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Time for another round of extreme horror from the good folks at TetroVideo.   This month they're releasing Andrey Iskanov's Philosophy of a Knife, Usama Alshaibi's Profane and the horror anthology Echoes From The Grave. If you like your horror gnarly then consider picking up any of these beauties.    More information about each title in the Nsfw gallery below.   TetroVideo September releases: Philosophy of a Knife, Echoes from the Grave and Profane   Thanks to TetroVideo, the docu-horror film Philosophy of a Knife (2008) by Andrey Iskanov (Nails e Vision of Suffering) is available on Blu-ray for the first time ever and the pre-order is now live on the official TetroVideo website and on Goredrome.   Philosophy of a Knife comes in a...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Baghdad, Iowa is the latest film by Usama Alshaibi and is a metaphysical road trip across a dreamy landscape and into a tortured psyche.

The Underground Film Journal has seen an advance screener of the film and we can attest that it’s one of the best of Alshaibi’s considerable career. The film deals with the themes of desire, identity and mortality that the filmmaker has been exploring in past work such as Profane and American Arab; yet through an intimately personal and surreal visual prism. Look for it on the upcoming festival circuit.

In related personal news, Alshaibi was recently diagnosed with having Keratocystic odontogenic tumors along his jawbone that he is in the process of having removed. His wife Kristie has set up Go Fund Me account, if you would like to help out with their medical expenses.

The Brisbane Underground Film Festival is one of the newest underground fests on the block, celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2015. It also exists almost entirely as a passion project by festival director Nina Riddel, who founded, programs and runs the fest entirely by herself. A daunting task indeed!

This is the first year that Riddel has taken to crowdfunding to help defray some of Buff’s costs next year. Contributions via Indiegogo will go towards “screening fees for the films, shipping, equipment, projection staff, printing and distributing the program, and a small amount of promotion.”

Riddel programs great films every year, bringing wonderfully weird, exotic and fun cinematic experience to a part of the world where these types of fantastic movies would otherwise would not be shown. In the past, she has programmed films such as Jeffrey Schwarz‘s awesome documentary I Am Divine, Usama Alshaibi‘s spiritual drama Profane...

See You Next Tuesday is the debut feature film by underground filmmaker Drew Tobia. It stars Eleanore Pienta as Mona, a pregnant supermarket worker who is quickly losing her grasp on reality and is unable to find the support she needs from her alcoholic mother and party girl sister, Jordan.

The film has been a hit on the underground film festival circuit, having won the Audience Award at last year’s the Chicago Underground Film Festival and the Most Effectively Offensive Award at the Boston Underground Film Festival. It also screened at the Sydney Underground Film Festival, Arizona Underground Film Festival, Brisbane Underground Film Festival and Migrating Forms.

Next up, See You Next Tuesday will be getting an official theatrical release, opening at the Cinema Village in New York City on August 22nd; and will be available on multiple VOD platforms shortly after.

Previously, Tobia has directed numerous hilarious and...

Identity is a funny thing. Defining ourselves is our first step in defining the world around us, especially in the way that we define others. Or “the other.” So, what happens when one spends his formative years as “the other” in an otherwise fairly homogeneous culture?

At once, American Arab — the latest provocative documentary by Usama Alshaibi — is both profoundly personal and culturally inquisitive. It is the first grand statement in a discussion that has been begging to take place since September 11, 2001: What is the role of the Arab in modern American society?

For his previous two feature-length films, Alshaibi has been toying with notions of his identity, whether directly in the documentary Nice Bombs in which he returned to his hometown of Baghdad, Iraq following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, or through proxy in his fiction film Profane, about a female sex worker struggling with her religious background.

Jack Sargeant, director of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival, has co-curated a photography show with Linsey Gosper that will have its opening at the Alaska Projects gallery in Sydney, Australia on Tuesday, August 21 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

While the show is untitled, it has been colloquially named “Atrocity Exhibitions” and will feature photographs by a number of underground filmmakers and other artists. The show will be on display from the 21st to the 26th.

Inspired by the experimental novel by J G Ballard The Atrocity Exhibition, this photography show will explore “the emergence of new manifestations of the psychosexual unconscious.” The images document unusual fetishes and unleashed urges that emerge “from the collusion of urban zones and economics, amputated urges and personal explorations of seduction and desire.”

Artists represented in the show include transgressive filmmaker Usama Alshaibi and underground icon Lydia Lunch, as well as work by Romain Slocombe,...

