director: Serena Abi Aad. Producer: IESAV
The Black Pearl for Best Animation – Student Films – $25,000
Adherent | Director: Julian Nazario Vargas. Producer: Rube Baggerud
American sitcoms are my favorite TV shows, from Seinfeld to That ’70s Show, to Scrubs, Becker, My Name is Earl, Grounded for life, Mad About You, to Saved By The Bell, and Step by Step, I enjoy watching it, it’s really funny and entertaining, pretty stupid as well, but it goes easy, each episode is like 20 minutes long, no need to think or follow-up to stay engaged, which makes it the perfect solution for someone who seeks some entertainment after a hectic day.
In the Arab world, few sitcoms appeared in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, but frankly it’s really really bad, not even close to being funny, I believe it should be called sickoms, it made me think, why can’t Arabs do a simple comedy show like those we see in America? Egypt has a great history with comedy, whether it’s TV, cinema or on stage, even their TV Commercials, you won’t stop laughing, but with sitcoms, Egyptians didn’t succeed to create present good stuff.
Few reports talked about a planned visit of the co-producer of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ellen Sandler, to Dubai in November, where she will be conducting a workshop on scriptwriting during the Media and Marketing Show. The workshop, Everybody Loves Sitcoms, will give insights on Hollywood producers’ techniques in short-format and long-format comedy shows. The workshop will teach the participants how to manage the whole process of creating a television show, from pitching to financing and managing the crow, all the way to creating buzz around the show.
Sounds promising, but will it help in changing Arab’s idea of light comedy shows?
