American Arab

Check out the first exclusive video clip from Usama Alshaibi's American Arab! The film has a fundraiser on August 5th in Chicago (tickets still available!) at which the filmmakers will show the world premiere of their latest demo of the film.

The first video features a profile of Taqwacore musician Marwan Kamel of the band Al-Thawra in conversation with Usama Alshaibi. Taqwacore is an Islamic Punk music genre/movement taken from the words 'Taqwa' - meaning 'piety' or 'fear of god' - and 'Hardcore,' for the punk genre. The short video challenges a number of stereotypes of American Islamic culture, much like American Arab itself.

Director Usama Alshaibi will premiere exclusive clips from his in-progress Kartemquin documentary American Arab at a fundraising party for the film in Chicago on August 5th at the Stan Mansion. The event will also feature music by Black Bear Combo, Middle Eastern Food, a Cash Bar (with 1 free drink on entry), Raffle, Belly Dancing, and Henna Tattoos. Tickets are available now and cost $40 in advance, $50 on the door.

American Arab questions what it means to be an Arab living in America today by telling Usama's own story and that of others, sparking a frank conversation about the identity of, and perceptions about, Arab-Americans. Seamlessly weaving historical footage, animation, as well as real-life scenes of people living as Arabs in the U.S., the film will put a human face on the vague complexities of racism in post-9/11 America.

If you are unable to attend but would like to support the film, click here to donate.

This week Kartemquin Films took delivery of the newest Sony tapeless HD video camera, the PMW350. The camera is one of the first in the country (serial #33) to be in service. Featuring a shoulder mount design with 2/3 inch chips, the camera replaces a tape based Panasonic HD camera. The 350 uses the same memory card based workflow as our smaller EX3 camera, thus allowing producers to shoot many hours of high quality HD footage with no tape or digitizing costs.

Due to the larger chips, the new camera features a very high light sensitivity of ASA 850 at "0" gain to allow available light High Definition shooting in almost any setting. With a low power draw of only 16 watts, fewer batteries are needed for a full day of shooting.

The camera is full 1080x1920 resolution, and shoots 24P, 30P, and 1080i.

For smaller projects and web videos, the Sony 350 also shoots 16x9 standard definition DVCam to memory cards.

This morning, Kartemquin's technical director Jim Morrissette gave a quick workshop on the new camera to various Kartemquin staff members including artistic director Gordon Quinn, post-production director Liz Kaar, post-production associate Nora Gully, administrative and media assistant Dinesh Sabu, and Usama Alshaibi, director of the forthcoming American Arab and DP Chris Rejano. Usama will be putting the camera in service tomorrow as he shoots for American Arab, and we will be putting video excerpts of Jim's workshop on the Kartemquin YouTube channel soon. Stay tuned!