By Allen Gardner

The Samurai Trilogy (Criterion) Director Hiroshi Inagaki’s sprawling epic filmed from 1954-56 is an early Japanese Technicolor masterpiece, rivaling the scope of filmmakers like David Lean and Luchino Visconti. Toshiro Mifune, Japan’s greatest actor, stars as real-life swordsman, artist and writer Musashi Miyamoto, following his growth from callow youth to disciplined warrior. The three films: the Oscar winning “Musashi Miyamoto,” “Duel at Ichijoji Temple,” and “Duel at Ganryu Island” are an incredible story of human growth, tender love and sublime, blood-soaked action. Not to be missed. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Interviews with translator and historian William Scott Wilson; Trailers. Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono.

The 39 Steps (Criterion) Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 story of spies, conspiracies and sexual tension put him on the map on both sides of the Pond. Robert Donat stars as an innocent thrust into a deadly plot alongside a cool blonde (Madeleine Carroll...

By MoreHorror.com

Profane is an upcoming "psychosexual horror" film that details the life of a young Muslim Pro Domme in the midst of a spiritual crisis.

We've got a trailer for you to check out as well as a few exclusive stills that can be seen below the official press details.

From The Press Release:

Profane is a feature length motion picture, directed by Usama Alshaibi, about a young Muslim Pro Domme in the midst of a spiritual crisis. It explores the idea of submission from a religious, psychological and sexual perspective. It is also a horror film about possession by a jinn.

Jinn are the Islamic equivalent of demons. According to the Qur'an, Allah (God) created humans from clay, angels from light and jinn from smokeless fire. They are equally good and evil, and it is said that each of us has one of our own. Profane is an inverted exorcism.

Lausanne Underground Film Festival

The Lausanne Underground Film Festival is an epic 5-day event in Switzerland of the most outrageous movies from all over the world. The 11th annual edition will run on Oct. 17-21 at the Swiss Film Archives and will feature tons of new films, as well as retrospectives of legendary underground filmmakers. Submitting a film, as per Luff tradition, is free.

Luff typically screens a cross-section of over-the-top gross-out flicks, trippy cult movies, experimental narratives, documentaries on fringe subjects, short experimental films and a ton more.

Last year, they screened films such as the unbelievably outrageous The Taint by Drew Bolduc and Dan Nelson, Calvin Lee Reeder’s experimental The Oregonian, Adam Rehmeier‘s fantastically brutal The Bunny Game, Marie Losier’s acclaimed portrait The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye and Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film’s 2011 Movie of the Year Profane by Usama Alshaibi,...

Denver Underground Film Festival

The Denver Underground Film Festival is changing things up a bit this year, namely moving its screening dates up a few months. The fest will run May 18-20 instead of its usual late autumn / early winter dates.

This is also a short films only festival, accepting movies that are 30 minutes or less. But, they are looking for short films in all applicable genres and breaking things into these categories: Narrative, Experimental, Animated, Documentary and Music Video.

To get an idea of the kinds of films they like, it’s probably best to check out last year’s list of award winners, which comes with general descriptions of why they won. You can also look at last year’s full lineup here.

Since the fest is running earlier than normal this year, here at Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film, we’ve missed posting their Early Bird Deadline.

Migrating Forms

Migrating Forms, the premiere festival for experimental media, is now open for entries for their fourth annual edition that will run at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City on May 11-20.

Each year, Migrating Forms programs the most innovative, challenging, medium-defying, unique and flat-out unidentifiable films and videos from all over the world. Work ranges from the artistic documentary to the completely non-narrative filmic experiments to genre-bending narratives and more.

If you feel your film or video belongs in the upper echelon of experimental media-making, then this is the fest to try to get in to.

Early Deadline: Feb. 15, 2012

Entry Fee: $30

Regular Deadline: Mar. 1, 2012

Entry Fee: $40

Final Deadline: Mar. 15, 2012

Entry Fee: $50

Please visit the official Migrating Forms website for more info!

B-movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival

On the other side of the world is one of the more outrageous cult movie fests, the B-movie, Underground...

Christmas came a little bit early for eight filmmakers this month when the 4th annual Minneapolis Underground Film Festival handed out its annual awards. The fest was held earlier this month on Dec. 2-4.

The big winner this year was Steven Strauss’ Bronze, which took home the Best Feature Award. The controversial film tackles the issue of female “consent” through the story of three teenage girls who leave the comfortable confines of their suburban New Jersey home for a wild night of wicked fun — but end up getting into way more trouble than they wanted.

Another major winner at the fest was Usama Alshaibi’s Profane, which won the Best Experimental Award. Profane was also named this month as Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film’s Movie of the Year for 2011. The film, which combines experimental and traditional narrative filmmaking techniques, focuses on an emotionally lost female Muslim sex...

Bulle Ogier and Jacques Rivette on the set of L'Amour fou

Photo by Pierre Zucca

In the last issue of Senses of Cinema, Daniel Fairfax reviewed Douglas Morrey and Alison Smith's Jacques Rivette, and now, for Issue 61, Mary Wiles has allowed the editors to choose a chapter from her forthcoming Jacques Rivette. Rolando Caputo's decided to go with the one on L'amour fou (1969) for a number of reasons, but primarily because "the film seems the point of historical conjunction between the end of one wave and the coming of a second wave of filmmakers that washed up in its undertow. At a stretch, one can see the shadow of this film on the cinema of Jean Eustache, Maurice Pialat, Philippe Garrel and others. L'amour fou is a great and wondrous film." And he's running Rivette's 1950 essay "We Are Not Innocent Anymore" as well.

Also in this issue: Marko Bauer,...

Choosing Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film’s 2011 Movie of the Year came down to a near dead heat. There were two movies that came out this year filled with such grand ambition, artistry and skill that the decision almost came down to a tie before ultimately settling on the singular Movie of the Year tradition.

That movie this year is Usama Alshaibi‘s Profane, a spectacular triumph of uncompromising vision, extreme daring and intimate personal expression. There was simply no other film like it this year — underground or otherwise — and its only rival of sheer audacity of the past several years was last year’s Movie of the Year pick, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then.

And yes, I did say there was almost a tie this year. The first runner-up is a film that achieved greatness for several different reasons than Profane‘s accomplishments.

But, before I get to that close runner-up,...

For their 4th annual edition, the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival is pulling out all the stops, spotlighting great local and international filmmaking talent over the course of three days, Dec. 2-4, on two screens at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (McAd).

The fest opens with an ambitious Minneapolis-based move: Tyler Jensen’s 30 Films 30 Days. Working with hundreds of local participants, Jensen and his team completed a short film a day over the course of one month and this feature compiles all of them into one package. Plus, also screening on the same night is the groovy grindhouse horror flick The Disco Exorcist by Richard Griffin.

Over the course of the next two full days and nights, two of the best highlights of this year’s Muff include Usama Alshaibi‘s masterful mix of sex and religion Profane, Stuart Simpson‘s retro-sleazetastic monster flick El Monstro Del Mar!, neither of which are to be missed!

The 10th annual Lausanne Underground Film Festival is a truly epic film event with an immense lineup of the strangest, sexiest, most grotesque, oddball and downright freakish movies from all over the world — from modern underground treats to classic cult movies of yesteryear.

The fest officially begins on Oct. 15 with a special live performance by the legendary Diamanda Galas. But the film festivities run from Oct. 17-23, starting with the grand opening of an exhibition and retrospective of the films by Ericka Beckman.

The full film lineup, which is presented below, is a massive mix of underground greatness, but here are some of the highlights:

Gross-Out Flicks:

Chop, dir. Trent Haaga.

The Taint, dir. Drew Bolduc and Dan Nelson.

Calibre 9, dir. Jean-Christian Tassy.

The Bunny Game, dir. Adam Rehmeier

Trippy Movies:

Profane, dir. Usama Alshaibi

The Oregonian, dir. Calvin Lee Reeder

Hellacious Acres: The Case of John Glass, dir.

The Brisbane Underground Film Festival is a new, scrappy little fest on the scene that will screen several underground hits for three nights on Oct. 13-15 at the Visy Theatre in Brisbane, Australia.

On the narrative film front, there’s two mind-blowing American films: Zach Clark‘s wild ’90s indie film throwback comedy Vacation!, about four women who take a disastrous beach holiday; and Usama Alshaibi‘s über-trippy Profane, a moving and powerful portrait of a Muslim sex worker trying to regain her faith in Chicago. Plus, there’s Jason Eisener‘s bloody cult flick Hobo With a Shotgun and Terry McMahon’s Charlie Casanova.

On the documentary front, the fest will open the Le Tigre tour film Who Took the Bomp? by Kerthy Fix; then screen festival circuit hits Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods by Patrick Meaney and Shut Up Little Man! by Matthew Bate.

Plus, most film screenings...

The B-Movie Underground and Trash Film Festival brings their unique collection of international sleaze on Sept. 7-11 in the city of Breda in the Netherlands. Violence, gore, general grossness and perversion are, once again, near and dear to the heart of this fun fest.

From the U.S., the But Fest is screening a few modern underground classics while also celebrating a few of the old masters. Included in the lineup are Usama Alshaibi‘s mind-blowing Muslim sex worker flick Profane, Zach Clark‘s wild weekend of debauchery Vacation! and Dan Nelson & Drew Bolduc‘s over-the-top The Taint.

Plus, But is honoring Cinema of Transgression mastermind Nick Zedd with several screenings of his classic works, such as Thrust in Me, Police State and Whoregasm, as well as his recent public access TV series Electra Elf.

Other films from around world include horror hits like César Ducasse & Mathieu Peteul’s Dark Souls,...

For their 5th annual event, which is set to run Sept. 8-11, the Sydney Underground Film Festival is looking a little more demented than ever. And that’s saying a lot for this scrappy, still relatively young fest, which typically offers ample twisted cinematic offerings.

The fun kicks off with the Opening Night film, the demented superhero comedy Super, written and directed by former Troma go-to screenwriter James Gunn (Tromeo & Juliet); then ends with the Closing Night wallowing in Sydney’s seedy underbelly, X, by homegrown filmmaker Jon Hewitt.

Crammed between these two excursions into violence and depravity is a lineup filled with perverse visions, scandalous public figures, sickening horror, experimental pop culture remixes and more.

For Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film, the highlight of the fest is Usama Alshaibi‘s Profane, a complex psychological, psychosexual, spiritual morality play about a Muslim sex worker who endures a “reverse...

If it’s mid-summer, then it’s time for filmmakers to start thinking about their 2012 film festival runs. Yep, several fests are already opening up their submission process. A few weeks ago, Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film reported that the 50th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival was already looking for films. And now, two more unique fests have sent out their initial calls for 2012 already.

Boston Underground Film Festival

First up, the indomitable Boston Underground Film Festival will be celebrating their 14th raucous year in operation in late March of 2012 and they’re looking for outrageous, transgressive flicks to fill their programming slate.

Buff typically screens a ton of short films and several features. To get a feel for what types of films they’re looking for, check out last year’s lineup, which included lovely movies such as Usama Alshaibi‘s Muslim S&M meditation Profane, Jason Eisener...

Now this is what I always want to see more of: Filmmaker Chris Hansen started chronicling the shoot for his latest feature film, An Affair. He has several posts up, so I recommend going to his June blog archives to read up on how it’s going. (The shoot’s still in it’s very early stages.) I know blogging after a day of shooting probably sucks, but I love reading production diaries.In case you missed the fascinating recent dust up between the media advocacy group Reel Grrls and Comcast, Flip the Media has a great article on it, including the positive outcome of the whole thing.Usama Alshaibi’s Profane screened at the Chicago Underground Film Festival the other day and Ben Sachs has a capsule review of it in the Chicago Reader, which focuses on the film’s more lurid aspects.Speaking of Cuff, the Chicago Sun-Times...

Usama Alshaibi‘s astounding feature film Profane will be screening at 10:00 p.m. tonight, June 3, at the Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the 2011 Chicago Underground Film Festival. Tickets can be purchased in advance at the Cuff website.

Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film reviewed Profane just a few weeks ago and called the film Alshaibi’s “most accomplished work.” An excerpt from the review reads:

Alshaibi brilliantly weaves together all of these conflicts and his own diverse filmmaking styles into a rich, complex work that is part horror movie, part psycho-sexual drama, part spiritual odyssey, part experimental vision and more.

Watch the Profane movie trailer:

Profane

In Usama Alshaibi's Profane, a Muslim sex worker disconnected from her family and culture faces a spiritual crisis when her Jinn -- an inner demon -- is exorcised from her body. Feeling more lost than ever, she goes to...

Tonight marks the opening of the 18th annual Chicago Underground Film Festival. The fest is kicking off this year with the transcendental comedy debut feature by Jerzy Rose, Some Girls Never Learn.

The film chronicles several coincidental paranormal discoveries, including the unearthing of Amelia Earhart’s leg bone, the spontaneous gatherings of wildlife into concentric circles, the loss of helium into the luminiferous aether, and the journey a high school science teacher takes to the underworld to find his girlfriend.

The film screens tonight at 8:00 p.m. at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Watch the trailer below.

Cuff will then continue every night until June 9. Some other highlights of the fest include Usama Alshaibi’s Profane, Marie Losier‘s The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, Jeff Krulik & John Heyn’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot and Michael Galinsky & Suki Hawley‘s Battle of Brooklyn.

Check out the full lineup here.

The 18th annual Chicago Underground Film Festival is ready to have another monumental year at the Gene Siskel Film Center on June 2-9, featuring a killer lineup with new films from some true underground legends.

First, Usama Alshaibi will screen his latest, most visually stunning and conceptually innovative feature Profane, about a spiritually confused Muslim sex worker trying to recapture her lost jinn — a demon of smokeless fire — on streets of the Windy City.

Then, documentary filmmakers Jeff Krulik and John Heyn return to their hard rockin’ roots with Heavy Metal Picnic, which relives one of the most notorious ’80s weekend parties in the history of Maryland and the world — the Full Moon Jamboree, which if you can remember it means you weren’t there. Plus, Hmp will be screened with Heyn and Krulik’s underground classic Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

Also in the documentary vein, are Marie Losier‘s...

In his still relatively young, yet incredibly prolific, career, Iraqi-American filmmaker Usama Alshaibi has mostly exhibited three very distinct and separate styles in his approach to his films.

There are the highly sensual and sexual portraits of women, such as Traumata, Gash and Organ Molly. There are the serious and personal documentaries, such as Nice Bombs and the still-in-production American Arab. And there are his gonzo, transgressive “comedies” such as The Amateurs and The Foreigner.

However, for his latest feature-length, fictional narrative film Profane, Alshaibi has melded all of those styles into a singular, cohesive vision that is, as of now, his most accomplished work.

Have You Seen This Movie? (Leave Your Own Review)

Although Profane is a portrait of a young, female Muslim sex worker, Muna (Manal Kara), one can’t but help to feel that the film’s raw, naked emotional level comes from a highly autobiographical place.

The films at the Boston Underground Film Festival all compete for the festival's singular award: a vibrating bunny statuette. The award is given to winners from all categories, with this year's recipients being announced Sunday night. Usama Alshaibi's "Profane" was the unanimous winner of the Best of the Fest Award. The same prize went to Can Evernol's "To My Mother and Father" in the Shorts section. "I am very honored ...

The 13th annual Boston Underground Film Festival has handed out their Bacchus Awards and the big winner of the fest is filmmaker Usama Alshaibi, who took home the Best of Fest Feature for his film Profane. What makes this an even sweeter win is that the film’s Buff screening on March 26 was its North American Premiere.

If you want to catch Profane again, it has a repeat screening on March 29. You can actually catch many of the winners at repeat Buff screenings all this week until the 31st. The full festival schedule is on Bad Lit here.

Another big winner of the 13th Buff was Matthew Garrett‘s disturbing short film Beating Hearts, which was reviewed on Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film just a few weeks ago. Also, Jason Eisener‘s much anticipated feature film Hobo With a Shotgun, starring Rutger Hauer took home the Audience Award.

Been meaning to link to this for a few weeks now, but Rupert Owen has posted up the slides from a talk he gave about starting a viable streaming video business. Of course, these would be much better with Owen talking along with them, but still very interesting to flip through and gives much to think about.News worth rejoicing over: Waylon Bacon’s putting together a compilation DVD of his amazing short films. He picked the best picture for the cover, too.Felix Vasquez Jr. of Cinema Crazed recently interviewed two of my favorite documentary people, Vic Zimet and Stephanie Silber of Random Lunacy fame.For the L Magazine, Mark Asch has a quick round-up of some of this year’s SXSW films, including the much anticipated The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye by Marie Losier. Asch says it’s “as intensely familiar to the doc’s core...

It’s lucky 13 for the Boston Underground Film Festival as they celebrate their raucous 13th annual edition this year. Opening with the much buzzed about bloody feature film Hobo With a Shotgun starring Rutger Hauer and directed by Jason Eisener, the fest then barrels on for eight wild nights and days from March 24-31.

While there’s plenty of underground goodness from the U.S.A., this year Buff feels like it’s a much more international affair with several sick features from around the globe. There’s gory horror and quirky black comedy from Japan in the guise of Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Helldriver and Sion Sono’s Cold Fish; the Argentinian freak-out Phase7 by Nicolas Goldbart; David Blyth’s Wound is a psychological thriller from New Zealand; and Mark Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed! is a look at Philippine exploitation cinema from the ’70s.

Stateside there’s Usama Alshaibi‘s Profane,...

Days before he was savagely beaten in a racist attack, Iraqi-American filmmaker Usama Alshaibi released the above video in which he discusses an appalling anti-Muslim rally in Orange County, California. At the rally, elected official Deborah Pauly — an O.C. councilwoman — even implied she would like to order military servicemen to massacre a peaceful gathering of Muslim families. Clearly angry and disturbed by this incident, Alshaibi remains calm and discusses the real meaning of what it is to be American.

The original video that Alshaibi is responding to has been taken down due to a “copyright violation” claim by George M. Collins who runs the website Santa Ana Insight. However, another video of Pauly’s comments can be viewed here. The councilwoman appears to be on an insane, paranoid rant in which she calls the attendees of a Muslim community fundraiser “evil” and “a bad seed” using American freedom of assembly “against us.

Iraqi-American filmmaker Usama Alshaibi was viciously attacked and beaten Saturday night in an apparent hate crime attack. While attempting to attend a party in Fairfield, Iowa — where he’s been residing with his wife Kristie since last summer — Alshaibi was repeatedly punched and kicked by a group of men spouting racial epithets.

Alshaibi was walking home by himself after midnight after having dinner with friend Manuel Tsingaris. Passing by one house out of which he heard loud noises, the filmmaker asked a woman standing outside where the party was going on.

When the woman told him the party was upstairs, Alshaibi attempted to enter whereupon he was asked what his name was. When he answered “Usama,” he was immediately punched in the face. Four young men then started calling Alshaibi a “sand nigger” and “Usama Bin Laden” while ferociously beating him. After falling to the ground, the men continued to kick him.

Usama Alshaibi’s Profane debuted in Berlin last week and the film already garnered a review by Ceven Knowles. To be honest, I haven’t read it yet because I’m waiting to see the film first without preconceptions. But, I think it’s a positive write-up.Actually, there are lots of write-ups coming from the Berlinale. On Electric Sheep, Pamela Jahn and Alison Frank review films Road to Nowhere, The Devil’s Double, Tomboy and Dance Town.Robert Koehler has several write-ups. First, he says Miranda July’s The Future isn’t good, but Marie Losier’s The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye is excellent. Then, this round-up of several films makes the fest sound pretty dismal overall.Kinemastik reviews some Berlinale short films.Clint Enns has a completely excellent review of Jaimz Asmundson’s phenomenal short film The Magus, cluing us in on many of the fine...

On Thursday, Aug. 5 in Chicago at the Stan Mansion, Kartemquin Films is hosting a special benefit event for the new documentary by Usama Alshaibi, American Arab, a personal documentary analyzing what it’s like to be an Arab American living in a post-9/11 world. The event will feature live music, Middle Eastern food, a raffle, belly dancing, henna tattoos as well as the World Premiere of clips from the upcoming film. Information on tickets can be found here.

Alshaibi is an American citizen of Iraqi descent who previously directed the award-winning documentary Nice Bombs — available on DVD for sale or rent — that chronicled his return to the country of his birth after over 20 years following the expulsion of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces.

While American Arab will also feature Alshaibi’s personal experiences as an Iraqi-American, including his mother’s suggestion he change his name following the 9/11 terrorist attacks,...

June 26

8:00 p.m.

Fat Rabbit

1711 S. Halsted,

Chicago, Il 60608

Hosted by: Usama and Kristie Alshaibi

Married Chicago transgressive filmmakers Usama and Kristie Alshaibi will be screening a selection of films the couple have made together and individually between 1998 and 2010. The screening will include both 16mm films and video. Plus, there will be a screening of the trailer of Usama’s latest feature film Profane. The event is free.

The Alshaibis have been making films for a long time and, in the early ‘o0s, they organized their own film festival, the Z Film Festival, so they know how to put on a good show. And, while the event is free, it is a fundraiser of sorts to raise finishing funds for Profane. So, they’ll be selling DVD collections of their films, as well as a copy of their book A History of Flying Vaginas.

While the lineup of...